Getting Your Share

Panzanella

2011-08-23T17:30:00.000-07:00

This week's box contained:

Yellow Potatoes
Tomatoes
Spigariello
Strawberries
Lettuce (traded for more spigariello)
Walla Walla Onions
Cucumbers
Padron Peppers

With a left over loaf of bread and some capers on hand, and the tomatoes and cucumbers in this week's box, we had to go for panzanella, Italian bread salad.

The potatoes (which were gorgeous) and a few of the onions made a fine, and quick, adapted version of the Spanish tapas classic: patatas bravas, that worked out really well. Here's the recipe:

1 pound yellow potatoes, baked but still firm
1 small Walla Walla onions
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon piment d'Espelette (can substitute hot paprika)

Cut the potatoes into a large, irregular dice and coarsely chop the onions. Add to a saute pan over medium high heat with salt, olive oil and piment d'Espelette; toss frequently to mix in the seasonings and to ensure even cooking. Once nicely browned, top each serving with spoonful of crème fraîche; enjoy.

The strawberries were eaten out of hand, the spigarello added to lentil stew, and the padron peppers left for pizza later in the week.

Summer Italian Meal

2011-08-07T08:13:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Padron Peppers (traded for more russet potatoes)
"Walla Wallita" Onions
Gold Chard
Strawberries
Tomatoes
Melons
French Breakfast Radishes
Russet Potatoes

Lots to love this week, especially given the swap for more baby russet potatoes. Don't get me wrong, the Padron peppers are fantastic; just not something I want to eat week after week...

I decided to to go with an Italian theme. Last night's dinner included:

Insalata Caprese with burrata
Focaccia with Onions, Genovese-style
Potato Gnocchi with Gorganzola
Sorbetto di Melone al Pepe Nero
Arancello

The recipe for the focaccia is from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan ~ a must have for anyone who loves Italian food.

Potato Gnocchi

Adapted from La Cucina Italiana, May/June 2001 by J. McKimmie

Place 2 1/4 pounds of potatoes with the peel still on in a 3-quart pot. Add cold water to cover and 1 tablespoon of salt. Cook until tender. While the potatoes are still hot, pass them through a ricer onto 1 3/4 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour. You can peel them first if you like. Cool the potatoes to room temperature, then combine the potatoes and flour until a dough forms, helping yourself with a dough scraper.

Add a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg for flavor, and gather into a dough. Add 1 egg only if the dough fails to come together (adding eggs makes gnocchi less delicate). Cut the dough into 8 pieces, roll each into a finger-thick log, and cut into 1/2" pieces with a sharp knife or a dough scraper; you can line up 2 logs to speed up the process. Roll each of the gnocchi over a fork, a grater, or a gnocchi paddle to obtain grooves. The gnocchi are ready to cook.

Here's a really simple video on how to roll the gnocchi:

Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Drop in the gnocchi and add 1 tablespoon of salt. Stir the gnocchi once very gently with a slotted spoon, being careful not to crush them in the process.

When the gnocchi rise to the surface, remove with a slotted spoon to a heated serving bowl. Remove the gnocchi little by little as they are ready. Continue adding gnocchi to the bowl as they rise to the surface, draining them well first with the slotted spoon.

Cook's Illustrated has a great video on the entire gnocchi making process; their recipe varies from the one listed above.

Fresh Pasta with Roasted Tomato Sauce

2011-07-31T22:17:00.000-07:00

Roasted Tomatoes

This week's box contains:

Padron Peppers
Tomatoes
Bianco di Maggio Onions
Red Chard
Cantaloupe Melons
Summer Squash
Romaine Lettuce Hearts (traded for more turnips)
Baby White Turnips

More squash...

Half of the tomatoes and all of the Bianco di Maggio onions were roasted, then blended to make the roasted tomato sauce served over fresh fettucine pictured above. Salt matters in this dish (ok, well, always) and we opted for Maldon Sea Salt. The fettucine was made from the dough left over from the zucchini ravioli we made today for future use. I found a recipe for Shredded Zucchini with Garlic and Herbs in The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook by Jack Bishop, which we used as the ravioli filling. An adapted version of this recipe is included below. We plan to serve these with a simple sauce, likely an aglio e olio.

Shredded Zucchini with Garlic and Herbs
Serves 4

2.5 pounds zucchini, shredded
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 small garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 cup onion, diced
3 tablespoons basil, finely chopped

Shred the zucchini using the large holes on a box grater or in a food processor. Toss with salt and place in a colander to drain. Heat the oil in a large skillet and saute the onions till translucent; add garlic and stir till fragrant. One handful at a time, squeeze the extra liquid out of the zucchini and add to the onions and garlic. Cook the zucchini, stirring frequently, till relatively dry. Set aside to cool

For the ravioli, follow the recipe and instructions here. We froze the ravioli on quarter sheet pans well dusted with flour. For service, bring a pot of water to boil and cook till the ravioli floats, 5-7 minutes. Drain well and toss with the sauce of your choice.

The Padron peppers were eaten out of hand after a quick saute in olive oil and a hearty sprinkle of salt. The cantaloupe will end up as popsicles and the chard as a foundational ingredient in Meyer Lemon Risotto. The turnips will hold, along with some potatoes from last week, perhaps for roasting.

Eggplant Caviar

2011-07-23T17:14:00.000-07:00

Roast Eggplant & Garlic for Eggplant Caviar

This week's box contains:

Red Potatoes
Strawberries
Mixed Tomatoes
Summer Squash
Red Gem Lettuce
Red Beets
Nadia Black Italian Eggplant
Chives

More squash. This is the part of CSAs that gets tough. Eating seasonally, especially when dependent on one farm, can be repetitive. Tonight we're going to try Pasta with Zucchini and Mint as a main course, served with Eggplant Caviar and herb ciabatta, made with this week's chives plus some basil and rosemary we had on hand.

Ciabatta

As usual, the strawberries will be frozen for smoothies. My tried and true smoothie recipe is as follows:

Breakfast Smoothies
Serves 1

1c frozen fruit
1c low fat, unsweetened soy milk
2c water
2 scoops Vega Smoothie Infusion

Add all ingredients to the Vita-Mix and blend well.

The potatoes were added to a Tempeh Curry. Later this week I plan to make the following with the beets and tomatoes:

Moroccan Carrot Ravioli with Harissa and Preserved Lemon

2011-07-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

This week's box contained:

French Tarragon (traded for more chard)
Gold Beets
Costata Romanesco Summer Squash
Strawberries
Chard
Mixed Cherry and Saladette Tomatoes
Carrots
Spinach

Lots to love here, though we are buried in carrots and summer squash. As a result, I did a healthy amount of Googling, finding quite a few interesting recipes. The beets will be roasted, tossed with cider vinegar and salt, and eaten straight-up. I found a couple of recipes I plan to try with the squash and spinach:

The strawberries will be frozen for smoothies and the chard made into Chard and Ricotta Ravioli with White Wine Butter. The tomatoes will be made into Slow-Roasted Cherry Tomato Bruschetta for a nice lunch in the California sunshine.

For the carrots, I found the most amazing fusion recipe: Moroccan Carrot Ravioli with Lemon Zest and Harissa on Food Bridge. In reading the full post, I decided to make a few changes, noted in my adaption below.

Moroccan Carrot Ravioli with Harissa and Preserved Lemon

Pasta

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons water, adding more as needed to reach the desired dough consistency
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 tablespoons harissa

Combine the flour and salt in the food processor; pulse a few times. Whisk the eggs, water, olive oil, and harissa together in a small bowl. While pulsing the machine pour this mixture in a continuous stream and continue running the machine until the dough begins, to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Form into a disk, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes or more.

Filling

6 medium carrots, peeled and cut into disks
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons preserved lemon peel

Preheat the oven to 425°. Toss the carrots with the olive oil and season with salt. Cover with foil and bake until tender and lightly browned, about 20 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a food processor, combine roasted carrots, ground cumin, and harissa; process until smooth. Stir in egg yolk refrigerate until ready to fill the raviolis. Can be made 1-2 days in advance.

Sauce

1/3 c olive oil
2 teaspoons garlic, chopped very fine
generous pinch of aleppo pepper
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

Combine the olive oil, garlic, and aleppo pepper in a small saucepan. Turn on heat to medium low and allow to cook until the garlic turns a pale gold; do not allow to brown.

Assembly

A demonstration of how to roll the dough and fill the ravioli can be found here. At a high level:
Knead the dough at the widest setting on your pasta machine.
Flour the dough and run through the machine at progressively smaller settings. Stop when you reach the desired thickness; thinner is better.
Brush the dough well with an egg wash.
Using a pastry bag or a small spoon, drop the filling down the center of the sheet of pasta, spaced several inches apart; roughly one scant tablespoon filling per drop.
Fold the dough over the filling, aligning the long edges with one another.
Using your hands, press between the drops of filling, pressing as much air out of the ravioli as possible.
For half-moon shaped ravioli, use a round cookie cutter, cut the ravioli and place on a floured baking sheet, making sure the edges are well closed.
Refrigerate till ready to cook. Ravioli can be frozen for up to one month.
Bring a pot of water to boil, add a handful of salt, and boil the ravioli for 2-3 minutes. Drain, toss with the prepared sauce, and top with chopped cilantro. Enjoy!

Adapted from Moroccan Carrot Ravioli with Lemon Zest and Harissa on Food Bridge

A Trio of Seasonal Cannelloni

2011-07-09T16:25:00.000-07:00

This week's box included:

Romaine lettuce
Summer squash (zucchini)
Carrots
Spinach
Broccoli
Strawberries
Yellow potatoes
Oregano

We've actually got quite a backlog going, especially with the zucchini and carrots. With zucchini in mind, I started digging through cookbooks for a recipe that would help work through that backlog. Happily I stumbled upon a series of recipes for cannelloni, whose fillings cover several of this week's vegetables; the cookbook: Simple to Spectacular: How to Take One Basic Recipe to Four Levels of Sophistication by Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman.

Tonight's menu:

Hearts of Romaine with Dijion Vinaigrette
A Trio of Seasonal Cannelloni
Braised Carrots with Capers (from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan)

Recipe for the cannelloni included below. Other ideas on getting through this week's box included:

Zucchini: Lemon Rosemary Zucchini Bread
Carrots: Baked Carrot Oven Fries
Potatoes and Greens: Skillet Potatoes with Greens, adding some Field Roast sausages
Broccoli: Noodles with Stir-Fried Tofu and Broccoli
Strawberries: eaten out of hand
Oregano: dried for future use

A Trio of Seasonal Cannelloni
Adapted from Simple to Spectacular by Jean Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman

One pound fresh pasta dough (to be shared across the following fillings), shaped into 4 x 6 inch rectangles, boiled for ~3 minutes, then cooled in a ice water bath. Pat dry before filling.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare fillings and fill cannelloni as described below. Bake until golden brown on top, about 10 minutes.

Potatoes and Arugula
1/2 pound potatoes
salt to taste
1.5 T extra-virgin olive oil (evoo)
1 clove garlic, minced
red pepper flakes to taste
1/2 pound arugula, trimmed, washed and dried
1/2 c freshly grated pecorinio Romano
1/2 c stock

Boil the potatoes in salted water until soft, drain and set aside. Sauté the garlic, salt, and pepper, till garlic begins to color; add 2/3 of the arugula, stir for a few minutes, then cover and remove from heat allowing to steam for 5 minutes. Chop the remaining arugula with the sautéed arugula. Add potatoes, olive oil, and 1/2 the pecorino; mash and mix well. Stuff 1/3 of the cannelloni shells, placing them in a single layer in a baking dish, such as an oval gratin. Drizzle with stock, a bit of olive oil, and the remaining cheese.

Greens and Herbs
2 T evoo
1 pound spinach, trimmed, washed and dried
1/4 pound arugula, trimmed, washed and dried
1/2 pound mesculun, , trimmed, washed and dried
2 cloves garlic, minced
fresh basil, 10 leaves, chiffonade
egg yolk
1/2 c Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste
1/2 c stock

Sauté the spinach, arugula, mesculun and garlic in 1 T evoo until the greens are tender, about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool, then finely chop. Stir in the basil, egg yolk, 1/2 the Parmesan, and the nutmeg. Season with salt and pepper. Stuff 1/3 of the cannelloni shells, placing them in a single layer in a baking dish, such as an oval gratin. Drizzle with stock, a bit of olive oil, and the remaining cheese.

Scallops and Zucchini
1 T evoo
1 zucchini, washed, trimmed and cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1/2 T fresh thyme1/3 pound scallops, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1/2 c cream
2 T butter
2 t fresh lemon juice
cayenne, salt and pepper to taste
1/2 c stock

Sauté the zucchini, a large pinch of salt, and 1/2 the thyme in olive oil over medium high heat till just tender. Toss the zucchini mixture with the scallops and cayenne. Stuff 1/3 of the cannelloni shells, placing them in a single layer in a baking dish, such as an oval gratin. Drizzle with stock and a bit of olive oil.

Deglaze the sauté pan with the cream, 1/2 water, and the remaining thyme; simmer till reduced to 1/4 cup. Lower the heat and whisk in the butter; season with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Set aside.

2011-07-04T19:35:00.000-07:00

This week's box contained:

Yellow Potatoes
Lacinato Kale
Baby Arugula
Summer Squash
Fresh Garlic
Chives
Strawberries
Broccoli
Carrots

The potatoes were immediately turned into a potato salad from Epicurious, Warm New Potato Salad with Grainy Mustard. Very easy to pull together with fantastic flavor.

The chives and the squash, which is the first of what I'm sure will be *many* batches this year, served as our 4th of July appetizer: Garlicky Zucchini Bruschetta from The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook by Jack Bishop and Ann Straton.

The rest of the menu included:

All of the linked recipes are from the New York Magazine and all three were winners. I would recommend slightly reducing the cooking time on the beets and cauliflower.

As for the rest of the box, I'll likely sauté the kale and arugula with a bit of salt, olive oil, and garlic. The strawberries were cleaned and frozen for smoothies and the garlic and carrots will be used as recipes require. The broccoli is slated for Warm Broccoli and Barley Pilaf for dinner one night this week.

Limoncello, Arancello, and Pompelmocello: Mashes Ready for Testing

2011-05-20T17:39:00.000-07:00

It's been three months since we set the Limoncello, Arancello, and Pompelmocello mashes to rest. Today I tested peels from each to see if the mashes were ready. Simply bending a peel allows you to check its rigidity; when the peel "breaks" in half easily, the mash is ready. Here's a look at the peels and the infused Everclear from each batch:

Lemons

Oranges

Grapefruit

The lemon and grapefruit peels broke easily, while the orange peel did not break at all. All three of the batches were full flavored, but light in color. I've decided to let them sit a while longer.

The final steps, once the mashes are ready, is to combine the infused Everclear with a simple sugar, filter (or not), then bottle. You can find the full recipe here with some tweaks on the mash prep here.

Favas, New Potatoes, and Dill

2011-05-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Strawberries
Lettuce (swapped for more dill)
Baby Spinach
New Potatoes (Yellow)
Carrots
Dill
Fava Beans
Red Scallions

Perhaps needless to say, but a near perfect box this week, excepting the lettuce of course. I love this time of year.

One of my all-time favorite recipes is dill-walnut pesto. With two bunches of dill on hand, and a great set of complementary vegetables, we're all set. The strawberries will be frozen for smoothies and the dill promptly converted to pesto to be served with the remaining vegetables. I'll sauté the spinach, baby carrots, and favas, and will roast the scallions and new potatoes. Nothing else required, except perhaps a glass of wine. Dill can be tricky in pairings, so best to stick with a Sauvignon Blanc, Soave, Marsanne, or Viogner depending on the accoutrements; lean towards Marsanne or Viogner if adding salmon to the mix.

If you've not dealt with favas before, take a look at this blog entry. They are a lot of work, but well worth the effort.

[Herb of your Choice]-Walnut Pesto
... makes 25 - 2 tablespoon servings
Printable Recipe

3/4 cup walnut pieces, toasted
1 bunch herb of choice, ends trimmed
1 large garlic clove, pressed
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon mellow barley miso
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a blender, adjust salt and pepper and use or freeze.

Mother's Day Brunch

2011-05-06T07:36:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Strawberries
Sugar Snap Peas
Green Kohlrabi
Cardoons
Lettuce (swapped for more cardoons)
Baby Carrots
Baby Spinach
Chantenay Carrots

Not surprisingly, it contains a lot of spring vegetables. With Mother's Day this weekend, we're planning brunch as follows:

Soup of Pureed Cardoons
Spinach and Snap Pea Risotto
Salmon Sous Vide
Sauteed Baby Carrots
Strawberry Shortcake

I will roast the kohlrabi, the sole remaining vegetable from the box, later this week.

This Week's Box

2011-03-27T15:24:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Parsnips
Chantenay Carrots
Thyme
Lacinato Kale
Green Garlic
Hearts of Escarole and Little Gem Lettuce
French Breakfast Radishes
Rainbow Chard
Calçot Onions

Parsnips
Similar to the carrots below, I plan to slice these into "French fry" sized pieces and roast them, though for parsnips I add garlic. My adaption of Alana Kellogg's recipe can be found here.

Chantenay Carrots
Baked Carrot Oven Fries from 101 Cookbooks.

Thyme
I'll uses this up as I go, this week and next.

Lacinato Kale
I stumbled upon a recipe for Three-Greens Ribollita Soup from the new cookbook I got last Sunday: Color Me Vegan.With collards left from last week, and two greens this week, it's perfect.

Green Garlic
Risotto for sure. Michele Ana Jordan has an excellent recipe in her book The New Cook's Tour of Sonoma.

Hearts of Escarole and Little Gem Lettuce
For the escarole, I'm going to make Escarole and White Bean Soup. It's easy and really, really good.

I must admit, I tossed the little gem lettuce. I received two small heads, each about the size of tennis ball. Yes, I regret it now. I am simply going to have to push myself on the lettuce front this year...

French Breakfast Radishes
I'll just clean these up and eat them out of hand.

Rainbow Chard
See above; Three-Greens Ribollita Soup from Color Me Vegan.

Calçot Onions
We've got a bit of a backlog on these onions receiving them two weeks in a row. Since they freeze well and are delicious, I'm going to make a double batch of Chinese scallion pancakes. Worth noting that I substitute buckwheat flour for some of the all-purpose recommended in this recipe and use a mixture of toasted and regular sesame oil.

First Box of 2011 Season

2011-03-17T22:11:00.000-07:00

Today's the first day of our 2011 CSA season. There really is nothing like a fresh box of produce direct from the farm once a week. If you've not tried a CSA subscription, we highly recommend you do. For those new to the idea, here are some tips:

This week's box contains:

Baby Carrots
Cilantro
Purple Top Turnips
Loose Spinach
Calcot Onions
Winter Density Lettuce
Delicata Squash
Collard Greens
Baby Leeks

By item, here's my plan:

Baby Carrots
Lightly steamed and tossed with butter and salt as a simple side dish.

Cilantro
Cilantro chutney. I'll pick up some pre-made samosas and serve with the chutney. Here's a great video with a recipe and demonstration ~ note the serious blender. Note, this can be frozen, which is really handy.

Purple Top Turnips
I'll roast these with truffle salt (this stuff is magic). They are very small, so I'll trim the greens, halve them, toss with olive oil and salt, then roast for 15 minutes or so at 425 degrees.

Loose Spinach
I found a recipe for spinach "brownies" to try with my 5 year old goddaughter, who's with us for the weekend. These are not the "sneak spinach into chocolate kind", but rather a savory bar made from spinach and cheese.

Calcot Onions
These look like big green onions. No idea what I'm going to do with them.

Winter Density Lettuce
I am not a salad fan. To the office it goes for sharing with an interested co-worker.

Delicata Squash
No idea, maybe some soup with the onions?

Collard Greens
If time permits, I'm going to try the Collard Wraps with Lemon Herb Crudite from BluePrintCleanse.

Baby Leeks
Braised with cream, an all time favorite. Here's a good recipe: Leeks with Cream and Tarragon from Orangette. A friend just gave me a copy of Molly's book, A Homemade Life. Can't wait to read it.

Good Cookies Gone Bad, Bad Cookies Redeemed

2011-02-24T14:28:00.000-08:00

I'm on staycation this week and thought I'd make our favorite cookies:

Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies with Walnuts and Orange
Makes 4 1/2 dozen

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon orange extract
zest of one orange
2 large eggs
2 cups dark chocolate chips (60% cacao or higher)
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 375° F.

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Mix the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, orange zest and orange extract in a larger bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture slowly, mixing well after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto a parchment-covered baking sheets.

Bake for 11 minutes or until golden brown.

Adapted from the Original NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.

I pull batch one out of the oven and they were completely flat ~ no discernible rise. I'd realized when mixing up the batter that I accidentally put the salt and baking soda into the butter mixture and thought that was it. On to the next batch of dough; same problem.

After double-checking my adaption of the recipe with the original, I realized I had done one thing different this time ~ weighed the flour instead of measuring it. Per the package, 1/4c is 30g so I added 270g of flour. That was the problem.

I was fortunate to stumble onto a blog entry on just this issue, Nestlé Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies, at the Cooking for Engineers site. Michael Chu's analysis in this article says it all. The key takeaway was that I needed more flour ~ about 80g more.

Additional flour added, the next batch was a significant improvement. This really is a fantastic cookie!

Limoncello, Arancello, and Pompelmocello

2011-02-20T20:06:00.000-08:00

Last year's Meyer limoncello was amazing, so we decided to do it again. This year, however, we made mashes for limoncello, arancello, and pompelmocello.

The first time we tried limoncello we researched like crazy and measured carefully. This time we took a more casual approach ~ results to be determined. We started with our bountiful Meyer lemon, orange, and grapefruit trees and 6 one liter Le Parfait canning jars. The steps are as follows:

Pick and wash fruit; peel ~ avoiding as much pith as possible.
Pack peelings into canning jars.
Fill jars with alcohol of choice; we use Everlclear.
Push peels down to press out the air bubbles; add more alcohol as needed to cover peels.
Seal jars and place in cool, dark location.

As a ratio, it seems 1.5L of alcohol is what's needed to fill 2 1L canning jars well packed with peels.

Big lessons learned last year were:

Let the mash sit. There is no hurry and the longer it rests the fuller the flavor.
Let the simple syrup cool before mixing with the strained mash. Despite straining the mash well, our limoncello was cloudy as a result of mixing it with warm to hot syrup.

Of the three I'm most interested in the pompelmocello. Stay tuned ...

Sign Up Now ~ 2011 CSAs

2010-12-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again...

We just got a letter from our CSA, Two Small Farms, letting us know that it is time to sign up for this year's program. The full CSA season (36 weeks) of vegetable shares costs $752, roughly $21 per week. We've been members for years and *highly* recommend it.

If you are new to CSAs, check out these blog entries to help get you started:

The (re)Birth of the Community Kitchen

2010-12-26T18:36:00.001-08:00

Love this idea... http://www.organicauthority.com/eco-chic-table/the-rebirth-of-the-community-kitchen.html

Make-ahead Brunch

2010-12-26T17:55:00.000-08:00

Not sure about you, but our holiday mornings are filled with time together ~ visiting with family and generally relaxing. Food is always a big part of the day, but we don't want cooking to be a focal point. Our goal is to simply enjoy.

Here's a tried and true recipe for a fantastic brunch that doesn't have to be saved for holidays ~ it's a snap to prepare and would make an excellent start to any day focused on easy, relaxing time together. Hope you enjoy this as much as we do.

French Toast Baked in Honey-Pecan Sauce
Serves 2-3

4 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup half-and-half
1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 thick slices French bread
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup chopped pecans

Combine eggs, half-and-half, brown sugar, and vanilla extract in a small bowl. Pour half the mixture into a baking dish. Place the bread in the pan and top with other half of egg mixture. Refrigerate, covered, overnight.

Melt butter in a 9x13-inch baking dish and stir in the brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, and pecans. Add the soaked bread slices. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes until puffed and brown. Serve immediately.

Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge, InterCourses: an aphrodisiac cookbook (Memphis: Terrace Publishing, 1997)

Family Heirloom Recipes 2010: Christmas Cookies

2010-12-12T13:19:00.000-08:00

Holidays are often realized through time with family that is focused on food, with many families repeating the same recipes year after year, generation to generation. This year I thought I'd share some "cookie" recipes from our family.

To inspire our selection this year, I searched through my grandmother's recipe box for the holiday treats I cherished as a child. I also spent some time thinking about my favorites from my Mom's Christmas cookie repertoire. Finally, I added a few recent finds. Here's what we made:

Fudge (recipe pictured above)
Peanut Brittle (recipe pictured below)
Snickerdoodles
Peanut Butter Blossoms
Iced Sugar Cookies
White Chocolate-covered Pretzel Clusters
Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies with Walnuts and Orange
Pine Nut Rosemary Shortbreads

A must have for many of these recipes is a stainless steel cookie scoop ~ makes life *much* easier.

Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies with Walnuts and Orange
Makes 4 1/2 dozen

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon orange extract
zest of one orange
2 large eggs
2 cups dark chocolate chips (60% cacao or higher)
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 375° F.

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Mix the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, orange zest and orange extract in a larger bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture slowly, mixing well after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto a parchment-covered baking sheets.

Bake for 11 minutes or until golden brown.

Adapted from the Original NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.

While researching I found a few good sites worth passing along:

Another family favorite, this time an appetizer, is "pink dip", posted last Thanksgiving. Sounds unusual, but it is well worth a try! Great with anything salty, like pretzels or potato chips.

Preserving: Pickled Farm-Stand Tomatoes with Jalapeños

2010-09-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

This week's box includes:

Red Beets
Carrots
Tomatoes
Cilantro
Cauliflower
Baby Bear Pumpkin
Strawberries
Green Leaf Lettuce
Corno di Toro Peppers

It has been weeks since I've posted and just as many weeks since I've cooked. Changes at home, changes at work ... a very busy time. This weekend brought a return to the pleasure of good food and good friends. The past month, from a food perspective, has been more like this:

That is indeed one very neglected cantaloupe. Sadly, many other fruits and vegetables headed for the compost pile over the past four weeks. All I can say is that sometimes this happens...

Onto the good bits...

In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, we hosted a small group of friends for an early dinner. The grog and the grub were fantastic, as was the time with friends. Some of our recipes included below. Dinner included:

Crudités (carrots, cauliflower and, Corno di Toro peppers) with Zucchini Cilantro Dip
Grilled, Prosciutto-wrapped Grape Tomato Skewers
Grilled Italian Sausages (vegan and not) with Pickled Farm-Stand Tomatoes with Jalapeños
Green Leaf Lettuce Salad with Roasted Beets, Spiced Walnuts, and Balsamic Vinaigrette

Friends brought gougère, chickpea salad, beet/carrot/avocado salad, miniature tartes, and wild boar chorizo.

The three "volunteer" cherry tomato plants we have in our backyard are in full season. Today we harvested nearly two gallons, last weekend was the same.

These plants, two grape tomatoes and one standard cherry, are downright prodigious.

There is simply no way we can keep up with the number of tomatoes these plants are producing. To top it off, most recipes for preserving tomatoes call for peeling and seeding them ~ not reasonable given the size and number of tomatoes we have to deal with...

After a bit of research following my usual methods, we landed on Pickled Farm-Stand Tomatoes with Jalapeños, as mentioned above. We subbed cherry tomatoes for the sliced tomatoes called for in the recipe ~ it was fantastic. Also worth noting these hold for far longer than 3 days.

The key is paring these complex and intense pickles with something relatively simple and high in fat with lots of bread for sopping up the juices. The combination of the spices, the vinegar, and the sweetness of the tomatoes begs for an uncomplicated, yet sturdy, backdrop.

Experimenting with Cuisines: Moroccan Food

2010-08-08T18:58:00.000-07:00

This week's box contained:

Chantenay Carrots
Sweet Corn
Red Cabbage
Desiree Potatoes
Bunched Parsley Root
Melons
Strawberries
Lettuce (traded for more parsley root)

Having just finished LuLu in Marrakech, I took my inspiration for the week from Morocco. If you've never tried it, Moroccan food is exceptional. Intensely flavorful, simple to prepare and, for the most part, really healthy.

I happen to have a tagine pot that I look after for a Moroccan friend. I decided to put it to use for dinner tonight and made a mixed vegetable tagine, loosely based on a recipe from the BBC's Good Food site.

Making a tagine is easy and can be done on the stove top in a Dutch oven or a small stockpot. The process is as follows:

Saute aromatics (onions, garlic, and the like) in olive oil,
Add the spices and stir till fragrant,
Add a can of diced tomatoes,
Add a mixture diced vegetables and beans
Add a cup of water, mix well, then
Cover and simmer till the vegetables are tender

Serve over couscous. The variations are endless. Tagines are really a braise, so anything you'd consider cooking that way can apply here. The Moroccan spices are heavenly and well worth a go, but the cooking technique lends itself to any flavor variation.

Seasonal Vegetable Tagine
... serves 4 generously as a main course

2 small carrots, diced
2 small turnips, diced
2 small zucchini, diced
2 medium onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
1 14.5 oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2t agave nectar
4t ras el hanout
3 T harissa
olive oil
water
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Saute the onions in olive oil over medium heat till translucent; add minced garlic and stir till fragrant. Add spices and stir till fragrant. Toss the prepared vegetables and chickpeas together, then place in the base of a tagine. Top with tomato mixture, add water and cover. Bake, covered, for 1 hour stirring occasionally.

Other Moroccan recipes I'd like to try include:

Kitty Morse is well known in the US for her Moroccan cookbooks. I've just ordered The Vegetarian Table: North Africa and am anxiously awaiting the book expected from Mourad Lahlou of Aziza in San Francisco. More Moroccan food to follow!

Miller & Food

2010-08-02T20:23:00.000-07:00

This week's box contained:

Small white onions
Spinach
Red Beets
Sweet Corn
Zucchini
2 Cantaloupe
Purple Cauliflower
Strawberries

Sadly, we lost our 14 1/2 year old beagle, Miller, yesterday. She was a true joy and will be sincerely missed. Rather than doing anything with the box, I decided to post pictures of Miller with her favorite thing: food.

One of the things we'll have to get used to is eating without being stared at...

Mushroom Pâté

2010-07-25T19:48:00.000-07:00

Our good friends Laura and Keith hosted a pool party yesterday. Though we weren't expected to bring anything, I had two 8 oz packages of sliced mushrooms just waiting for the right opportunity. The party plan was for heavy appetizers followed by a light, grilled dinner. With that in mind, I set out to create something I would eat, but would also please the omnivores at the party.

Mushroom Pâté

16 oz sliced mushrooms
1 large onion, diced (roughly 8 oz)
2 T Calvados or cognac
2 cloves raw garlic
3 cloves roasted garlic
3/4 c walnuts, toasted
2 T nutritional yeast
1 t fresh thyme leaves
3/4 t salt
white pepper to taste

Saute onions over low heat until they start to soften. Add the mushrooms and cover, stirring occasionally until the onions and mushrooms start to caramelize, 30 minutes or more. (See How to Carmelize Onions for more information.) Deglaze the pan with the Calvados or cognac and set aside to cool.

Once the mushrooms onion mixture has cooled, add them to a food processor along with all the other ingredients. Blend in the food processor until the pâté reaches the desired consistency; this may be as much as 5 minutes. You will need to scrape down the sides of the food processor a couple of times to make sure all the ingredients are properly blended.

Remove the mixture from the food processor and put in the refrigerator to rest; this is best if the flavors have an hour or two to blend.

This recipe is adapted from the following recipes:

Vegan Mushroom Pate on the Vegan Cooking blog
Brandied Pâté Forestière from The Mushroom Book

A Look at Menu Planning

2010-07-25T12:29:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Desiree Potatoes
Red Cabbage
Lettuce (traded for more potatoes)
Strawberries
Chantenay Carrots
Sweet Corn
Walla Walla Onions
Heirloom Tomatoes

Great box, especially with the lettuce traded for more potatoes. Like last week, this proved to be a busy weekend. I have a lot going on at work, so don't expect to have time to get creative during the week. Next weekend I'm out of town. Same sad story ~ great food, desire to eat well, not enough time...

One way I manage situations like this is through planning. There is no one "right" way to plan a menu for the week and I use several. This week I'm going for my fast and easy method:

Pick some generic preparation methods and map them to the days of the week.
Take a look at the ingredients I have on hand and align them with the selected methods.
Scan recipes as needed to determine what other ingredients will be needed, then build a grocery list.

Do you plan your meals for the week? If so, what's your method? Here's how it went for us this week:

Step One: Preparation Methods

This is as simple as listing the days of the week on which you plan to cook and picking a method or meal type that will fit in the amount of time you expect to have available. Grilling (with charcoal anyway) takes more time and is a leisurely meal for us, so I chose that for Sunday. All the rest are quick and easy assuming ready made ingredients or pre-preparation of those that take time (more on this later).

Sunday: grilling
Monday: risotto
Tuesday: wraps
Wednesday: stir-fry
Thursday: pasta

Step Two: Ingredients on Hand

A quick scan of the pantry, refrigerator, and the freezer gave me a solid list of ingredients to work with. Here's what I found that looked promising or time sensitive:

onions
potatoes
tomatoes
ginger
garlic
bread
vegan sausage
Thai curry cubes
pesto
chipotle tofu
black beans
whole wheat tortillas
salsa
frozen spinach
carrots
cabbage
fennel
parsley root
turnips
green onions
veggie stock
asparagus stems

After that, I just matched the list of ingredients to the list of meal types.

Sunday: grilling (vegan sausages, green onions, fennel, corn, potatoes, bread, tomatoes
Monday: risotto (sweet corn, tomatoes, onions, vegetable stock, salsa)
Tuesday: wraps (whole wheat tortillas, chipotle tofu, salsa, black beans, onions)
Wednesday: stir-fry (red Thai curry, potatoes, carrots, turnips, frozen spinach)
Thursday: pasta (pesto, vegan sausages, carrots, fennel)

Step Three: Choose the Recipes, Build Grocery List

As I sorted out the ingredients, likely dishes came to mind:

Sunday: Grilled Sausages with Vegetable Kabobs and Grilled Farmer's Market Bruschetta
Monday: Sweet Corn Risotto with Salsa
Tuesday: Black Bean Burritos
Wednesday: Thai Vegetable Curry with Jasmine Rice
Thursday: Whole Wheat Pasta with Pesto and Sausage and Roasted Vegetables

By dish, I referenced cookbooks and websites to find recipes that I could follow or adapt. By looking at the recipes, I was able to build a grocery list to fill the gaps. After a quick trip to the store, we had everything we needed on hand.

One final note. As the saying goes, the best laid plans ... often go awry. I know that in order to be able to prepare these dishes, I'll need to do some prep work today. I'll clean and chop the vegetables we'll use this week, cook the rice and store it in the refrigerator, etc.

Weeks that Don't Go So Well...

2010-07-19T21:31:00.000-07:00

This week's box contained:

White Turnips
Lettuce (left in trade box)
Scallions
Strawberries
Hamburg Parsley (Parsley Root)
Young Walla Walla Onions
Heirloom Tomatoes

It was a tough week for us this week for two reasons. First, available time; this was just a busy weekend. Second, the box contents did not really inspire...

Weeks like this happen however, so what did we do? Probably exactly what most people would do in the same situation:

Lettuce: I'm not a salad fan, so I simply acknowledged that and left the lettuce in the swap box for someone else to enjoy. Curiously enough, there was nothing in our swap box to trade.
Strawberries: Ours had already started to mold on pick-up, so they went to the compost pile straightaway.
Heirloom Tomatoes: HEAVEN! If you are a tomato fan, you don't need to do much to enjoy them when in season. We ate a few sliced with salt and used the remainder for grilled bruschetta tonight. See the recipe we regularly follow here.
Everything else: Evert-Fresh bags for the win! I trimmed the foliage and put everything else in storage to wait for time or inspiration.

What do you do when you're at a loss for ideas or without available time?

As I write this I realize I'm a tad more inspired than I originally let on. Scallions are certainly all purpose ingredients, but they shine on their own in Chinese Scallion Pancakes. If you've not tried them, please do. They certainly compliment a meal, but can also be a meal in their own right if you are OK with simple pleasures.

The turnips will surely be roasted. My favorite twist is adding white truffle infused olive oil or garnishing with truffle salt. Given that the Hamburg Parsley is roastable too, I'll likely toss it in with the turnips.

Last but not least the onions. I did make a sublime breakfast, quite ad hoc, with these: toasted bagel with cream cheese, sliced tomatoes, sliced onions, and capers ~ really fantastic. Aside from that, they'll sit with our other onions until we're ready to cook something that calls for them.

Hamburg Parsley

CSAs have a way of making me feel like I need to "do something" with the produce. Evert-Fresh bagshelped me realize there's less time pressure than one might think...

Fast & Easy Meals

2010-07-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Chantenay Carrots
Bianco di Maggio Onions
Basil (traded for more fennel)
Green Beans
Lettuce (traded for more fennel)
Fennel
Strawberries
Mystery (Desiree Potatoes)

Great box this week. Given that I have a bunch of basil on hand and am not a lettuce fan, I swapped both for additional fennel. Despite the wonderful options, we had our 4.5 year old goddaughter this weekend, so time to research and cook was simply not available. For fun we made an "all orange" meal, composed entirely from food the color orange; turned out to be an excellent way to make eating healthy food fun.

Perhaps the biggest deterrent to cooking at home, at least for me, is the time it takes to prepare and cook a good meal. While it is always worth the effort, you may not have the time (as was the case for us this weekend) or may not feel like doing a lot of work.

Two of my favorite cookbooks that offer sound advice, and excellent recipes, for fast and easy meals are Fresh Food Fast by Peter Berley and Vegan Express by Navas Atlas. I've also accumulated a mental list of dishes that are fast and easy to prepare, but delicious to eat. Of course there's always searching the web as well.

For lunch today we quickly whipped up the following for a fast and easy summer meal that worked through the carrots, green beans, fennel, and potatoes from this week's box:

What are your tips for quick meals?

As for the rest of the box, the strawberries were cleaned and frozen for smoothies and the onions are standing by for a meal this week.

Food Sources: Farmer's Markets

2010-07-05T20:03:00.000-07:00

CSAs are a great way to connect to your local food source. Another way is through the farmer's markets in your area. At farmer's markets, local farmers bring their wares to a specific location
and members of the community show up at the predetermined time to purchase these products directly from the source.

While on our trip across the country, we visited the farmer's market in Salt Lake City, Utah. This weekend we rode our bikes to a local farmer's market in Mountain View, California.

Like CSAs, farmer's markets offer the opportunity to see what is in season and to buy your food directly from the grower. Unlike CSAs, you have a choice of what you purchase rather than accepting what is harvested that week by the farm with which you have a contract. For those unable to consume a random box of produce or unwilling to deal with the unplanned variation, farmer's markets are the best choice.

A few benefits of farmer's markets include:

Recently harvested, local food in the peak of season. Food purchased at your local supermarket are harvested early and shipped across unknown distances.
Investment in your community. Not only do the dollars you spend at your farmer's market stay in the area, they create jobs in the area.
Inexpensive, high quality food. We found produce at 1/3 the cost of our local grocery store, and in far better condition.
Knowledge. Often you'll meet the farmer. It's a great opportunity to ask questions and learn more about your food.

There are many more reasons to visit your local farmer's market. What's in season in your area? What do you appreciate about your farmer's market?

Grilled Farmer's Market Bruschetta ~ Early July 2010

1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 clove garlic
basil
2/3t culinary salt, such as Maldon
rustic loaf of bread, we chose an olive loaf
olive oil

Start your grill. Halve the cherry tomatoes and place in a large bowl; add salt and stir. Add the garlic, through a garlic press to the tomatoes and mix well. Slice the basil into thin strips (chiffonade) and stir into the tomatoes. Slice the bread ~ 1" thick and brush lightly with olive oil, set aside.

Grill the bread until toasted to your liking. Cut the grilled bread into individual portions and top with tomato mixture. Enjoy!

Grilled Farmer's Market Corn ~ Early July 2010

1 ear of corn per person
olive oil
salt
Aleppo pepper (any spicy, dried red pepper will do)

Prepare your grill. Peel back the husk of the corn and remove the silk. Brush each cob with olive oil, salt lightly, and sprinkle to taste with the pepper. Wrap the husks back around the corn and place on the outside of the grill. Turn the corn every 5 minutes or so for a total cooking time of 20 minutes.

We also made a Wild Fennel Sorbet from the tops of the fennel we purchased on Sunday.

Farmer's markets are a worthy stop, even if just to meet people who grow the food we all eat every day. Beyond that connection, you'll have access to a wealth of incredible food. Just take a look at the Flickr feed embedded above.

To find a farmer's market in your area, just click here.

Perserving Summer's Bounty: Kimchi

2010-07-03T20:40:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Bianco di Maggio Onions
Hamburg Parsley (including the root, which looks like a parsnip)
Summer Squash
Cherry Tomatoes
Strawberries
Romaine
Red Beets
Savoy Cabbage

Interesting mix this week ~ a fun challenge given that we've been away for two weeks. I am thrilled to see the parsley, less enthused about the squash and the lettuce. Creativity definitely required for the cabbage and the parsley root; everything else seems relatively straight forward.

The tomatoes aren't quite ripe, so we'll let those sit for a few days. The strawberries will be cleaned and prepped for the freezer for smoothies. I'll roast the beets, onion bulbs and parsley root for a nice chopped salad with toasted walnuts and the romaine.

As for the cabbage... An obvious answer given the holiday weekend is coleslaw, but we're not planning a party and I'm the only person in a two person household who eats it. The next option was soup, but it's too hot here for that. Finally I landed on preserving the cabbage, but how?

Fermentation is a classic option. I've made sauerkraut before and it was fantastic. However, we still have some of that on hand, so I decided to mix it up a bit and try kimchi, a Korean form of fermented cabbage. In our recipe, we passed on the fermented fish and decided to rely on salt and natural fermentation for the processing. Here's what we did:

Vegan Kimchi

1 head savoy cabbage, quartered, cored, and sliced into thin ribbons
2" x 2" piece of ginger, grated
Bianco di Maggio onion "tops" (scallions a good substitute)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1T red pepper flakes
4T salt

Prepare all the vegetables and place in a large bowl; add salt and red pepper flakes, then mix well. Transfer into a crock (we use a large plastic canister) and cover with a clean plate roughly the size of the crock and press down to start to release the liquid from the vegetables. Top the plate with a clean weight, such as a large bottle of water, then cover the entire stack with a towel and place in a quiet area of your kitchen.

Keep an eye on the kimchi, pressing down down every few hours until the vegetables are submerged; this may take up to 24 hours. If a day has passed and the vegetables are not yet covered, top off with salted water. The fermentation takes a variable amount of time, so check the kimchi frequently ~ tasting as you go. When the texture and flavor you like, move to the refrigerator for longer term storage.

Sauerkraut is easy to make, but does require a bit of knowledge to ensure it does not spoil. Full details can be found in the standard sauerkraut recipe found on Wild Fermentation.

Kimchi is great on its own or as a base for soup. Once ready, we'll post some recipes here.

Food Across America: Route 66 Days Seven & Eight

2010-06-23T22:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a long day that wrapped up nicely at Latitude 26 Tex-Mex. The food was good and the staff took great care of us. I'd recommend this spot to others in the area.

We left St. Louis, MO today ~ heading back to Silicon Valley via I-80. While off Route 66, we are still deeply interested in the food along the way! I must say, today has been a banner day.

We started out at the hospital with my father. It was like the movie "Groundhog Day". I smiled to myself when I saw the breakfast provided to him (pictured below). Strikingly similar to the buffets along our path so far...

I have always wondered what "American food" was; I guess the unmistakable pattern we've seen over the past week is the classic American breakfast!

Dinner tonight was nothing short of stunning. As a reminder, I'm a vegan and Sean is not. Lots of compromise happens when we dine. Tonight was a nearly perfect situation with fantastic meals for each of our individual tastes.

Using Yelp on our iPad, we found a vegan restaurant within minutes from the city's best barbecue. Both restaurants offered carry-out menus on their web sites, so we were all set.

Sean ordered the rib combo platter (which was enough for 3 people). It included beef ribs, pork spareribs, pork short ribs and lamb ribs as well as baked beans and french fries. Nothing was less than excellent, but according to Sean, nothing but the ribs mattered. The menu itself is incredibly broad; if we were local, Sean would work his way through it.

Star of Show: lamb ribs (due primarily to their novelty; this is the first time he'd seen lamb ribs as an option).

Eden Alley's menu was equally broad. Thankfully their staff was incredibly helpful in narrowing the field of options. We settled on half orders of the roasted potato burrito (daily special) and the spinach and mushroom loaf. Truly amazing.

Star of Show: roasted potato burrito; the diablo sauce was incredible.

Food Across America: Route 66 Day Six

2010-06-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

The breakfast buffet was on par with the rest of the trip. From here on out you can assume it is all more of the same unless we note otherwise...

Lunch today was a *very* welcomed, delicious meal. Yelp saves the day again, finding an open restaurant in our area. Today we landed at the City Coffeehouse and Creperie. On the heels of the last two days I was really hungry and was able to find enough here to get all the way to satisfied... The leading photo today is the vegetarian sandwich on wheat ~ incredible.

Dinner at Favazza's was good, as was the frozen custard at Ted Drewes. Both are worth a stop if you are in the area.

Peroni and Pasta at Favazza's

Ted Drewes

We made the trip across the US to be with my father during his deep brain stimulation surgery tomorrow. My sisters, Suzanne and Renee, met us here and tomorrow we go with him for the procedure. He's had Parkinson's Disease for years, tomorrow should be a very good thing.

Perhaps needless to day, I won't be thinking or writing about food tomorrow...

Renee, Fred, Michelle, Suzanne

Food Across America: Route 66 Day Five

2010-06-20T13:05:00.001-07:00

Not surprisingly, breakfast was the same. I opted for a banana and the last of the oatcakes. My Flip batteries died during the breakfast scan; here's the iPhone footage:

The pattern is holding true by hotel brand ~ nearly identical regardless of location. Hotel chains appear to have breakfast menus like fast food franchises; same thing, with as little variation as possible, to ensure a consistent experience. Hmmm.

Lunch at Iron Starr Urban Barbeque was good. I ordered the veggie plate with collard greens, green beans, cornbread and a salad. Sean had the St Louis style BBQ ribs, reporting them to be the best ribs he's ever had...

Dinner was not good. We found little open in Joplin besides the big chains (Outback Steakhouse, Chili's, etc.), so tried the closest recommendation from the hotel staff: Cheddar's Casual Cafe. The menu choices were on par with the breakfast fare we've seen daily. Difficult choices. We won't be back and will actively avoid these restaurants if we spot them in other cities. Much like last night, I opted for a plain baked potato and "steamed" veggies. The farther east we go, the greater the challenge.

Tomorrow we reach St. Louis where we stay put for a few days. I'm looking forward to dinner with my family on the hill at Favazza's.

Food Across America: Route 66 Day Four

2010-06-19T18:29:00.000-07:00

The breakfast in Albuquerque was nearly identical to the breakfast in Flagstaff. The only difference is that Albuquerque offered tortillas in addition to the other bread products. I am amazed at the lack of variation and the minute amount of local flair.

This morning, the only option for me, oatmeal, was not yet fully cooked so I headed to the market within the lobby to see if there were choices there. No such luck. I opted for an apple, an orange, and some oatcakes from the stash I brought from home.

Lunch was really good. We stopped at Jorge's Tacos Garcia in Amarillo. I had a margarita and the "Tex-Mex Stir Fry", which consisted of zucchini, summer squash, bell peppers, onions, mushrooms and roasted corn sauteed then served with corn tortillas. After scooping off the cheese and sour cream, I was all set.

Dinner was vastly different than the last two nights. We went to "Big Vern's 66 Steakhouse" just down the street from our hotel and pictured above. I had a baked potato and a side of steamed vegetables. Sean went for the ribeye, which by all accounts was better than average...

Today reminded me how hard it is to make good choices when it comes to food. My preferences aside, if you're looking for a healthy meal (referencing the USDA's guidelines as an example) these buffets and restaurants don't set the average person up for success. Of course choices infer you have options, which is another, very important discussion in its own right.

Tomorrow night ~ Joplin, Missouri.

At home this week, the box contains:

Fennel
Spinach
Salad OR Little Gem Lettuce
Strawberries
Cherry Tomatoes OR Green Beans
Chives
Chantenay Carrots
Basil OR Mystery
Erbette Chard OR Red Beets

Our good friends David and Marina are picking it up and will share their culiary adventures once complete.

Food Across America: Route 66 Day Three

2010-06-19T01:31:00.000-07:00

Much like yesterday, the "food" day started out with some challenges and got better with each meal. Here were today's breakfast options:

The oatmeal with dried cranberries plus an apple were just the ticket. Lunch was a pinto bean burrito with guacamole and pico de gallo at Casa Blanca in Winslow, AZ.

En route from Winslow, AZ to Albuquerque, NM, we stopped for a break and found the frybread shack pictured above. We tried two styles ~ salted and sweetened. Both good, though neither were something I'd eat every day. Here's the recipe sold by the lovely folks at Chee's, the proprietors of this particular stop.

Navajo Fry Bread
Makes 8-10 bread

4 c flour
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
1/4 c shortening
2 c lukewarm water

Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Cut shortening into dry ingredients. Mix well. Add water and mix with your hands until it forms a soft dough and does not stick to the bowl. Cover and let it stand. After 30 minutes knead it some more. If it's sticky use a little flour then form the dough into small balls about the size of a small peach. Stretch and pat until dough is flat and round. Punch a little hole in the center of the bread. The shape should be a little smaller than the frying pan you are using for deep frying. If you cannot handle the dough with your hands use rolling pin to roll the dough out until round.

Heat 2 cups vegetable oil in a frying pan. This needs to be very hot. Oil should just start to smoke. Regulate that temperature (the best bread is cooked in a pan on an open campfire over cedar wood). Place the fry bread in the hot oil until brown on one side then turn it over and fry the other side until golden brown. We eat bread with our meals like mutton stew and Navajo tacos. Many people enjoy bread with honey or powdered sugar.

For dinner tonight, once again, Yelp saved the day with solid recommendations. Tonight we chose Jennifer James 101 in Albuquerque. It was fantastic and thought-provoking. I'd classify it as local, organic "fusion-fusion" as each course combined different cuisines or unexpected combinations. For example, I had:

Grilled giant cremini with celery, capers, lemon and truffle oil
Poblano stuffed with quinoa and vegetables on black bean sauce topped with pickled radishes and micro-cilantro

Odd, but spectacular. We'll certainly return if ever in the area again.

I can't wait to see what's in store tomorrow...

Food Across America: Route 66 Day Two

2010-06-17T22:39:00.000-07:00

Nutrition was not the name of the game today. This video shows the breakfast options at our hotel; I opted for a banana followed by some oatcakes that I had brought from home.

Lunch was in two parts, both at diners. First course was fried pickle spears at Peggy Sue's just outside Barstow. The second course was a Gardenburger at Jedro's in Needles,CA. Both very tasty, just glad I brought along a lot of spandex. I am not surprised the US has an obesity problem.

Dinner was a completely different matter. We used Yelp to find restaurants in our area, sorted by rating, then chose the one that looked like the best match for our taste. We chose the Tinderbox Kitchen and are extremely glad we did.

The Tinderbox kitchen offered fantastic food and service with a comfortable, slightly trendy atmosphere. At the hostess station they offered temporary tatoos of their logo and on the speakers you heard mixes assembled by the staff played via iPod playlists.

Black pepper was a theme throughout the meal, everything highly spiced. I had the "Black and Blue" Beet Salad (minus the blue cheese) and the Ziti pasta with Campari Tomatoes (minus the goat cheese). The salad was so good I ordered a second one to go for lunch the next day. Sean had the Pork Belly Confit on Blue Cheese Grits followed by the Seared Scallops with Poblano Bacon Creamed Corn and a side of Black Pepper Frites (pictured above). We left no room for dessert, but the options sounded fantastic.

Food Across America: Route 66 Day - One

2010-06-16T13:02:00.001-07:00

We're driving most of the way across the US starting today ~ Silicon Valley to St. Louis, Missouri via Route 66. Beyond the fun of the road trip, I'm looking forward to focusing on local foods as we go. What's in season in Amarillo, Texas? How about Oklahoma City?

An interesting twist is that I'm a vegan... Easy to do at home ~ not so easy on the road.

As we make our way across the country, I'll post our observations about the food we find here on this blog. So, for day one:

First observation as we headed south of Gilroy was the number of cherry stands. The cherries we see at our local grocery stores are typically from Washington. Where do the California cherries go? Next we noticed the state of the central valley - very dry, reservoirs low, and MANY signs about stopping some pending legislative action related to water rights "Congress-created Dustbowl".

Meals were no problem with a To-Go's hummus/whole wheat wrap for lunch and a FANTASTIC veggie fajita from Los Domingos in Barstow for dinner.

All-in-all it was a good day.

Still Dealing with Zucchini: Garlicky Zucchini Bruschetta

2010-06-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Lacinato Kale
Bacon Avocados
Parsley
Mystery (more summer squash and ZUCCHINI!)
Strawberries
Lettuce (traded for more parsley)
Mystery (Red Norland potatoes)

Oh yes, more zucchini. Well, more green summer squash. While technically different I suppose, to me at this point they are all the same.

The themed dinner idea worked so well for us this time we repeated it this week. Flipping through my cookbooks I stumbled upon "Garlicky Zucchini Bruschetta" in The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook by Jack Bishop and Ann Straton. Given the capability of this recipe to work through another 2-3 zucchini, I was sold.

Italian was the theme, here was our menu:

Appetizers:
Garlicky Zucchini Bruschetta
Vegetarian Bagna Cauda with Bread, Carrots and Asparagus

Main Course:
Grilled Hot Italian Sausage ("regular" and Field Roast)
Pasta with Zucchini, Lemon, Pine Nuts and Herbs
Kale Salad with Sun-dried Tomato Dressing
Giardinera
Dessert:
Strawberry Shortcake with Meyer Limoncello Spritzers

The meal worked incredibly well. Caution: there were lots of leftovers from the bagna cauda. However, we found a fantastic way to use them up: panzanella. We cubed the left over bread, chopped the leftover carrots and asparagus into bite sized pieces, added a pint of cherry tomatoes (halved), and tossed with the left over bagna cauda. Amazing!

Vegan Bagna Cauda

1/2 cup large salted capers, drained and rinsed
10 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups extra-virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 bunch whole carrots, cleaned, trimmed and quartered length-wise
1 bunch asparagus, cleaned and trimmed

In a saucepan, combine the capers, garlic and oil. Simmer over moderately low heat until the garlic is very soft but not colored, about 30 minutes. Transfer the mixture to a blender and let cool for 10 minutes. Add the butter and lemon juice and puree until the bagna cauda is smooth. Place into serving dish and set aside.

Meanwhile, bring a large saucepan of water to a boil. Add the carrots and cook until crisp-tender, about 3 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a plate and let cool. Repeat with the asparagus.

Slice loaf of crusty Italian bread and serve alongside the bagna cauda and blanched vegetables.

We were able to work through the Lacinato kale, zucchini, strawberries at dinner. as for the rest of the box contents:

Bacon Avocados: eaten out of hand. I literally sliced the avocados in half, removed the pit, salted them heavily, and ate them with a spoon. Incredible!

Parsley: made two batches of parsley-walnut pesto for the freezer.

Red Norland Potatoes: roasted and tossed with, you guessed it, parsley-walnut pesto.

Too Much Zucchini: Pasta with Zucchini, Lemon, Pine Nuts and Herbs

2010-06-06T22:10:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we've got a lot of zucchini. After the tapas, we still have 3.5 pounds left to consume. I am not a big fan of zucchini, so this presents a bit of a challenge.

I spent some time digging through cookbooks and searching the web to no avail. Finally, I decided to search for an ingredient pairing ~ coupling an ingredient I love with one I'm struggling with, in this case, capers and zucchini.

Turns out the original recipe is from The Greens Cookbook by Debora Madison, which we happen to own. We adapted this recipe to the ingredients on hand to great results.

Pasta with Zucchini, Lemon, Pine Nuts and Herbs
Serves Two Generously

1/2 package of whole wheat pasta (roughly 4 ounces)
1 medium zucchini, cleaned and sliced into matchsticks
zest of 1/4 lemon, sliced into matchsticks
6 T extra virgin olive oil (worth using a good one for this recipe)
1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped
5 T pine nuts
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
4 t capers, non-pariel
2 sun-dried tomatoes, reconstituted if necessary, sliced into matchsticks
salt and pepper
Parmesan (optional)

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil for pasta and prepare all ingredients as noted above.

Heat 2 T oil in a saute pan; add pine nuts and cook till they begin to color, stirring frequently. Add garlic, cook till fragrant, and remove from heat and place in a large serving bowl. Stir in remaining olive oil, lemon zest, parsley, capers and sun-dried tomatoes into the pine nut mixture; set aside.

When the water comes to a boil, add the zucchini and cook for one minute. Remove from water with a bamboo skimmer (or similar strainer) and add to the pine nut mixture. Return the water to a boil and cook pasta as instructed and drain; add to the bowl and mix well.

Enjoy!

Spanish Tapas

2010-06-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

Oyster Mushroom

This week's box contains:

Cilantro
Red Butter and Red Leaf Lettuce (traded for more squash)
Strawberries
Summer Squash
Chantenay Carrots
Loose Spinach OR Loose Baby Chard
Oyster Mushrooms
Arugula

Uninspiring mix of food this week. Sometimes the contents of the box calls out for something in particular, making it easy to decide what to make. Sometimes, like this week, it does not. Don't get me wrong, it all looks great. However, to get through it all I need an inspired plan.

In situations like this one, I'll often pick an ingredient, Google something that comes to mind, like "baked oyster mushrooms" and see what piques my interest. With that in hand, I'll pick a theme and back into a meal by finding recipes for the remaining ingredients that fit that theme. Over the past 5 years this has turned out to be a great way to work through the box or ingredients we have on hand. It also has the side benefit of being an easy way to plan a dinner party.

Today I landed on this recipe, a tapas dish. I adopted tapas as my theme, browsed a few tapas sites, hit my favorite recipe sites looking for tapas recipes, and the rest is history. We easily had enough food for six ~ enough for a simple party. Another great thing about tapas is that most of the dishes can be served a room temperature, another strong feature for entertaining.

Spanish Carrots and Olives

Spanish Tapas

As I'm a vegan, I went for the Field Roast Chorizo sausages, an excellent choice. We followed the recipes linked above and adapted a few others to our taste.

Patatas Bravas

Patatas Bravas
1 pound of new potatoes
olive oil
salt and pepper

1 can diced tomatoes
1/4 c tomato sauce
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 t Piment d'Espelette
1/4 t cayenne pepper
2 T olive oil
1 t salt

Dice the potatoes and toss with salt. Add olive oil to coat and roast at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from oven and set aside.

Saute the minced garlic in 2T olive oil till golden. Add Piment d'Espelette, cayenne pepper, and salt; stir. Add tomatoes and tomato sauce and bring to a boil. Cook till slightly thickened and set aside.

Place the potatoes in a serving dish and top with bravas sauce. Best served warm.

Garbanzos con Espinacas

Garbanzos con Espinacas
1 can garbanzo beans
1 bunch fresh spinach
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 t Piment d'Espelette
1/4 t cayenne pepper
3 T olive oil
1 t salt

Clean the spinach and shake off excess water. Add to a saucepan over medium with the salt and cover; cook till wilted and set aside. Heat the olive oil in the saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic, Piment d'Espelette, cayenne pepper and salt, mix well. Add garbanzo beans and heat through. Press and chop the spinach, then add to the sauce pan. Mix well.

Zucchini Fritters

As for the cilantro, strawberries, and arugula... The cilantro will become cilantro chutney and stored in the freezer for our next Indian meal. The arugula and strawberries will be combined in a salad later this week.

Cauliflower al Ajoarriero

Meyer Limoncello

2010-05-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

Infusing is a great way to get the absolute most out of the food on hand. Rather than tossing those lemon peels, make lemon infused vodka for use in cocktails. Rather than tossing that extra tarragon, infuse a white wine vinegar.

The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. (I was shocked to find many references to, and recipes for, bacon-infused vodka on the web.) Here are some excellent references on infusion:

In early March of this year, we blogged about our Meyer Lemon tree in Spring in Silicon Valley. We had a tree full of lemons and needed to find a way to preserve them. One option we chose was juicing them, saving the peels to infuse Everclear as a base for limoncello. We are so happy we did!

Limoncello is traditionally served after dinner as a digestif or alongside a dessert course. A great general reference on limoncello can be found on Life in Italy. Take note of this quote:

"One sips limoncello slowly, not all at one time as a shot."

I laughed out loud when I read this, but limoncello is a potent liqueur. Ours is based on Everclear, which weighs in at 151 proof. Needless to say, limoncello should be consumed in very small quantities.

Here's our recipe:

Meyer Limoncello
Makes 1.25 liters

750ml Everclear (can substitute vodka if Everclear unavailable in your area)
10 Meyer lemons
2c water
2c sugar

Using a vegetable peeler, remove the zest from the lemons (avoiding the white pith). Place the lemon zest and the Everclear in a glass jar and allow to sit in a cool, dark place for 30 days, stirring daily. (Ensure the jar prevents evaporation; we used the Le Parfait 2 liter glass canning jar). At 30 days, begin testing the zest by removing a piece from the mash. If it breaks when bent, the mixture is ready for the next step. If it simply bends, return the mixture to the cool, dark place. Test weekly.

When ready, strain the alcohol and discard the zest. Create a simple syrup by combining the sugar and water in a saucepan over high heat. Stir frequently until sugar dissolves completely. Add the simple syrup to the infused alcohol. Bottle and refrigerate till cold. Limoncello is best stored in the freezer till ready for use.

We let our mash rest for 3 months. The infused Everclear was a deep golden yellow and fairly clear. The peels were still flexible, but had lost much of their color.

When we added the simple syrup, the mixture was a milky, lemony yellow. Since we were hoping for a clearer product, we filtered the limoncello, using a fine mesh strainer lined with a standard coffee filter. (This didn't make much of a difference in the color, but it did taste much smoother afterward.) From there the limoncello went into the freezer to chill.

We had our first glass last night and it was amazing. When tried side by side with Nardini's Acqua Di Cedro, it showed well: much less cloying and much more refreshing. Excellent lemon aroma and flavor, with the sweetness balanced by a bit of tartness.

Next weekend we're going to try a pairing of this limoncello with Salmon Piccata / Seitan Piccata.

Nutrition Myths: the Humble Potato

2010-05-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Italian Parsley
Chantenay Carrots
New Potatoes
Loose Spinach
Strawberries
Red Beets
Mystery (zucchini and yellow crookneck squash)

I love potatoes despite their bad rap. Last summer I wrote a blog entry that contains all the details; I'll repeat a few of them here:

Turns out potatoes are nutritious, sufficiently so that “Humans can subsist healthily on a diet of potatoes and milk; the latter supplies Vitamin A and Vitamin D.” [1] Potatoes are starchy, but their glycemic load is manageable, they are a good source of fiber, protein, potassium, vitamin C, fiber, and a bevy of phytochemicals. The urban legend about all the nutrition being contained in the skins is not true; most nutrients are evenly distributed throughout the potato. They are easy to grow in a number of climates. Not that one would thrive on a diet of potatoes and milk alone or would choose this path, but it should be no surprise that potatoes are heros in some parts of the world.

Interestingly, potatoes -- along with tobacco, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers -- are members of the nightshade family, which can be toxic to humans. It is true that green potatoes are poisonous, though you'd have to eat quite a few to feel any ill effects. Other interesting potato facts include:

Potatoes are the forth largest food crop worldwide.
The United Nations named 2008 the “International Year of the Potato”
The average person, again worldwide, eats 73 pounds of potatoes a year.
There are over 5,000 varieties of potatoes, all seeming to genetically originate from southern Peru.

Visit the following sites for more info on the mighty potato, including recipes:

Centro Internacional de la Papa (International Potato Center)
Nutrition Data on red potatoes, raw, with skin
Washington State Potato Foundation (love the URL: http://www.potatoes.com/)
Idaho Potato Commission
Colorado Potato Administrative Committee

"New" Baked Potatoes
An amuse-bouche

baby russet potatoes (1-2 per serving)
specialty finishing salts, such as Halen Mon Smoked Sea Salt or Cyprus Black Flake
butter

Clean the potatoes and wrap individually with foil. Bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove from foil, slice and pinch to create opening, and top with butter and finishing salt. Serve immediately.

These were very small russet potatoes; these pictures give you an idea of scale. Given their size, this was delicate work but well worth the extra effort.

Now for the rest of the box...

No doubt the parsley will be turned into pesto.

[Herb of your Choice]-Walnut Pesto
... makes 25 - 2 tablespoon servings

3/4 cup walnut pieces, toasted
1 bunch herb of choice, ends trimmed
1 large garlic clove, pressed
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon mellow barley miso
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a blender, adjust salt and pepper and use or freeze.

The carrots and strawberries will be eaten out of hand. The spinach will likely be cleaned, chopped, and folded into whatever we make this week. The beets will be roasted and tossed with balsamic vinegar and salt.

I must admit I'm sad to see that zucchini season is already here. These are prolific plants and we're sure to have mountains of them throughout the summer. While I don't dislike zucchini and the related types of squash, I'm not a big fan. I will have to spend some time digging through my cookbooks to find was to enjoy this first pile and make some plans for those ahead. I would love to hear your ideas ~ if you've got interesting ways to use zucchini, please let us know.

[1] Wikipedia, Potato, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato (August 2009).

Box Contents: May 21, 2010

2010-05-22T07:38:00.001-07:00

We missed this week's box! Work was really busy for both of us and by the time we remembered the box, it was too late.

The box contained:

Yellow Carrots
English Peas OR New Russet Potatoes
Leeks OR Scallions
Young Spinach
Strawberries
Salad Mix OR Lettuce
Broccoli OR Summer Squash

With our CSA, the pick-up site hosts are allowed to keep the unclaimed boxes to use themselves or share.

Waste Not ~ Want Not

2010-05-16T14:59:00.000-07:00

Dealing with leftovers can be challenging and is often boring at best. Eating the same thing day after day can be trying regardless of how fantastic the original meal. Sometimes the opportunity presents itself to make a new dish from the remnants of another, which is what we did today. The leftover grilled asparagus from last night's dinner was the centerpiece of a spectacular spring risotto.

Lemon Asparagus Risotto
Serves Four

2 T olive oil
1 medium onion, finely diced
1 cup arborio rice
1 cup dry white wine
~5 cups vegetable stock
1 bunch asparagus, grilled, chilled and diced
1 T freshly grated lemon zest
1/4 cup Parmesan, finely grated
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat; add onions and saute till golden. Add rice and stir till well coated. Add wine, stirring frequently, till all the liquid is absorbed. Add the stock one cup at at time, stirring frequently, till all the liquid is absorbed with each addition. After you've added 3 cups of stock, stir in the lemon zest, the Parmesan and the asparagus. Continue adding stock (stirring frequently, etc.) till rice is al dente. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve hot topped with shaved Parmesan.

This recipe is loosely based on Risotto alle Punte di Asparago from Riso: Undiscovered Rice Dishes of Northern Italy by Gioietta Vitale, page 74.

We paired this risotto with a 2007 Trimbach Riesling ~ gorgeous.

Experimenting with Ingredients: Red Radish Canapés

2010-05-15T23:06:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Lettuce (traded for more shallots)
Red Radishes
Strawberries
Bunched Spinach
Bunched Green-Tailed Shallots
Artichokes
Fava Beans

Red radishes are not something I would normally procure ...

Members of my family actively seek them out ~ eating them out of hand topped with salt. I don't mind them, and actively like them pickled. However, having them in the house takes thought and effort if they are to avoid the compost pile.

There is a bunch in this week's box, so I thought I'd focus on dealing with food that doesn't have immediate appeal. What do you do when you have something on hand that does not inspire?

I typically do one of a few things:

Research: Cookbooks and the internet are a tremendous help. Either leverage the index of your favorite cookbook or search the internet for the ingredient in question. An example would be a Google search on "radish recipes".

Integrate: Some ingredients can be integrated into something that does inspire. For example, if you love risotto, almost anything you can imagine can be added to a compatible recipe. Some ingredients can be "hidden"; check out Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious for ideas.
Trade: In some cases, I know we will not eat the food. Friends and family will often take the food off your hands, sometimes in exchange for something else. This is a great option and often starts for us when we pick up the box. Our CSA offers a "trade" box; if yours does ~ use it.
Imagine: Sounds trite, but stay with me. Is there a situation in which you can imagine a ingredient making an ingredient work? We've got family in town this weekend and heavy appetizers were a part of the plan for tonight. I narrowed my search on "radish recipes" to those that would fit the situation. Knowing a few appetizer-like terms, such as canapé and "amuse bouche" helped.

I landed on a typical French preparation of radishes: radishes, butter, and salt. Given the noshing planned, it wasn't a stretch to create Red Radish Canapés by adding bread to the equation. Here's the recipe, which was a big hit.

Red Radish Canapés
Serves 4 as a first course

3 large red radishes, thinly sliced
butter, at room temperature (we used Kerrygold)
coarse salt (we used Celtic Sea Salt)
bread, thinly sliced
minced herbs of your choice

Lightly toast the bread and set aside to cool. Spread butter on the bread and top with radish slices. Top with minced herbs and coarse salt. Enjoy!

We served these canapés with a Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut ~ a entirely pleasant pairing.

As for the other box contents, we ate the strawberries out of hand throughout the day and grilled the artichokes for dinner tonight. The spinach and shallots will likely find their way into risotto while the favas wait for next weekend when we have time to deal with them.

How to Shell Fava Beans ... (and what to do with them after)

2010-05-08T20:50:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Salad Mix (traded for more fava beans)
Collards
Strawberries
Carrots
Fava Beans
Calcot Onions
Rapini
Spinach

Fava Beans

Fava beans are a special spring treat, but very labor intensive. They need to be removed from their pods and blanched ... then each individual bean needs to be peeled. It's not difficult, but it is time consuming. Simple instructions here and a great set of step-by-step photos here.

We started out with 7.7 pounds in a pile that looked like this:

After shelling, which took two of us roughly 45 minutes, we had 2.7 pounds of the "covered" beans:

After peeling the beans, which took about 90 minutes, we were left with 1.7 pounds of beans. Now you understand why they are considered a delicacy!

Gnocchi with Fava Bean Ragout

This dish is assembled from two recipes; details below.

Gnocchi
1.5 pounds russet potatoes
~ 1 cup flour, sifted

Bake the potatoes, wrapped in foil, for ~ 1 hour in a 400 degree oven. Peel and pass through a potato ricer. Let potatoes cool for ~15 minutes then mix in flour a few tablespoons at a time until the dough is formed; it should not be sticky or crumbly. In sections, roll the dough into "ropes" about as thick as your thumb. Cut each rope into 1/2" pieces, smaller is better than larger. With the back of a fork, roll each gnocchi to create ridges for the holding sauce.

Cook the gnocchi in a pot of salted, simmering water until they float, then shock them in an ice bath. Gently remove from ice bath and set aside on a clean towel. (I found this CHOW video very helpful.)

Fava Bean Ragout
2 cups prepared fava beans
1 large clove garlic, finely chopped
1 small sprig rosemary, finely chopped
2 T olive oil
1/2 lemon

Add favas, garlic, rosemary, and olive oil to a sauce pan. Add enough water to barely cover the beans. Simmer until the beans are tender, about 5 minutes. Finish with lemon juice.

Adapted from "Gnocchi with Thyme Vinaigrette and Lemon Cashew Creme" on Vegan Yum Yum and "Fava Bean Ragout" from Chez Panisse Vegetables.

Final Assembly
While the ragout is simmering, heat olive oil in a sauce pan over medium-high heat. Saute the gnocchi till golden brown. Season with salt and pepper, then serve topped with the fava bean ragout.

Roasted Garlic and Fava Bean Pate

2 cups prepared fava beans
1/3 cup canned diced tomatoes, drained
2 - 3 cloves roasted garlic
3 T onion, diced
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Purée all ingredients in a food processor then season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with toasted or grilled bread, such as pugliese.

We ate the strawberries out of hand today. The collards, rapini, and spinach will be chopped and stirred into whatever we make this week for some added veggies. We'll hold the carrots for general use and the calcot onions will be grilled next weekend.

Grilled Pizza

2010-05-01T12:42:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Strawberries
Romaine Lettuce (traded for more agretti)
Red and White Mixed Turnips
Parsley
Mystery (shelling peas)
Leeks
Agretti
Red Orach

It's a gorgeous day in Silicon Valley. We have plans to meet friends later today to grill pizzas and enjoy the sunshine.

Grilling pizza is a tricky, but rewarding, process. The pizzas that result from this method are beyond compare. Here are two toppings made from this week's box, but let your imagination run wild. Instructions on grilling pizzas can be found here.

Two Grilled Pizzas

Lemon-Garlic Agretti with Fresh Chèvre
Tops one 15" pizza.

1 bunch agretti, cleaned and chopped in to bit-sized segments
2-3 large cloves garlic, minced
1 shallot, finely diced
2 T olive oil
1 t salt
juice and zest of one small lemon
1/2 cup dry white wine
red pepper flakes to taste

Saute shallot and garlic in olive oil for 2-3 minutes. Add agretti and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Add salt, wine, lemon juice and lemon zest, cooking till liquid is evaporated. Set aside.

Spread agretti evenly on prepared pizza crust, top with dollops of chèvre and return to the grill. Cook till heated through. Serve with Sauvignon Blanc.

Mushroom-Leek Pizza
Tops one 15" pizza.

1 recipe white bean purée (below)
1/4 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
2 T olive oil
1/2 pound white button mushrooms, sliced (~ 3 cups)
2 large leeks, or several small, cleaned and sliced (~ 3 cups)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/4 cup dry white wine
parsley, finely chopped

Soak the dried porcini in hot water for 30 minutes or more. Remove from soaking liquid and finely chop; set aside. Porcini can be gritty, so take care to discard any undesirable pieces.

Heat half the olive oil in pan over high heat; add white mushrooms and sear, stirring as little as possible (you're after the carmelization). Cook till golden brown and the liquid released by the mushrooms as evaporated. Add the porcini soaking liquid (avoiding any grit from the mushrooms) and simmer till the pan is nearly dry. Remove from pan and set aside.

Reduce heat to medium and add remaining oil to the pan along with the leeks and salt and pepper to tasted. Cook for 3 minutes till the leeks begin to soften. Add the garlic and porcini, cover, and cook till leeks are tender, about 5 minutes. Add the wine to deglaze the pan, cooking till pan is nearly dry. Remove from heat.

Spread prepared crust with white bean purée and top with sauteed mushrooms and leeks. Return to the grill and cook till heated through. Serve with Chardonnay.

Recipe adapted from adapted from Fields of Greens by Annie Sommerville, page 172.

White Bean Purée

1 pound white beans
1 large onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1.5 t dried savor leaves
vegetable stock or water

Add all ingredients to stock pot, bring to a boil, then simmer till the beans are tender. Drain the beans and reserve the cooking liquid. Combine the beans and 1/3 cup cooking liquid in a blender or food processor. Process till it reaches the desired consistency, adding more cooking liquid as necessary.

Recipe adapted from The Vintner's Table by Mary Evely, page 149.

A quick note on wine pairing. Hands down, the very best reference I've ever found on the topic is the Mary Evely book noted above. The book is organized by varietal and at the beginning of each is a "profile" for each, clearly summarizing food affinities and food conflicts for the varietal across each of the following categories: seafood, meat and poultry, herbs and spices, sauces, cheese and nuts, and finally, fruits and vegetables. She also recommends the best methods of preparation. Commentary on substitutions are peppered throughout the book. While the recipes are great, I use this book to tweak recipes to pair well with the wine I've chosen or to choose a wine for the meal we have planned.

As for the rest of the box contents, our plan is as follows:

Strawberries
Cleaned and frozen for smoothies.

Red and White Mixed Turnips
Stored for roasting, or perhaps a turnip purée, later this week.

ParsleyWe'll reserve some to garnish the pizzas, but the rest went immediately into parsley-walnut pesto (one of my all time favorites).

[Herb of your Choice]-Walnut Pesto
... makes 25 - 2 tablespoon servings

3/4 cup walnut pieces, toasted
1 bunch herb of choice, ends trimmed
1 large garlic clove, pressed
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon mellow barley miso
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a blender, adjust salt and pepper and use or freeze.

Shelling Peas
Going to try to make tarts to serve for lunch tomorrow. My good friends are coming over to do a little work related brainstorming, so the least I can do is feed them well. I got the idea from the 101 Cookbooks entry Fresh Shelling Peas: Four Ways.

Red Orach
We use this just like spinach. Some night this week it will be cleaned, chopped, and tossed into whatever we are eating to sneak in a few more veggies.

Box Contents: April 23, 2010

2010-04-24T19:34:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Strawberries
Salad Mix (traded for more tarragon)
Broccoli
Butternut Squash
Snap Peas
French Tarragon
Fennel

Strawberries
We'll eat these out of hand for breakfast tomorrow. We've found the strawberries from the farm don't keep as long as those from the store. No sacrifice of course as they are much, much more flavorful.

Broccoli
I chopped this up for use in a stir fry or simple steaming later this week. The stems were steamed for adding to the beagles kibble throughout the week. My good friend Teresa, a fellow Two Small Farms CSA member, may post a recipe for a dish she made with pineapple, coconut milk, and a few other ingredients ~ it sounded delicious.

It is worth mentioning Evert-Fresh bags here; they really extend the life of produce.

Butternut Squash
No idea, thankfully it stores well for quite some time. Highly likely this will be come soup if we are lucky enough to get another cold snap.

Sugar Snap Peas
I'll take this for snacks this week, served with hummus.

French Tarragon
Too much tarragon. My absolute favorite use for tarragon is Bearnaise sauce, which is absolutely not vegan. Getting through two bunches will be a challenge...

Fennel
No problem! We love fennel. One bulb will go into tonight's dinner and the other will be roasted and served on a tartine.

Grilled Spring Vegetable Platter
Serves 2 generously

1 bulb fennel, cut into wedges
4 medium sized turnips. trimmed and quartered
1 artichoke, trimmed and halved
1 head of cauliflower, sliced into "slabs"
1 bunch asparagus, trimmed
1 red onion, trimmed and quartered leaving a small portion of the root end intact
fresh tarragon vinaigrette

Steam artichoke for 15 minutes prior to halving; remove choke. Toss all vegetables with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Cook over hot grill, cooking about 8 minutes per side for all of the vegetables. Serve with fresh tarragon vinaigrette.

Box Contents: April 16, 2010

2010-04-17T09:04:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Leeks
Gold Chard
Cilantro
Oranges
Mystery (Strawberries)
Baby Fava Beans
Mystery (Orach)

We made fresh squeezed orange juice from the oranges and ate the strawberries out of hand for breakfast today. With two sets of greens, and the remaining ingredients on hand, we're planning Hearty Greens Soup for dinner today or tomorrow.

I am looking forward to the fava beans. They are lovely when you have the time to prepare them. If you've not had the pleasure, it is a 3 step process: remove the pod, blanch the beans and remove the outer shell, then cook. I like them best tossed with olive oil and salt.

As far as the rest of it goes, we've got another "not going to cook" week ahead. Last week box contents are still resting comfortably in the refrigerator and the remains of this week's box will join them. Weeknight cooking is not something we do well...

Box Contents: April 9, 2010

2010-04-10T08:33:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Orach (swapped for more turnips)
Green Garlic
"Baby" loose Carrots
Mystery (Cauliflower)
Salad Mix ("Baby" Romaine)
Tokyo Market Turnips
Mystery (Snap Peas)

I don't expect this to be a good week for cooking as we've got plans today and Sunday.

Everything in the box will get packaged for future use. Evert-Fresh bags to the rescue...

Status of the Experiments: Meyer Limoncello, Fermented Tofu, and Sauerkraut

2010-04-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

I took the time today to check in on the three experiments: Meyer limoncello, fermented tofu, and sauerkraut. None of them are ready for prime time, but all are making progress.

The limoncello mash is the most straightforward, least "risky" of the bunch. At this point the lemon peel is still very flexible and has quite a bit of color left to release, though the Everclear is now a vibrant yellow. Most of the recipes we found recommended adding the simple syrup after a week or two of infusion. It smelled great today (after four weeks), but I'm glad we're waiting ~ my sense is that it will continue to improve.

The fermented tofu is a bit harder to read. It is comfortably submerged in dry sherry. Some of the mold from the dry fermentation has settled to the bottom of the jar, some still clings to the tofu. It simply smells like sherry and nothing visibly frightening is happening. We've got another month to go before we have to decide if we're actually going to taste it...

The sauerkraut is *amazing*. I never thought I would think, type, or say those words in combination. It's been brewing for just over a week and now tastes like "fresh" sauerkraut. The texture is still crisp, the flavor is salty, but not overly so, and the aroma is mild. There was no mold, "bloom", or "scum" on top ~ just a few foamy bubbles around the edge. I cleaned the plate and weight that keep the cabbage submerged, stirred in a bit more brine, and set it back to rest. I am looking forward to an outstanding Reuben sandwich in a few weeks time...

Box Contents: April 2, 2010

2010-04-03T11:43:00.000-07:00

This weeks' box contains:

Cauliflower
Fennel
New Potatoes
Rapini Greens
Lettuces (abandoned to swap box)
Leeks
"Baby" Nantes Carrots
Butternut Squash

Easy box this week ~ full of good things.

The cauliflower, fennel, and carrots are in the process of becoming giardiniera, Italian pickled vegetables. The new potatoes were roasted with Celtic sea salt.

The leeks and butternut squash, from this week and last, gave us enough to make both of the following recipes:

I was actually able to make the stock I needed for these recipes from the trimmings of the fennel, carrots, leeks and squash. This is the first time I'd tried this ~ it worked incredibly well. Not only was the meal completely self sufficient, the flavor of the stock was perfect for the recipes.

Box Contents: March 26, 2010

2010-03-27T12:12:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Lettuces (just left these in the swap box)
Carrots
Chard
Red Cabbage
Green Garlic
Rutabagas
New Potatoes
Rosemary
Mystery (red beets)

It was an unusual box this week. While most of the vegetables were in good shape, others were less so. By no means were they spoiled, but the carrots and potatoes were covered with dirt and the beet greens were too dried out to be edible. This is a first in the 5 years I've been a subscriber, hope it does not continue.

Last week was a sad week for us, losing our 3 year old rescued beagle, Sam. I was happy to have so much produce on hand and no plans for the weekend. Cooking can be comforting, and certainly eating can be as well.

Though he never stopped stealing food, including veggies like the raw potato pictured above, he was a lovely dog and will be sincerely missed.

So, what did I cook?

With the carrots from this week's box and last, I made a batch of pickled carrots, modifying the recipe slightly by adding 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes. One jar went into the refrigerator for immediate consumption and I canned the rest. If you choose to can, follow the process for canning high acid foods processing for 10 minutes.

After a good scrubbing, I roasted the potatoes and the rutabagas with salt, olive oil, and Piment d'Espelette. In general I chop vegetables to a 1 inch dice and roast them at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally. If you are not a rutabaga fan, please try roasting them ~ they are fantastic.

With the red cabbage, I started another "experiment" -- this time it was homemade sauerkraut. Since the cabbage was red, just like the beets, I tossed them both in. The process looks pretty straightforward, let's hope it works. You can find a good explanation of how to make sauerkraut here.

I used the new bundle of kale for Kamut Elbow Hoppin' John. This recipe is from Eden Foods, a long time favorite.

I made a vegan version of this rosemary pesto, substituting miso for the Parmesan cheese.

The green garlic, a rare treat only available in the spring, will become Green Garlic Risotto from Michele Anna Jordan's Cook's Tour of Sonoma.

Box Contents: March 19, 2010

2010-03-22T21:02:00.000-07:00

As expected, this week's box included:

Savoy Cabbage
Adolescent Lettuces (swapped for more turnips)
Butternut Squash
Fennel
Leeks
Portuguese Kale
Red Spring Onions
Baby White Turnips
Chantenay Carrots

The first dish of the year was roasted vegetables, using ingredients from the box and a few we had on hand:

Roasted Vegetables

1 cup Brussels sprouts
1 cup baby white turnips
1 cup new potatoes
1 cup Chantenay carrots
1 cup red spring onions
small handful peeled garlic cloves

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Dice all vegetables to an even size and toss with salt, pepper and olive oil. Roast for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

We also made Savoy Cabbage and Sausage Soup from Every Night Italian: 120 Simple, Delicious Recipes You Can Make in 45 Minutes or Less. Of course the sausage we used was vegetarian, but my omnivore husband Sean was quite happy with the result.

Other dishes planned for this week include:

First Box of the 2010 CSA Season!

2010-03-15T20:54:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe the winter hiatus is at its close! We pick up our first box on Friday, contents scheduled to include:

Savoy Cabbage
Adolescent Lettuces
Escarole
Butternut Squash
Fennel
Leeks
Portuguese Kale
Red Spring Onions
Baby White Turnips
Chantenay Carrots

Without question I'll be roasting some of these vegetables. I'm craving the "roasted fennel tartines" from last season; given our current orange crop and the fact that we've got escarole in this week's box too ~ I may adapt the Escarole, Fennel and Orange Salad from Epicurious slightly by roasting the fennel and swapping balsamic for the white wine vinegar.

Another recipe of interest is Portuguese Kale and Potato Soup, also from Epicurious, subbing the baby white turnips for the potatoes.

As usual, no idea what to do with the lettuce. In fact, no idea what "adolescent" lettuces are! If they look interesting, I'll bring them home. If not, first swap of the year...

Fermented Tofu: Day 6

2010-03-12T20:07:00.000-08:00

Today's the big day!

The dry fermented tofu is making its way to its secondary fermentation stage in brine. Using easily accessible ingredients, we've made the brine from 750ml Paul Masson Pale Dry Sherry, ~1 cup water (enough to get to 5 cups liquid total) and ~1 cup kosher salt.

From here, it sits for 2-6 months, at which time it should be ready to use. We'll taste along the way and post updates here.

While it is looking like blue cheese, I must admit the tofu in brine set me Googling again, stopping here first: Molds on Food: Are they Dangerous?

Fermented Tofu: Day 5

2010-03-11T18:27:00.000-08:00

Progress continues. The tofu cubes are each changing, none appear to be in sync with another. Several different forms of mold are on the scene, such as the furry white one above. There's also a gray furry one, something that looks like "bread mold" and the predicted orange, slimy mold; all pictured below.

My 4 year old goddaughter stays with us this weekend, so will hold off on transferring these to the brine till she gets here tomorrow. Can't wait to hear what she thinks about this little experiment...

Fermented Tofu: Day 4

2010-03-10T18:58:00.000-08:00

We've got mold! In this context, that's progress!

I finally found additional information about fermented tofu on what seems to be a sensible site. The recipe posted there calls for dry fermentation "until each cube is covered with a cottony-white mycelium". See the History of Fermented Tofu for further detail.

Fermented Tofu: Day 3

2010-03-09T20:27:00.000-08:00

Progress!

As you can see in this picture, the tofu is starting to "sweat" and there is some subtle discoloration. It is also starting to smell a bit "sour", but nothing frightening at this point...

Fermented Tofu: Day 2

2010-03-08T22:18:00.000-08:00

No discernible change so far...

Fermented Tofu

2010-03-07T22:03:00.000-08:00

As of January 1, 2010, I've moved from vegetarian to vegan. Given my deep appreciation for cheese, this was a big decision. It's actually been extremely easy, but I do miss cheese and things made with cheese, like tartines, pizza, quesadillas ... the list goes on.

In my Meyer lemon research today, I found a recipe for a tartine including lemons and ~ you guessed it ~ cheese. Goat cheese in particular. Thankfully, I also found a recipe for vegan goat cheese that seems to be well received; click here.

This recipe calls for fermented tofu. As I can't imagine making the time to track down the commercial product, I decided to take the DIY approach. Seemed simple enough, except:

Only one recipe found; all roads lead to Asian markets like Ranch 99.

The recipe I found mentions mold and strong aromas ~ neither of which leave me feeling confident this should be tried at home.

I reached out to some friends for encouragement and advice. With that in hand, I am pressing onward. The test batch is prepared and has started its 2-4 day dry fermentation journey. I'll post daily updates, pictures of the progress, and results of the taste test here.

Spring in Silicon Valley

2010-03-07T09:14:00.000-08:00

It is citrus season in Silicon Valley. We have several trees in our yard, with my favorite being the Meyer lemon tree.

Meyer lemons are believed to be a cross between lemons and mandarin oranges. The are amazingly fragrant, less acidic than regular lemons, and slightly sweet. Their color is deeper as well, with some Meyer lemons tending towards orange.

Our tree is a prodigious producer of lemons, which is a good problem to have. A quick Google on "Meyer lemon recipes" yields countless options. My favorite find was the LA Times article "100 things to do with a Meyer lemon". My all time favorite recipe including Meyer lemons is Meyer Lemon Risotto from 101 Cookbooks.

Here's what we've done with our lemons so far:

Meyer Limoncello

750ml Everclear (can substitute vodka if Everclear unavailable in your area)
10 Meyer lemons
2c water
2c sugar

Using a vegetable peeler, remove the zest from the lemons (avoiding the white pith). Place the lemon zest and the Everclear in a glass jar and allow to sit in a cool, dark place for 30 days, stirring daily. At 30 days, begin testing the zest by removing a piece from the mash. If it breaks when bent, the mixture is ready for the next step. If it simply bends, return the mixture to the cool, dark place. Test weekly.

When ready, strain the alcohol and discard the zest. Create a simple syrup by combining the sugar and water in a saucepan over high heat. Stir frequently until sugar dissolves completely. Add the simple syrup to the infused alcohol. Bottle and refrigerate till cold. Limoncello is best stored in the freezer till ready for use.

This recipe is an adaption of the following recipes:

Meyer Lemon Marmalade

18 Meyer lemons, quartered and thinly sliced (~ 6 cups)
5 1/3 cups water
5 1/3 cups sugar

Wash the lemons well, removing any residue. Halve the lemons length-wise twice and slice thinly. Add the lemons and the water to a non-reactive container; let sit for ~24 hours (I used the stainless steel pot in which I'll cook the marmalade). Bring the lemon / water mixture to a boil; boil uncovered until peels are soft, 25-35 minutes. Add the sugar and return to a rapid boil, monitoring temperature with a candy thermometer. When the temperature reaches 220 degrees Fahrenheit, test the mixture to see if it has jelled.

Once ready, ladle into sterilized jars and process. Step by step instructions for preserving high acid foods can be found here. You can download the PDF version by clicking here.

Our recipe is an adaption of the following recipes:

A word on adapting recipes. There's no "formula" per se, just intuition. That said, for these recipes I did put a bit of math behind the comparisons to settle on ingredient amounts. Click here for an example.

Tribute to the 2009 Season

2009-12-14T08:37:00.000-08:00

Here's our tribute to the 2009 season. It's a picture book with a few of our favorite recipes thrown in to the mix. Click here to download for printing or watch in video form below. We've also tagged our favorite entries for the season with 2009 to make them easy to find.

Special thanks to our CSAs:

Two Small Farms
Frog Hollow Farms
Hidden Villa

It has been an amazing, satisfying year!

Thanksgiving Dinner

2009-11-26T22:43:00.000-08:00

WONDERFUL dinner tonight. Thanksgiving with a twist -- Indian food. Not "Indian" as in Pilgrims and Indians, as you might have guessed, but curries, gobi, naan, pakoras, onion bahjis. Appetizers were multicultural and included our third pass at cipollini tartes tatin, this time with red cipollini.

Our dear friends Dave and Judes hosted a fantastic meal, menu as follows:

Prawn Curry
Turkey Curry
Pumpkin and Spinach Curry
Gobi
Brown Rice & Naan

Dessert was spectacular too, chocolate croissant bread pudding and pumpkin pie, compliments of Laura.

Family Heirloom Recipes

2009-11-26T11:42:00.000-08:00

Holidays like Thanksgiving are rich in tradition. Many families repeat the same meal year after year, generation to generation.

One family heirloom recipe from my mother's side is "pink dip". My grandmother, Nonie, made it often and it was a standard part of our holiday meals. It's a chip dip recipe from the 50s that goes incredibly well with salty things, like pretzels and potato chips.

Careful, it is addicting.

Nonie's Pink Dip
Makes just over 2 cups.

4 - 3oz packages of Philadelphia cream cheese at room temperature
2T plus 2t milk
2T plus 2t red french dressing, like Kraft Catalina
1/2 cup ketchup
2t Reese onion juice
1/4t salt

Combine and blend till smooth.

What are your favorite heirloom recipes?

Dr. Weil’s Roasted Winter Squash and Apple Soup

2009-11-14T15:31:00.001-08:00

This week's box contained:

Mystery (carrots)
Arugula
Watermelon Radishes
Purplette Scallions
Beets
Fennel
Purple Cabbage (traded for more beets)
Mystery (pumpkin)
Apples

Hard to believe we've got one week left this season. It has been a fantastic season.

Carrots: baked carrot oven fries. It is that time of year...

Arugula: considering we've got fennel on hand, this arugula will be added to tartines later this week.

Watermelon Radishes: pickled for sure.

Purplette Scallions: likely another batch of Scallion Flatbreads. We made these in September and they were great. Our substitutions are listed here. The recipe makes far more than two people can consume, so we froze the leftovers as a test case. They were fantastic!

Beets: roasted and tossed with balsamic.

Pumpkin: along with squash from past boxes (delicata, Rugosa, and acorn), we roasted the pumpkin to make Dr. Weil’s Roasted Winter Squash and Apple Soup, which was good. The cilantro-walnut-jalapeno pesto included at the same link was amazing.

Apples: into the soup as well as used to make this Apple Walnut Gorgonzola Rustic Tart. ...d.e.c.a.d.e.n.t...

Box Contents November 6, 2009

2009-11-08T20:00:00.000-08:00

This week's box contains:

Leeks
Chantenay Carrots
Romaine Lettuce
Mystery (sweet potatoes)
Curly Parsley
Green Onions
Gold Cipollini Onions
Mystery (apples)

Sadly, only TWO boxes left this season!

Leeks: I finally tried the braised leek recipe from the New York Times. Very flavorful, but a bit rich. Next time I'll cut way back on the olive oil.

Chantenay Carrots: No idea at this point. Maybe carrot fries, maybe some winter veggie stew...

Romaine Lettuce: prepped and ready for a salad, not sure we can actually make ourselves eat it, but...

Sweet Potatoes: I came across a recipe for Butternut Squash Crumble in this week's Boston Globe and made it for lunch Saturday, subbing diced sweet potatoes for the squash recommended. Very tasty! Great the next day too. Highly recommended as a Thanksgiving side dish.

Curly Parsley: with two bunches on hand, I have to go for sauces to freeze. Research on parsley sauces led me to this: Fresh Corn and Shelling Bean Ragou. Another good find. We topped it with gremolata, which was absolutely necessary based on the sweetness of the ragu. The remaining parsley will turn into my favorite pesto.

Green Onions: no idea on these either - maybe into that stew with the carrots...

Gold Cipollini Onions: we made another round of tartes tatin; this time around was not as successful as the last. Recommendation: practice making these before serving them at a party...

Apple: I made this Apple Cake on a whim. Good, but not great. My mom used to make something spicier -- Ozark Apple Cake as I recall. Mom, if you read this please post your recipe...

Individual Cipollini Onion Tartes Tatin

2009-11-01T20:51:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in the last post, I have a great appreciation for "fiddly" food. To me this means a purposeful dish that is visually appealing, elegantly presented, intensely flavored, usually very small and often time intensive to prepare.

The cipollini onions in this week's box were the perfect opportunity to fiddle. A quick Google on "onion tatin" landed me at the Really Nice Recipes web site and, not surprisingly, a really nice recipe to use as a base.

My variations were few, though would make a few more on the next pass. This recipe is definitely a keeper and would make a great first course, a sweet accompaniment to a cheese plate, or an elegant and unique autumn dessert.

Individual Cipollini Onion Tartes Tatin
Serves 6 as a first course

6 cipollini onions, about 3" diameter
1 ounce sugar, ultra fine
1/2t fresh thyme or 1t dried (fresh strongly recommended over dried)
1/4c water
1 sheet puff pastry
parchment paper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and pull puff pastry sheet from freezer to thaw. Next, clean and halve onions, set aside. Cut the parchment into squares, roughly 4" by 4", and arrange on a baking sheet.

Combine sugar, thyme and water in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil and cook until a light caramel has formed; should be the color of honey. Place a small amount of the caramel on each piece of parchment and top with an onion half, cut side down. Bake for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, roll and score the puff pastry, then cut 12 - 3.5" circles using cutters like these from Ateco. Remove the onions from oven and allow to cool. Top each with a circle of puff pastry, tucking the pastry tightly around the onion. Return to the oven and cook for 20 minutes, keeping an eye on the pastry; remove from the oven when it is browned to your liking.

Once out of the oven, invert the tartes and remove the parchment immediately. Allow to cool slightly and enjoy!

These are sweet, so next time around I'd consider a drizzle of aged balsamic vinegar or serving with a small bit of fresh goat cheese.

Braised Greens, Calafia-style

2009-10-31T14:59:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Cipollini Onions
Erbette Chard
Collard Greens
Hungarian Peppers (spicy but not violently so!)
Lettuce (swapped for more squash)
Winter Squash (Delicata)
Cilantro
Mystery (zucchini)

Great box this week. Nothing we won't enjoy and plenty of inspiration.

Cipollini Onions: I have a great appreciation for "fiddly" food. To me this means a purposeful dish that is visually appealing, elegantly presented, intensely flavored, usually very small and often time intensive to prepare. Think amuse bouche or mignardises and you'll understand what I mean. The cipollini onions in this week's box are a perfect opportunity. As soon as I laid eyes on them I knew what to do: individual tartes Tatin. Dedicated entry on this to follow.

Erbette Chard and Collard Greens: One of my favorite local restaurants is Calafia Cafe. They make a veggie side, Braised Greens and Almond Butter, which I get every time we go. The menu description says the dish includes chard, onions, garlic, turmeric, almond butter, mustard seeds, dried cranberries, toasted walnuts and lime juice. Here's my attempt to reproduce it at home:

Braised Greens, Calafia-style
Serves 4

1 small onion, diced
1 large clove garlic, minced
1.5T olive oil
2 bunches of hearty greens (collard, mustard, chard, etc.), cleaned and sliced into ribbons
1/2c water
1/2c golden raisins

1/2c raw almonds
2t brown mustard seeds
1t turmeric
1t salt
1/2t cayenne

Saute the onions and garlic in olive oil over medium heat until translucent. Add the greens, water, and raisins. Cover and allow the greens to braise, stirring occasionally until greens are tender. Add braising liquid, almonds, mustard seeds, turmeric, salt and cayenne to a blender; mix till smooth. Add almond mixture to the greens and mix well. Enjoy!

Hungarian Peppers: following a recommendation from the CSA flyer, we stuffed a few of these with fresh goat cheese and broiled till the peppers were soft and starting to brown. Extremely tasty and actually quite elegant. We still have many more peppers, which I'm dehydrating to create my own half-sharp paprika...

Winter Squash: These squash will sit for a week or two, along with the Rugosa squash from last week, for a soup to be served at a party on the 14th.

Cilantro: something Thai, using up some of the Thai red curry paste we made a few weeks ago.

Zucchini: Honestly, I'm not a big fan of zucchini on its own. It's great in combination, but boring alone. As we have capers in fridge and our Meyer lemon tree is just starting to bear fruit, I'm going for a zucchini piccata. If you're not familiar with it, piccatta is an amazing sauce, here's a good basic recipe, adapted from Epicurious:

Piccata Sauce

2T salted butter
1T olive oil
2T dry white wine
1.5T fresh Meyer lemon juice
1.5T capers, drained and chopped
2T minced fresh parsley leaves
1T Meyer lemon zest

Add the butter and olive oil to a saute pan, heat till butter foams and begins to color. Add whatever it is you are saucing (in our case tonight it was zucchini) to the pan and saute till lightly browned; remove from pan and set aside. Deglaze pan with wine and lemon juice, add capers, zest, and parsley. Toss with zucchini and serve.

Carrot Ginger Pots de Creme

2009-10-26T21:19:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

San Marzano Tomatoes
Red Beets
Yellow Carrots
Rugosa Squash
Romaine and Red Butter Lettuce
Leeks
Apples
Mystery (baby zucchini)

San Marzano Tomatoes: No question these will go into another batch of oven roasted tomatoes for snacking. They are a fantastic condiment; my favorite is adding them on top of pita and hummus.

Red Beets: Roasted and tossed with balsamic vinegar.

Yellow Carrots: As I've mentioned over the past few weeks, the carrots are stacking up. We now have three and a half pounds waiting... We will certainly make baked carrot fries and some form of carrot soup, my absolute favorite recipe can be found here. We also decided to try a carrot custard, to warm-up (pun intended) our pots de creme muscles for the winter season.

Carrot Ginger Pots de Creme
Serves 8

1 pound carrots
1x2" piece of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
3 cups milk, half and half, or heavy cream (or a mixture)
1t salt
6 egg yolks

Bring milk/cream mixture to a simmer, add ginger slices, cover and remove from heat. Let sit for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, clean and trim carrots (peel if desired) and slice. Boil until tender in a small amount of salted water; drain and mash, then set aside. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, mix yolks and salt until integrated but not foamy. Add mashed carrots and mix well. Strain milk/cream mixture to remove sliced ginger; slowly whisk into the carrot mixture.

Divide the custard among eight pots de creme cups and cover with lids. Set the cups in a baking dish and add hot water to the baking dish to reach halfway up the sides of the cups. Bake in the center of the oven for 40 minutes, but watch carefully. Ovens vary and you may need to cook for more or less time; you want the edges set, but the custard should still be trembling in the center.

Remove from oven and allow the custard to fully set before serving, about 15 minutes. These can be made ahead of time and served warm or at room temperature.

A lighter, yet similar, recipe for carrot custard can be found here.

Rugosa Squash: this is one homely piece of fruit. It looks like a large, withered butternut squash. I'll likely halve, seed, bake and peel it, freezing the roasted flesh for future use.

Romaine and Butter Lettuce: I'm still not a lettuce fan. Hoping to pass the romaine onto my friend Teresa and to use the butter lettuce in an apple/walnut salad.

Leeks: We used the leeks from last week in a Pasta e Fagioli, so still waiting to try the NYT Braised Leeks recipe.

Apples: We'll either eat these out of hand or attempt this Apple Walnut Gorgonzola Tart.

Zucchini: I see a Pasta Primavera in our future...

The Dinner After ... Nike Women's Marathon

2009-10-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

The Nike Women's Marathon was not easy, but that was not a surprise based on my training for this race. I firmly believe anyone can run a marathon if they train for it... I did not follow my normal training schedule and did not have a normal experience. That said, there were many things to appreciate today:

The TNT volunteers are truly amazing. Favorite vignettes include the coach with the "free, performance enhancing hugs" sign on his back -- every one ran up to this guy for a positive reinforcement, coach walking hand in hand with a struggling participant, and the mentor at mile 18 with the sign that said "only 8 miles left". I have never seen a group of people so interested in supporting others through a positive, perhaps once in a lifetime experience....
TNT participants. I was constantly inspired by the participants, either their commitment to run for someone they loved and lost (or hoped to keep) or their sheer strength in surviving a blood cancer followed by living to run a marathon so that others have a better chance of surviving too.
Personal Bests. Big smiles every time I saw someone "labeled" as a first time marathoner. Lots of people had some notation to that effect. Good for them. :)
Gorgeous course. I thought this was harder than the SF Marathon (http://www.runsfm.com). I missed the Golden Gate bridge, but loved the ocean facing parts of the course and appreciated the semi-secluded, peaceful lap around Lake Merced for miles 19-23.

Calafia saved the day with an excellent dinner:

Vegan Love Fest Pizza as a shared appetizer
Barley Corn Salad
Braised Greens with Almond Butter

Nike Women's Marathon Pre-race Meal

2009-10-17T20:27:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Acorn Squash
Red Chard
Orange Carrots
Tomatoes
French Fingerling Potatoes
Red Cabbage
Celery
Tokyo Market Turnips

Tomorrow I run the Nike Women's Marathon. Given my half-hearted training this time, I actually plan to run/walk the entire race. Regardless, its 26.2 miles and does take a decent meal the night before to set one up for successful completion of the distance. The tradition is a "pasta feed" -- a meal for race participants consisting of pasta, meat sauce, and garlic bread. A lot of carbohydrates and a little bit of fat and protein, along with plenty of water. My dinner tonight was French fingerling potatoes, roasted with Piment d'Espelette and Nicolau Farms Chevre. For breakfast tomorrow it's a double serving of McCann's Irish Oatmeal, steel cut, with marmalade.

My plan for most of the rest of the vegetables is to make a large batch of Minestrone soup, tossing in the leeks from last week, carrots, turnips, celery, onions, red chard, and perhaps some tomatoes.

There continues to be a mounting pile of both carrots and red cabbage. Ideas welcomed ... especially for the cabbage.

Thai Curry Paste

2009-10-10T17:27:00.000-07:00

This week's box contained:

Salad Mix (left in swap box)
Bunched Leeks
Strawberries
Mei Quin Choy
San Marzano Tomatoes
Onions
Bunched Orange Carrots
Bag of Poblano, Jalapeno and Serrano Peppers

Leeks: My favorite way to eat leeks is braised in cream - absolutely decadent. However, I now generally eat vegan unless I have no other option. A bit of Googling uncovered some viable options:

New York Times: Braised Leeks
Epicurious: Braised Leeks with Lemon

Strawberries: Cleaned and frozen for smoothies.

Mei Quin Choy: This will definitely go into a Thai curry given the sauce now on hand!

San Marzano Tomatoes: Paninis for lunch today, with roasted fennel, white bean pate, and oven-roasted tomatoes.

Onions: We'll just keep these on hand for general cooking.

Bunched Carrots:; There's a backlog of carrots on hand now. Some will go into a vegetable curry with the Mei Quin Choy and the coconut curry sauce, the rest will likely go into carrot-ginger soup.

Chili Peppers: All the peppers went into a Thai curry paste, loosely adapted from Chat Mingkwan's recipe in Buddha's Table.

Thai Curry Paste
Makes about 2 cups

12 serrano chiles, chopped
4 jalapeno chiles, chopped
5 poblano chiles, chopped
2T whole coriander seeds
1t ground cumin
2t whole black peppercorns
1 7oz jar Thai Taste prepared lemongrass
6T shallots, chopped
2t Ginger People candied ginger puree
5 large garlic cloves
3T Thai Taste prepared galangal
2T Thai Taste prepared kaffir lime leaves
2t salt
1/4c water

Add all ingredients and blend well.

This curry paste is hot. I froze most of it in an ice cube tray for future use. I combined the remainder, about 1/2 cup, with a 14 ounce can of coconut milk and 2T candied ginger puree to make a curry sauce.

Parmesan Corn Risotto Cakes

2009-10-03T20:55:00.000-07:00

For dinner tonight, we took inspiration from my friend Karen. Given that we started cooking at 7pm, we skipped making the cakes and went right for the risotto, topping it with some homemade salsa.

Parmesan Corn Risotto Cakes
from Karen at Promoting Central Indiana's Local Food Culture

Fresh Corn Stock:
4 ears fresh corn kernels removed and reserved
1 yellow onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves crushed
2 bay leaves
Few sprigs fresh oregano, parsley, thyme
1 tsp. black peppercorns
2 tsp. coarse salt
8 c. cold water

Place stock ingredients into a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and simmer, partially covered for 45 minutes. Strain and keep warm (you will need 4-5 cups in total for this recipe).

Risotto Cakes:
1 T. butter
1 T. olive oil
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. Arborio rice
2 c. fresh corn
1 c. white wine (optional)
1 c. grated Parmesan cheese
1 c. fine cornmeal (I have made these with and without these ingredient - just depends on how "crispy" you like these)

Heat butter and olive oil in a large heavy saucepan and sauté onion and garlic until translucent. Add the rice and cook stirring until the rice is well coated. Add the corn, season with salt and sauté several minutes. Pour in the wine and simmer until absorbed. Now start adding warm corn stock, one cup at a time. Keep stirring and add the next cup of stock only when most of the liquid is absorbed and the rice looks creamy. When the rice is tender but the grains still lightly firm to the bite remove risotto from the heat and stir in the Parmesan cheese. Season to taste and spread the risotto into a baking pan to speed cooling. Cover and refrigerate. The recipe can be prepared up to this point one or two days in advance.

To sauté the cakes, form the risotto into round cakes and dredge in cornmeal. Fry in hot olive oil until golden and crispy on both sides.

The risotto was fantastic and paired incredibly well with the salsa. Formed into cakes and fried as Karen recommends, this would make an amazing first course.

Box Contents October 3, 2009

2009-10-03T11:25:00.000-07:00

This week's box contained:

Basil
Red Beets
Butternut Winter Squash (traded for additional tomatoes and cayenne peppers)
Tomatoes
Spicy Cayenne Peppers
Fennel
Carrots
Fingerling Potatoes
Mystery (Strawberries)

Basil: quickly made into a batch of pesto, in combination with several bunches of chives I had on hand from last week's box.

Red Beets: roasted and tossed with salt and balsamic vinegar.

Tomatoes: given that I traded the butternut squash for additional tomatoes and cayenne peppers, I had a lot of tomatoes on hand -- several pounds. Sauce is easier to preserve than whole tomatoes and there was no way we'd eat that many, so I decided to try Easy Oven-Roasted Tomato Sauce from the Bitten Word blog. I used the remaining red Tropea onions from the September 25th box and a bunch of oregano from the August 28th box. I was shocked to find the oregano was still fresh; again, Evert-Fresh Bags to the rescue.

Cayenne Peppers: I'd never seen a cayenne pepper before. With two bunches on hand and plenty of dried cayenne pepper powder in the pantry, I decided to make hot sauce.

Cayenne Pepper Sauce
18-20 Cayenne peppers, sliced
1t granulated garlic
1t salt
2c distilled white vinegar
1 16oz wide mouth canning jar, with lid

Sterilize the canning jar, keep warm. Meanwhile, prepare the peppers and bring the vinegar to a boil. Add salt and granulated garlic the canning jar. Fill each jar with the sliced peppers, tightly packed. Top the jar with the boiling vinegar, leaving 1/2 inch head space. Seal the jar and process following the steps for canning high-acid food.

Fennel: roasted with lemon zest, salt and olive oil. We'll either use this on a sandwich or to top a salad.

Carrots: these will hold, so decided to let them sit.

Fingerling Potatoes: roasted and tossed with dill pesto.

Strawberries: cleaned, hulled, and frozen.

Giardiniera - Italian Pickled Vegetables

2009-09-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

More cauliflower this week, and a large head at that... I decided to try preserving it rather than working it into several days worth of meals. After a bit of research, I stumbled upon Giardinera. My recipe is a hybrid of these two: Italian Pickled Vegetables and Hot Italian Giardiniera.

Giardinera
Makes 5 pints

10 cups vegetables, diced
2t red pepper flakes
2t Italian herbs
1.25t black peppercorns per pint jar
5T extra virgin olive oil per pint jar
2 cups white wine vinegar, plus extra to top jars
2 cups water
5 - 1 pint canning jars, plus lids and bands

Brine the vegetables overnight, drain. Combine the red pepper flakes, Italian herbs, white wine vinegar, and water in a sauce pan; bring to a boil. Fill the canning jars with the diced vegetables leaving 1/2" headroom; add 1/2t black peppercorns and 1T olive oil to each jar. Top with vinegar mixture, leaving 1/2" headroom. Follow the process for canning high acid foods.

I used purple cauliflower, red bell peppers, orange carrots and red Tropea onions. While the color of the vegetables bled together, the flavor was excellent.

Box Contents September 26, 2009

2009-09-26T13:54:00.000-07:00

This week's box contained:

Red Tropea Onions
Delicata Squash
Yellow Carrots
Chives
Watermelon Radishes
Salad Mix (traded for additional squash)
Cabbage
Ruby Crescent Fingerling Potatoes

Red Tropea Onions: Before researching just what these onions were, I started a batch of giardiniera. I was able to incorporate the purple cauliflower from last week's box, a large red bell pepper and several orange carrots I had on hand, as well as the 3 largest Tropea onions. I wish I'd waited, as it seems these onions are really special. With those that remain (and others if I'm lucky enough to find them at the farmer's market tomorrow), I'm going to make a batch of red onion marmalade.

Radishes: I still had a bunch of radishes hanging around in the fridge from at least 6 weeks ago. Radishes are pretty sturdy, but I have to thank the Evert-Fresh bags for these still being viable. With so many of them, I decided to make sweet radish pickles. These pickles are great on their own and incredible tossed in a spicy stir fry, such as this Warm Mustard Green and Barley Salad.

Sweet Radish Pickles
2 bunches radishes, quartered
2 cups rice wine vinegar (unseasoned)
1.5 cups sugar
1T salt
2-3" piece of fresh ginger, cut into matchsticks
6 half-pint wide mouth canning jars

Clean and quarter the radishes, working for a consistent size. Toss radishes with salt and place in a colander to drain for 30 minutes (do not rinse). Bring vinegar and sugar to a boil, simmer till sugar is dissolved. Meanwhile, cut ginger into matchsticks and prepare the canning jars.

Divide the radishes and ginger matchsticks into the prepared canning jars leaving .5" headroom. As the actual number of jars needed will vary, completely fill one at a time. Pour the hot pickling liquid over the radishes, again, leaving .5" headroom. Process the pickles following the steps for canning high acid foods.

Potatoes: I diced and roasted the potatoes, then topped them with Soy Vay Wasabi Teriyaki. The six pack I ordered arrived this week and is proving to be a great sauce to have on hand.

No inspiration yet for the cabbage, squash, chives or carrots...

Wasabi Teriyaki

2009-09-20T22:36:00.000-07:00

Short on time and in need of a marinade for veggie kabobs, I stumbled across Soy Vay's Wasabi Teriyaki
at Whole Foods today. This sauce is amazing!

I marinated the following for about 2 hours, assembled the skewers, then grilled the kebobs:

zucchini
white button mushrooms
eggplant
tofu
red bell peppers
yellow onions

My only regret is that I didn't buy two bottles, reserving one for dipping sauce. So easy and extremely flavorful. There is a bit of heat from the wasabi, but subtle enough that the kids in the crowd did not seem to notice.

I just ordered a six-pack of "wasabiyaki". The first dish I have in mind is warm soba noodles with shredded carrot and cucumber...

Abundance of the Seasons

2009-09-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Scallions
Basil
Purple Cauliflower
Romaine Lettuce
Mystery (Strawberries)
Gold Beets
San Marzano Tomatoes
Garnet Yams

We still have serrano chiles on hand, not to mention one poblano and one Corno di Toro Rosso. Grand total on the beets now at lucky 13...

This is the time of year where the harvest means so many things. As the seasons change, at least where we live, there are traditional summer favorites and early fall vegetables readily available. As we depend on the weekly box for a majority of the food we eat, we work with what we have on hand. I usually look for interesting combinations, an ethnic twist, or depend on Googling for inspiration. Today's box offered many possible paths; here's what I did:

Scallions: some of the scallions were used for dinner tonight in the form of grilled scallion flat breads. I made the following substitutes: Bob's Red Mill whole wheat pastry flour for all purpose flour and light sesame oil for generic vegetable oil, keeping the total oil at 3T, with 1.5T light and 1.5T dark sesame oil. We also grilled vs. pan frying. These were fantastic -- an excellent side for any Chinese meal, minus the rice. The rest of the scallions may find their way into risotto later this week.

Basil: another batch of my favorite pesto for the freezer.

Purple Cauliflower: prepped for use later this week, by cleaning and cutting into florets. Click here for my all time favorite cauliflower recipe.

Romaine Lettuce: honestly, I tossed it right along with the wilting salad mix from last week. We are just not a salad eaters. A better options would have been to leave them both in the swap box so at least someone could have eaten them...

Strawberries: cleaned, hulled and halved then added to the bag of frozen fruit that I use for smoothies. My tried and true smoothie recipe is as follows:

Breakfast Smoothies
Serves 1

1c frozen fruit
1c low fat, unsweetened soy milk
2c water
2 scoops Vega Smoothie Infusion

Add all ingredients to the Vita-Mix
and blend well.

Gold Beets: roasted and pickled; gold beets for immediate consumption following this recipe. I thought these were winners, Sean thought they tasted like dirt -- he's just not a beet eater. The red beets on hand were prepped for long term storage following this recipe. I made the following substitutes: Penzey's Premium Pickling Spice for the caraway and mustard seed and Cyprus Black Lava Sea Salt
for pickling salt.

Tomatoes: with further inspiration from my friend Karen, of Promoting Central Indiana's Local Food Culture, we made some salsa to freeze following this recipe. Freezing salsa had never occurred to me until Karen and I spoke Friday, but I'm willing to give it a go. Since Karen and Thom eat locally all year, they've figured out quite a bit about what works and what doesn't. See the story of their first "local" year here.

Garnet Yams: roasted. My appreciation for the humble potato continues. Today I reached for warm spices and complementary oils, in this case light and dark sesame.

Roasted Yams with Chinese Five Spice
Serves 4

garnet yams (~2 pounds), diced
1T sesame oil (half light, half dark)
1t Chinese Five Spice
1t salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Clean and dice yams, toss with oil, salt and spices. Roast for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Box Contents September 9, 2009

2009-09-12T20:36:00.000-07:00

This week's box contains:

Canteloupe
Early Girl Tomatoes
Serrano Peppers
Corn
Sugar Pie Pumpkin
Salad Mix
Potatoes
Fennel
Strawberries

This week's share proved to be fairly easy to consume. We've the cantaloupe, tomatoes, and strawberries were eaten out of hand and the potatoes and fennel roasted. I also roasted the pumpkin and frozen the flesh for future use.

The corn and the serrano peppers are another matter. We've got too much of both.

My friend Karen of Promoting Central Indiana's Local Food Culture recommended a way to preserve the corn for use in winter. The steps are simple enough - clean the corn, blanch it, then shock it in an ice water bath. Karen recommends vacuum sealing the corn with something like the FoodSaver to avoid freezer burn.

Sounded like a simple plan. I got five ears of corn ready to go and waited for the water to boil.

You can imagine my surprise when I returned to the kitchen to blanch the corn and found two ears of corn. A quick scan of the house solve the mystery. Sam, our rescue beagle, at three ears of corn, cob and all.

Peppers into Hot Sauce

2009-09-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, we've got quite a few peppers on hand. Today Renee offered a few more, bringing the total Anaheim count to 18. There's also a few poblanos, Corno di Toro Rossos, jalapenos and standard bells.

Anaheim peppers are those often sold as "green chiles" by companies like Ortega. Canning them was an option, but since we don't regularly use green chiles it was not a good option.

One thing we have used quite a bit lately is hot sauce. Two favorites are Cholula and Tabasco. How hard could it be to make hot sauce from Anaheim peppers?

Turns out, not difficult at all...

A quick bit of research pointed towards a basic formula that we adapted as described below.

Anaheim Pepper Sauce
18 Anaheim peppers, seeded and sliced
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and sliced
1.5t granulated garlic
1.5t salt
5c distilled white vinegar
3 16oz wide mouth canning jars, with lids

Sterilize the canning jars and set aside to cool. Meanwhile, prepare the peppers and bring the vinegar to a boil. Add 1/2t salt and 1/2t granulated garlic to each of the canning jars. Fill each jar with the sliced peppers, lightly packed. Top each jar with the boiling vinegar, leaving 1/2 inch head space. Seal the jars and process following the steps for canning high-acid food.

The pepper sauce should be ready in 3 weeks -- stay tuned.

Peppers into Pipérade

2009-09-05T09:17:00.000-07:00

This week's box includes:

Chantenay Carrots
Romaine Lettuce (I left this in the swap box)
White Cauliflower
Mystery (bell peppers)
Delicata Squash
Big Bunch Dried Onions
San Marzano Tomatoes

On hand from last week we still have Anaheim peppers, oregano, sweet potatoes, rapini, and red beets. On top of that we have collard greens, fennel bulbs, torpedo onions, beet greens, golden beets, and an ear of corn. Lotsa food.

When faced with a backlog, I typically start with my least favorite vegetable and research recipes that include it, and other veggies in the pile. This week it was nearly a peck of peppers.

The name of a favorite local restaurant, p i p e r a d e, was my inspiration. A quick Google of "piperade recipes" set the course. Pipérade is a Basque dish based on peppers, onions and tomatoes -- three of the ingredients I had on hand. Score! What makes it special is the addition of Piment d'Espelette, a chili powder made from a pepper indigenous to Espelette, a commune in the very south-western part of France. These peppers are so special, the French protect them with an Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC), much like wine other regional products.

Here's what we came up with, adding Anaheim's to the mix as a part of working through the backlog.

Pipérade
Serves 4

2T olive oil
2 bell peppers, seeded and julienned
2 Anaheim peppers, seeded and julienned
1 medium onion, julienned
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 San Marzano tomatoes, seeded and julienned
1t salt
1/4t pepper
1t Piment d'Espelette or paprika, half sharp

Heat oil in large saucepan over high heat. Saute peppers, onion, garlic, salt and pepper till vegetables are cooked through. Add tomatoes and Piment d'Espelette, mix well and cook until tomatoes "melt" and form a sauce.

Pipérade is a truly flexible sauce. Sean used some over eggs, a classic combination, and added some fresh goat cheese. I opted to top roast sweet potatoes with this flavorful, spicy sauce. I could see Pipérade used as a sandwich topping, as the base of a soup, as a simple condiment.

For those at a loss for what to do with an overabundance of bell peppers, this is an excellent option.

Queijo Fresco Tostada

2009-08-30T13:31:00.001-07:00

I brought home a tub of Nicolau Farms Queijo Fresco ("fresh cheese") from the Mountain View Farmer's Market today. This queijo fresco is made from goat milk and is perfectly salted. Looking for a quick lunch, and to use up ingredients on hand, we decided on tostadas.

When you think about it, tostadas are a lot like tartines, with tortillas used in place of bread. Here's what we came up with:

Queijo Fresco Tostadas
Serves 2

4 corn tortillas
4 oz queijo fresco
1/2 c tomatillo salsa
1c cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/2 c white onion, minced
1/2 Anaheim pepper, finely diced

Spread queijo fresco on tortillas and place on a baking sheet; broil till cheese is bubbly and slightly brown. Top tortillas with salsa, tomatoes, onions and peppers. Olé!

One potato, two potato, three potato, four...

2009-08-29T18:26:00.000-07:00

This week's box contained:

San Marzano Tomatoes
Oregano
Garnet Sweet Potatoes
Mystery (Anaheim Peppers)
Rapini
Red Beets
Potatoes (Mixed)
Strawberries

What caught my interest was the potatoes. Two types in this week's box and a third type still on hand from the box two weeks back.

I love eating potatoes. As you can see below, so does Sam. Having spent a few years in the low carb mindset, I always think twice when I get the urge. Potatoes are extremely versatile and can be amazingly satisfying, even prepared simply. But are they "worth" eating from the nutritional perspective? I did a bit of research...

Turns out potatoes are nutritious, sufficiently so that “Humans can subsist healthily on a diet of potatoes and milk; the latter supplies Vitamin A and Vitamin D.” [1] Potatoes are starchy, but their glycemic load is manageable, they are a good source of fiber, protein, potassium, vitamin C, fiber, and a bevy of phytochemicals. The urban legend about all the nutrition being contained in the skins is not true; most nutrients are evenly distributed throughout the potato. They are easy to grow in a number of climates. Not that one would thrive on a diet of potatoes and milk alone or would choose this path, but it should be no surprise that potatoes are heros in some parts of the world.

Interestingly, potatoes -- along with tobacco, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers -- are members of the nightshade family, which can be toxic to humans. It is true that green potatoes are poisonous, though you'd have to eat quite a few to feel any ill effects. Other interesting potato facts include:

Potatoes are the forth largest food crop worldwide.
The United Nations named 2008 the “International Year of the Potato”
The average person, again worldwide, eats 73 pounds of potatoes a year.
There are over 5,000 varieties of potatoes, all seeming to genetically originate from southern Peru.

Visit the following sites for more info on the mighty potato, including recipes:

Centro Internacional de la Papa (International Potato Center)
Nutrition Data on red potatoes, raw, with skin
Washington State Potato Foundation (love the URL: http://www.potatoes.com/)
Idaho Potato Commission
Colorado Potato Administrative Committee

Or the following books:

Needless to say, I decided to indulge. Lunch today was pesto potatoes, as follows:

Pesto Potatoes
Serves 2 as main, 4 as side

1 pound new potatoes, 1" dice
2T olive oil
1t salt
prepared pesto

Preheat oven to 425f. Toss potatoes with salt, then olive oil, and spread on a parchment covered baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, stir. Bake for another 15 minutes and remove from the oven. Stir in pesto, mix well and enjoy!

[1] Wikipedia, Potato, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato (August 2009).

A Visit to the Farm

2009-08-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

We had the unique opportunity to visit Frog Hollow Farm a couple weeks ago out in Brentwood. It was interesting to see exactly where the delicious peaches, nectarines and other fruits we've enjoyed in our CSA box come from. We wandered the orchard, met the farm dog and listened to Farmer Al answer questions and tell us about his experiences in organic farming over the last 30+ years. There were many direct, hard hitting questions asked and answered. I wasn't surprised by any of the answers, I am a trusting person, some would say naive.

Strolling around we saw olive, quince, pomegranate, and citrus trees. Things Frog Hollow isn't known for, yet.

We ate a delicious lunch prepared by Curt Clingman and Mary Jo Thoreson using produce locally sourced from farms such as Dirty Girl, Riverdog and Happy Boy and a whole pasture-raised pig from Marin Sun Farms roasted over a spit.

We came home with a one pound bag of dried apricots. Before we left, Brad joked with our table mates that it is shocking how fast we will finish off the bag. They're gone.

It was nice to put faces with names and to meet the people responsible for our weekly CSA box. I look forward to a long relationship with Frog Hollow Farm.