CSA Week 2

Here's what's in the box this week:

Mixed Salad greens

Cilantro

Garlic scapes

Hakurei turnips with greens

Strawberries 

Spinach (went to my box-mate)

Vinaigrette (went to my box-mate)

Cut to obligatory salad picture. I am happy to report that there will likely be many pictures of salads to come! I added the cilantro to the salad greens and used the cilantro to make a cilantro-lime dressing (left over green garlic pesto, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, cilantro, juice of a lime, agave). The salad has pickled rhubarb, lactofermented green beans, white beans, turnips and tuna. 

I braised the turnip greens and turnips separately. The greens got a quick wash and chop, to the pan I added fat (I recently confit-ed chicken thighs, so I used that flavorful fat), some roasted garlic, and the washed greens. The beans in the salad I cooked from dry, so I added the pot liquor (aka bean cooking liquid - which, if your are going to store your beans for any time period, store them in the liquid, they will last much longer) as my braising liquid. Cook until your liquid has evaporated and the greens are tender. Once cooked, these can go in anything - for me, it made an appearance in my breakfast eggs with the green garlic butter...oh so good!

The turnips were braised with the garlic scapes. I used my pot liquor again in place of the stock. These turnips are Japanese in origin and raw taste like my mother's favorite veggie - kohlrabi. Braised like this, they are tender and sweet. http://www.threelilyfarm.com/blog/braised-hakurei-turnips 

CSA Week 1

I have been away for a few months, and I am sorry about that. My laptop has taken a dive and I have yet to replace it - don't really need one with an iPad and iPhone and work computer, etc. But it does make blogging a bit difficult. Well, since the CSA has started again, I will try to be better about posting more often - don't feel like you all are the only ones being ignored, the spice challenge didn't work out too well either. Will try to incorporate more spices in my CSA this time around...

I started with a different CSA this year - this one is from Fertile Grounds (http://fertilegroundscsa.com/). They start the season off earlier than my last CSA and they have pick ups right up the street from the clinic I volunteer at on my volunteer days, match made in heaven! They don't do half shares, so I am sharing a full share with a co-worker.

What's in the box this week:
spring mix
easter egg radish
rhubarb
green garlic
green garlic pesto

The CSA was nice enough to send notice of what they were stocking in the box, so I was planning on making green garlic pesto, but since that was included in the box (and I'm still working on my batches of pesto from last summer), I decided to make green garlic butter. I had 3 stalks of green garlic, so ended up tripling a recipe I found from the New York Times. Most of it was put in the freezer and I am planning to use it on a shrimp pasta later this week, but it is just wonderful on warm bread and in eggs!! http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017437-green-garlic-toast

The pesto was incorporated into a salad dressing for the greens and radishes (oil, red wine vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, agave). I also added it to my morning eggs before I made the green garlic butter. Green garlic is baby garlic - when the farmer plants all the garlic in the winter, they are not totally sure what will and will not come up in the spring, so they over plant. Then they need to thin out the beds and thus, you get green garlic. It looks a lot like a green or spring onion but garlicy.

I'm a huge fan of rhubarb. I was so excited about spring that I made a big batch of strawberry rhubarb sauce 2 weeks ago when the rhubarb started showing up at my local farm stand, so this time around I wanted to try something different and I found a recipe for pickled rhubarb. Not quite sure how I'm going to use it now that it is pickled - it may just be eaten alone or incorporated into my salads. http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/05/quick-pickled-rhubarb-lemongrass-ginger-recipe.html

Curry Powder Part 1

Since I have so many different curry powders, I thought I would start there. Did you know that curry powder is a British invention? When the English took over India, they loved the spiced dishes but wanted a spice mix to approximate these dishes. When a true Indian curry uses separate spices to make the whole dish. Tikka Masala isn't even a true Indian dish - it's English. Anyway....I have curry powder to be used. All I know is that it is labeled 'hot'. 

Looking though my recipes, I found a chicken curry in the crock pot. 

This is a little different than the curries I think about - no coconut. The mix is curry powder, garlic, vinegar, salt, pepper. Also should have fresh ginger but I was out, so I added a touch of ground. I also have some nice scallions that I added. Everyone into the pot for 8 hours. 

Turns out very tender, of course, and easily shredable. Add some rice (flavored with a rice spice) and pickled red onion. 

Another use I have found for curry powder is roasted chickpeas. These I cooked from dry but you can use canned that are well rinsed. Toss in oil and put into a 400 degree oven for 30-40 min. Then toss in the powder. 

The 2015 Spice Challenge

Starting to unearth a work space in my new kitchen after moving so I am now starting on my 6 month adventure to use all my weird spices. First up, something easy - salad dressing

Yes, unfortunately I am sitting at my desk at work... Tells you how busy I have been lately. 

This dressing is my standard one - roasted garlic, red wine vinegar (homemade, will discuss in a future post), olive oil, mustard. It all goes in the Magic Bullet with the whipping blade. My ratio of oil to vinegar is on the tart side, so I usually have more vinegar than oil. I added Turkish salad dressing seasoning to taste - it ended up being a teaspoon for about 4 large salad's with of dressing. I actually have 2 different seasonings, so will have to make more dressing and compare. 

New Year, New Place

It's been a while since my last post. My computer was on the fritz then we got into the holidays and well, I just got out of the habit of blogging. I was doing pretty good there for a while, hoping to get to it most weeks this year (a continuation of my resolution for last year). One of the things that has been keeping me busy of late is that my landlord informed me right after the first of the year that she's giving up the house. Lots of drama there and frankly I'm glad to be out of the place soon - the smoking, the wonky washer, the running toilet! I think I will be MUCH happier in the new place. Here are some pictures!

Look at all that counter space!!

Much more open concept and the dreaded desk (which is currently in the hallway of my old place) will fit! Success!

One thing I have learned about myself is that apparently, I am a spice hoarder. You will see below that I have three (count, them 3!!) reusable grocery bags of spices. Now to be fair, the blue bag has 2 bins of bags of spices, so that's not too much and the insulated bag has my box of herbs/spices for bitters. So I guess it isn't really that much (the rationalization of a true hoarder)...

After packing it all up, I vowed that I was going to go through it all. There has to be duplicates, right?

As it turns out, not really that many duplicates. Oye. As any good, OCD, pharmacist, I made a list of the weirder spices that I have and gave myself a deadline of using everything at least once in 6 months. If I don't, then it is getting thrown away. I'm sure some of it isn't even good anymore, I mean some of those spices are from when I lived in Tucson (which was almost 4 years ago). There is some sentimental attachment to most of these though - spices I brought back from Bali (anyone know what to do with black chilly?), lemongrass and galangal powder from the Indonesian Super Bowl party my mom, aunt Lora and I threw, Turkish salad seasoning and curries from when my mom went to Turkey, Indian curry from when she went to India, my friend Ravi's dad's special home mixed garam masala he brought back for an Indian dinner party, chile from Tucson, the list goes on an on.

I am so looking forward to breaking in my new kitchen using all of these spices! Will keep you all posted how it goes along the way.

CSA Week 12

In the box:

Kale

Bok choy

Potatoes

Kabocha squash

Tomatoes 

Brussels sprouts

Spaghetti squash

Eggplant

Peppers

Onions

Extras: 

Cabbage (2)

Pepper

Hot peppers

Recipes:

Smothered cabbage soup

Potato, cabbage, kielbasa soup

Warm lentil salad with roasted acorn squash 

Pasta alla Norma (America's Test Kitchen)

Roasted Brussels sprouts (repeat from Week 10)

Wasabi salmon with bok choy and cabbage

Masamba (African greens and potatoes)

Wasabi salmon. I had salmon burgers in the freezer and a deep desire to not go to the store on Friday, so salmon burgers it was. I also could not find shitaki mushrooms, so I used baby bellas. This was very good - the veggies were light and the wasabi mayo was a nice way to cut the richness of the salmon.

Here are a few dishes that don't have all that much color but the flavor....yum. This is a recipe I saw on Food Network, a warm lentil salad with roasted acorn squash. The dressing is somewhat like a green goddess - lots of fresh herbs in a vinegarette then add in yogurt, perfect. The recipe made a lot and I thought I would be sick of it but I've eaten it every day for lunch and am still happy for it.

Another not so colorful soup. This is smothered cabbage soup with rice. So simple and yet the flavor is rich and delicious. You add butter and cheese at the end, just perfect for a cold fall day.

Kielbasa, potato and cabbage soup. If you haven't guessed, I had a lot of cabbage to use up. The recipe called for lager beer but all I had was Guinness (yes, still from St Patty's), so I was a little concerned that it might not turn out that well, but I didn't have to worry. I did add in the whole bottle of beer (it called for room temp beer and only 1 cup, ummm no, that's all going into the pot). Also it called for 2cups of passata (a fresh tomato puree popular in English cooking) but the jar I had was 3 cups, so in it all went. In all, it was pretty quick and would make a pretty quick weeknight dinner.

Pasta alla Norma. A recipe from America's Test Kitchen. They do an interesting trick where they par cook the eggplant in the microwave. I think it worked pretty well (I usually don't mess with the ATK recipes, they test them 100s of times, why mess with all that work?). Although I didn't have anchovy so I used bacon fat....probably not the most direct comparison, but it was pretty tasty!

On the docket this week is finish the recipes out with the brussel sprouts and the kale/potato side dish. Will probably get to it Wednesday or so. I keeping the winter squash around for a few weeks - the box will be ending in about 7 weeks, so I think I can keep these around and use the veggies that will spoil faster first. 

Update:

The roasted Brussels sprouts with garlic aioli surfaces again. I am not ashamed to admit that this was my breakfast on Saturday :)

Masamba- African potatoes and greens (in this case, kale). It's amazing that you can make such a complex sauce with salsa and peanut butter. Really good. Of course, I couldn't resist putting fried eggs on top for breakfast this morning.

CSA Week 10

Sorry for the late post. It's been pretty busy around my house since I just got back from my major test and a much needed vacation. Most of the recipes were for my veggie box friend's going away party. So for the next boxes I will be on my own. **tear**

Here's what's in the box this week:

Zucchini

Cabbage

Onions

Potatoes

Acorn squash

Butternut squash

Spaghetti squash

Brussels sprouts

Bell pepper

Eggplant

Recipes:
Pumpkin Pie Bars
Pan roasted potatoes
Zucchini bread with whipped feta
Parmesan Zucchini
Roasted Eggplant dip
Brussel sprout Colcannon cups
Pesto Spaghetti Squash Crostini
Crispy Brussel Sprouts with Garlic Aioli

I used the butternut squash instead of the canned pumpkin. I first roasted it until it was tender. With the canned squash, it is pretty much like a dump cake - you dump all the ingredients into the pan and cook. Tastes just like an upside down pumpkin pie and super easy.

yum, yum, yum

These were a quick weekend breakfast. I took a page from America's Test Kitchen and precooked the potatoes in the microwave. I then put them in the hot pan and didn't disturb them (that's my biggest problem, I can't leave them alone!) Add some fried eggs and a delicious breakfast was had.

America's Test Kitchen zucchini bread...again. this really is the best recipe - they featured it on their radio show recently, so I think you can find the recipe on their website. www.atkradio.com 

I decided to pair the sweet bread with the salty whipped feta cheese dip. The mix was sooo delicious. This dip is really good - veggies and crackers alike are wonderful with this on it. 

Now I wish I had more zucchini - this was so good. Even at room temp, it was perfect. Not sure how it would be reheated, but I don't think we had that problem!

The roasted eggplant dip comes out again. This time I had a red pepper, so it's a different color than last time, just as good. 

The brussel sprout colcannon just sounded delicious. It was a recipe from Gourmet originally and you can tell - way too fussy. Peel the potatoes? Not happening. Whip the potatoes with a mixer? Not happening. Pipe the potato mixture into the brussel sprout leaves? Not happening. Even with all that taken out, it was still really good. I did add in some cheese - what is colcannon without cheese? It was a hit at the party.

This seemed like an interesting use for spaghetti squash and since I was doing all appetizers, it worked out well. I didn't make the pesto as in the recipe, but used my premade pesto. Yummy, but kinda hard to eat. 

Crispy brussel sprouts with garlic aioli. Yum! These were totally gone and that aioli is a keeper.