Adventures in Domesticity

CSA Week 9: July 26, 2007

Ellen's mom came to visit this last weekend, and we had another bad week for using the vegetables, what with the flurry of shopping and eating out and poking around the garden.  A few more things have gone bad, a few more things have been frozen, but we're mainly just steaming veggies to have as side dishes this week.  We get a new box tomorrow, and life feels almost normal again, so hopefully I'll get my cooking mojo back.

The one interesting thing I intend to do, probably later tonight, is make a batch of "baba gha-hummus," which combines baba ghanoush and hummus, and will use up the nice big eggplant from last week.  I'm also going to saute up a bunch of zucchini and make some nice spaghetti sauce with it for the freezer, as recommended by StuccoHouse. 

CSA Weeks 7 & 8: Harry Potter and the Forgotten Vegetables

I failed in my vegetable-eating attempts over the past couple of weeks.  I was on a mission, you see.  A mission to read the entire Harry Potter series before the Deathly Hallows came out on Saturday, July 21.  That's all fine and good, but I didn't get around to starting until about Friday, July 13.  That's thousands of pages to read, with a full-time job, a Twins game, and a wedding thrown in there.  Once I started, I didn't do much other than read for the week, and things like housecleaning, meal planning, and cooking fell by the wayside.  Ah well - the bathroom is dirty and there's a nasty bag of mesclun mix in the fridge, but I know what happens to Harry, and that's enough at the moment.  I'll just consider the vegetables that I didn't get to as fallen warriors in the battle between Good and Evil.  What more could any cucumber aspire to be?

I did get around to using a few things.  Here's what happened:

• New potatoes and fresh green beans went into a warm potato salad from the Harmony Valley newsletter. 
• Purple potatoes and carrots are going into the crockpot with a beef roast today.  I haven't quite regained my usual cooking habits, but I could (barely) manage a crockpot dinner.
• At some point last week, I made some improvements on a box of "Asian" noodles from the grocery store, adding stir-fried cauliflower, zucchini, and carrots.
• I cooked some black currants down into a syrupy, jam-like sauce, and layered it with angel food cake and whipped cream for a trifle.  Neither Craig nor I liked it that much - the taste of the currants is just too deep and strong for the angel food, I think.  Next time I get currants, I'll make barbeque sauce instead.
• I did a lot of freezing last night - green beans from the CSA and the garden, as well as carrots from the CSA.  I made sure to blanch the beans before freezing them this time.  My last attempt at simply freezing the beans resulted in olive green mush that elementary school lunch ladies wouldn't even touch.
• There's a lot of zucchini and other summer squash waiting to be used, both from my garden and the CSA.  I've been sticking zucchini in pasta sauces, stir-fries, and anywhere else it could possibly go, but it's still hanging around.  I'll be exploring the world of baking with zucchini in the next few weeks - zucchini-coconut cookie bars look promising, I think.
• Still to be used (but storing well): beets, rainbow chard, and arugula.

CSA Week 6, July 5, 2007

I'm squeezing in the weekly CSA update here, before it gets to be Thursday all over again.  It was kind of a challenge for me to get everything used up this week - I scheduled a few recipes, then found myself with only turnips and cabbage left over.  This wasn't bad, it just took me a few days to figure out what to do with them.  I'm ready for the turnips and beets to be done for the season, though. 

In no particular order, here's what's in the cards for this week:

Cauliflower, carrots, and snow peas will go into a big curry-ish chicken stir-fry.  I always see recipes that have cauliflower combined with curry, so I'll give it a try.

Fennel and various other vegetables from last week were sauteed into a nice spaghetti sauce.  (Side note: Having a white dog assures you that it will SHOW when she rubs her head in a little dribble on the floor.)

Fresh garlic and red scallions are being used in all sorts of applications.  I'd never seen red scallions before, but they work just the same as any green onions, and are pretty to boot.

Red Orach is this week's new thing to try.  According to my Harmony Valley Farm newsletter, orach originated in the Alps and is thought to be one of the world's oldest cultivated greens.  It's also known as "mountain spinach."  I'm using the farm's recipe for "creamy penne pasta with orach and parmesan," which will be served with the first bounty from my OWN garden - green beans.

Gold beets were shredded and made into a beet roesti - sort of a pancake.  The recipe is from Mark Bittman, and is found all over the internet, often billed as a way to convert people to liking beets.  I liked it fine, but won't be craving beets any time soon.

I'm going to shred up a bit of red cabbage to go into another Chinese cabbage salad for a salad luncheon at work.  The rest will be stored for later.

Baby white turnips will get mashed with potatoes, and zucchini and other summer squash will go into zucchini bread and zucchini coins. 

CSA Week 5, June 28, 2007

"Red currants are such beautiful things, aren't they, Dora? It's just like eating jewels, isn't it?"

- Elizabeth Grayson, in Anne of Windy Poplars, by L.M. Montgomery

I smiled as I read this the other day, thinking of the red currants in my fridge, which were very much like jewels.  This is one of the benefits of belonging to a CSA - I would never have thought to buy currants on my own, and would have driven all over town in an effort to find them.  The CSA box delivers this most old-world of fruits right to me.  The red currants went into some lovely oatmeal scones on Sunday morning - a worthy application if there ever was one.  Here's how the rest of my box fared:

• Arrowhead cabbage was shredded and combined with shredded carrots to make a sort of slaw.  I used some of the leftover dressing and ramen noodle crunchies from last week's Chinese cabbage salad. I've figured out the difference between this and last week's Napa cabbage - the arrowhead has a very distinct triangle shape and, well, looks like an arrowhead.
• White turnips, fennel, and some summer squash were drizzled with olive oil and roasted all together with tomatoes and peppers.  I tossed the roasted veggies with some pasta and Parmesan, which made a great side for grilled chicken.  If only the heat of the oven didn't overpower our decrepit AC quite so much.
• Chioggia beets may get shredded and made into a sort of sauce for angel hair pasta, as per this Harmony Valley Farm recipe.  I don't think I've ever actually had beets before, so this will be quite the experiment.  Chioggia beets apparently have red and white rings inside, like a candy cane.  I can't wait to slice one open.
• Sugar snap peas will just be steamed with red peppers, and served as a side for burgers.
• Scallions will get used in all sorts of applications.  Very few dishes aren't improved by green onions.  The choice item was cilantro, which I'll use in some corn and black bean salad. 
• I finally have a chance to use my frozen rhubarb for sangria!  Huzzah for Fourth of July picnics!  This week's strawberries will also go into the refreshing alcoholic beverage.
• I may be hitting a wall with the green top carrots, which are just carrots with the leafy tops still on.  I hadn't quite figured out an application for these, and as of today (Monday), they're starting to get a little soft and wiggly in the fridge.  I may cut some up to steam with the snow peas tomorrow.  If not, it's a great comfort to think that nothing that is composted is truly wasted.

Sacre bleu! Four sticks of le beurre!

(Eeek!  I just realized I'd had "beurre" spelled incorrectly for a couple of days.  Oops.)

Here's a secret.  I like Martha Stewart.  I'm slowly getting sucked into her omnimedia omniempire, what with the subscriptions to Blueprint and Everyday Food.  I've been flirting with Martha Stewart Living, but thus far have settled for checking it out of the library.  I recently had the May 2006 issue, which contained a feature on making croissants.

The step-by-step photos appealed to the organizational nut that lurks just below the surface in my head, and the idea of flaky pain au chocolate appealed to a corner of my stomach that hasn't been touched since my trip to Paris.  Thanks to a childhood filled with fresh bread and homemade crusts for apple pies, my baking skills are fairly decent, and I decided to give it a go.

Lest I come into contact with Martha's omnilawyers, I will not reproduce her recipe here.  If you truly want to follow down my path of folly, I'm sure you can find a basic recipe.  I'm just going to catalogue the various steps.

Mixing the dough.  After about three minutes of kneading by hand, it was nice and smooth and bulky - not as wet and shaggy as it is here.

In order for croissants to be delightfully flaky and have a million little layers, a "butter package" is put between two layers of dough.  The dough is then rolled out and folded and turned chilled and rolled out and folded...it's not hard, but it is fussy.  Not surprisingly, the butter package is where the 4 sticks of butter come in.  Martha directs you to mix the butter with a quarter cup of flour, then spread it into an 8x10 inch sheet on parchment paper.  Uncharacteristically, I paid very close attention to the specified measurements for rolled-out dough (and butter) in this recipe - you can see my 8x10 inch template.

Here's the dough after its final turn.  Having a bit of extra counter space when needed is about the only benefit of having an 18-inch portable dishwasher because your kitchen is too small for anything else.  At this point, the dough rested in the fridge overnight.

Shaped and ready for the final rise.  I made half plain and half with chocolate.  (Note to the Ramsey County Public Library: Why no, those aren't your magazines you see carelessly left under the baking sheets.  Not at all.  Look over there, at the, um, er, the salt and pepper shakers!)

The finished product.  I was surprised at how well they turned out.  They tasted good, sure, but they also looked pretty.  That's a real accomplishment for me.  I may not be making any more croissants in the foreseeable future, but it's nice to know that I can.  Perhaps that should go on my resume.  At the very least, it speaks to perseverence.

CSA Week 4 - June 21, 2007

We resumed CSA pickup this week after a little break for my sister's wedding.  It was just a weekend trip, but it seemed to screw up every last one of my internal rhythms.  We didn't do much cooking for a few days after returning to St. Paul, and I confess that I didn't use the rest of the arugula or saute mix from last week's box.  Well, I did toss some saute mix into a pot of homemade macaroni and cheese with smoked sausage.  That really maximized the healthy qualities of those greens.

This week, we're back in the saddle.

• I was very happy to see not one but three little containers of strawberries.  We used two to make strawberry ice cream, using a no-cook recipe from Southern Living.  No matter how many times I prove to myself that using low-fat dairy products in ice cream will result in a hard, icy product, I persist in doing so.  It still tasted good, though.  We just polished off the third container with no embellishments.
• The basics: Scallions and garlic scapes got used in various oniony and garlicky applications.  Red leaf lettuce was used for salad.  Broccoli will be steamed and served with a chicken dish. 
• I used the Napa or arrowhead cabbage (I'm not really sure which I got) in some Chinese cabbage salad.  I think everyone's had a version of this salad at one time or another.  It has a sweet dressing, and is topped with little bits of fried ramen noodles and almonds.  Not the healthiest of salads, but certainly one of the tastiest things you can do with ramen noodles.  We had this with burgers on Saturday.
• Snow peas and sugar snap peas went into a chicken stir fry on Sunday evening.  They were still tender-crisp as leftovers for lunch on Monday.
• This week will be my introduction to turnips, in the form of some baby whites.  I am heartened by the fact that the illustrious Kristen has learned to like them from her CSA box.  These are on the slate for Tuesday evening, to be served with apricot chicken and broccoli.  I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with them.  Kristen suggested cream soup, but I'm not up for that in June.  I may boil and saute as suggested by the Harmony Valley Farm newsletter.
• Finally, a variety of summer squash went into Cheesy Squash and Rice Pie.  The last vestiges of my childhood pickiness rear up when I try to eat squash - the texture just gets me.  There's really no taste to object to, and I find that my texture reaction is minimized if I shred the squash rather than slicing it.

CSA Week 3 - June 7

Before I tackle this week's haul, a report on last week's burdock adventure.  In the rice pilaf, it really didn't have much of a taste at all - it blended in with the mushrooms and brown rice.  When I nibbled a little bit raw, it tasted kind of like lettuce, with a celery texture.  Thus far, it has not caused us to become hairy hippies who forage for our food.  I did build a compost bin this weekend, though...

A lot of my recipes thus far have been coming from the magazine Everyday Food and its new compilation cookbook, Great Food Fast.  This week, I did a lot of searching on MyRecipes.com, which has compiled recipes from Cooking Light, Southern Living, Sunset, Cottage Living, and other lifestyle-type magazines by the same company.  I like it, because I know Southern Living and Sunset have great recipes, but their geographic focus doesn't exactly include Minnesota.

Anyway, the report for this week:

• Strawberries were sliced and eaten with chocolate chip ice cream.  I didn't actually get around to eating any, but Craig said they were really fresh.  We're not getting a box next week, due to an out-of-state wedding trip, so I hope there are still some left the week after that.
• Kohlrabi was a new vegetable to me entirely.  They're the green and purple things in the picture above that look like comets.  I grated these up into "The Other Slaw," and was pleasantly surprised to find that they have a mild, cabbage-y flavor.
• I used some arugula in Gruyere, Arugula, and Prosciutto-Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Caramelized Shallot Sauce.  That needs a new, shorter name.  Like "Yummy Chicken."
• Asparagus and radishes will go into Orecchiette with Potatoes and Radishes this evening.  I'm not terribly sure about this, but I'll give it a go.
• Lettuce, potato onions, and garlic scapes are being used here and there when I need green onions or garlic, and for salad.  I also have a bag of saute mix greens that I'm not sure what to do with.  Hopefully they'll keep until next week, when I'll have more time to think about it.

CSA Week Two - May 31

Today is Monday, and I fear we may be falling behind in eating our second box of produce, which was picked up on Thursday.  Once again, it's the greens that are getting us.  Must.  Eat.  Salad. 

The mid-week report and plans for this box:

• Asparagus.  We ate this on Sunday night - it kept very well standing upright in a glass of water.  I brushed the asparagus with olive oil, gave it a liberal shaking of salt and pepper, sprinkled about 1/4 cup of grated Parmesan on it, and roasted at 450 degrees for 15 minutes.  It was a great side dish for burgers.  Much classier than store-brand corn chips.
• Bok Choi.  This will be stir-fried with some broccoli and Asian noodles, to be served with grilled chicken.
• Cilantro.  I often have a problem with store-bought cilantro turning to mush in the crisper drawer, but this was rescued before it met such a terrible fate.  We enjoyed it in Coconut-Cilantro Rice, the recipe that came in the Harmony Valley Farm newsletter this week.
• French Breakfast Radish.  These will probably just be salad toppings again this week.  I need to find a better way to feature them - next week, maybe. 
• Green Garlic.  This went into chicken stir fry wraps on Saturday night.  I love how this smells when it's chopped up - somehow, it's very Asian.
• Green Leaf Lettuce.  We used the nice big leaves as the wraps for chicken stir fry, kind of like the appetizer from P.F. Chang.  This is a little fussier than we usually get with stir fry, but it was good and fun.  Side dishes were the aforementioned coconut cilantro rice and some very non-organic, non-healthy frozen crab rangoons that were probably filled with preservatives and trans fats.  But they were good.  I am alarmed, however, at how much of this lettuce was left over after the wraps.
• Potato Onions.  Last week, I didn't know why these are called potato onions.  I still don't.  I do know, however, that they're a heirloom variety that has more in common with shallots than onions, and was popular before the turn of the centure.  I just used them as green onions in the coconut cilantro rice.
• Rhubarb.  I'm kind of a rhubarb virgin.  I elected to freeze this crop until I have an excuse to make this fruit cocktail from Blueprint.  I guess we're hosting a barbecue sometime this summer!   
• Salad Mix.  Self-explanatory.  I guess I'll be adding some green leaf lettuce in with the mesclun mix.
• Spinach.  I'll be adding spinach to my standard spaghetti and meatballs recipe, which uses ground turkey.  I think if I chop the spinach well and add another egg white, the meatballs should hold together well.  I just use jarred tomato sauce with these, but I did buy the organic store brand.  Maybe that earns me some foodie points.  Spaghetti and meatballs will definitely be served with a nice big salad!
• Choice - Burdock.  Since most of this week's vegetables were easily identifiable, I went ahead and picked up some burdock root, which is the root of the plant that produces burrs.  At the veggie pick-up site, a man and I were reaching for the burdock box at the same time.  (Statistically, what are the odds that I would ever write that sentence?)  As a way of making small talk, he asked if I knew any good burdock recipes.  Um, no.  But I do know how to use Google, and have decided to use the burdock in some brown rice pilaf, to be served with ground turkey meatloaf.  It is a sign of fearless vegetable exploration, I think, that I was not put off by the fact that the first page to turn up from a Google search for "burdock recipes" was this one: http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/.  Click the link.  Seriously.  It's worth it.

Full disclosure this week: I borrowed the picture from the HVF weekly e-mail.  I took my own, but didn't uploaded it in time to use in this post. 

Eating Leafy Greens - an update

After writing my nice long CSA post on Monday evening, I was all excited to start on my journey of Super Healthy Eating.  As Tuesday progressed, though, I was having doubts.  It wasn't that hot, but was pretty sticky outside, and I was having one of those cranky days when I simply didn't want to do anything but sit in an air conditioned room and read a book.

And what did I have planned for dinner?  Soup.  Hot, steamy soup.

My initial reaction was to make tortellini with a sauce of the same ingredients in the soup.  But a sauce of sun-dried tomatoes, parsnips, and an obscure Asian green over tortellini?  Not terribly appealing.  I didn't have any other ideas, though, and I was not about to let myself weasel out of my meal plan on its first day of accountability. 

The making of dinner is kind of a blur, as I was trying to get it done and eaten in time for small dog playgroup.  I ended up with a pureed mass of sun-dried tomatoes, parsnips, and onions.  It did NOT look appetizing, and adding the Hon Tsai Tai to it didn't help its aesthetics.  But it was edible.  Really, it just tasted intensely like sun-dried tomatoes.  So, one lesson learned: if necessary, vegetables can be hidden in purees of strong-tasting ingredients. 

The few bites of the green I had on its own were good, though - kind of light and peppery.  And the parsnips did indeed taste just like carrots.

Thankfully, the lasagna with pea vine and spinach was a success.  I don't think I could have handled any more vegetable stress.

CSA Week One, May 24

On Thursday, we picked up our first community supported agriculture (CSA) box of vegetables from Harmony Valley Farm.  We're on the flex plan, which gives us 17 boxes of vegetables, whenever we want them over the growing season.  The boxes are filled with a variety of organic produce from the farm, so we get good local produce that's in season each week.  I consider it an investment in our health and local farming.  That's not even mentioning the fresh-picked sweet corn and heirloom tomatoes later in the season.

We did this last year, but ended up not using a lot of veggies.  We also signed up late in the season, so we got a lot of fall and winter squash.  Lots of squash.  Far more squash than I knew what to do with.  The idea behind buying the CSA box is to get us to try new things and eat more vegetables, so I'm resolved to do better this year.  In an effort to keep myself feeling somewhat accountable, I'm going to post a running list of what's in our box, as well as how we're eating it. 

Here's the first week's bounty displayed on the stove.  Here's the goods:

• Asparagus.  No prizes for figuring out that this didn't last long.  I steamed it in the microwave and served with couscous and spicy chicken breasts.  It was gone within ninety minutes of picking it up.
• Bok Choi.  This went into a beef and bok choi stiry fry, loosely based on a recipe from Everyday Food.
• Potato Onions.  I don't know what makes these potato onions, but they looked like green onions or chives, with slightly larger white bulbs on the bottom.  I used these instead of leeks in a Leek and Potato Galette, also originally from Everyday Food.  We had this with ribeye steaks and salad on Memorial Day.  Fabulous.  I didn't see any need to invert it onto a plate, though - I just scooped the goodness straight out of the pan.
• Green Garlic.  This is just the stalks/scapes of immature garlic.  It looks like really tall green onions with large-ish garlic cloves at the bottom.  I enjoyed this, as it let me know what should be going on underground with my garlic.  My childhood attempts at vegetable gardening were always brief, as I wanted to SEE the carrots before they were ready to come out.  I just pulled them up to look, then put them back in the dirt.  It did not bode well for the long-term viability of my garden.  The green garlic was cut up and put in the beef and bok choi stir fry.
• Hon Tsai Tai.  Come again?  I'd never heard of this, but my Harmony Valley Farm newsletter tells me that it's an Asian green with a taste similar to mustard greens, but a bit milder.  I'm not big on sauteed greens on their own, so I plan to put this in some soup.  I read somewhere online that the taste is also similar to bok choi, so I'm subbing this for bok choi in Sun-Dried Tomato Tortellini Soup.  (If you don't have access to Cooking Light recipes online and really want the recipe, just let me know.)
• Pea Vine.  Another leafy green to experiment with, this time the leafy tops of pea vines that haven't sprouted pods yet.  I'm going to try a Pea Vine and Spinach Lasagna that I found online (From Harmony Valley Farm, no less). 
• Radishes.  I just cut these up and used them as salad toppings.
• Parsnips.  These will be subbed for carrots in the soup mentioned above.  I don't think I've ever had parsnips before, so we'll see how it turns out. 
• Salad Mix.  Harmony Valley puts out a great mesclun mix, and it even comes in convenient resealable bags like the mass-produced grocery stuff.  We just had salad a few nights.  Yay for green things.
• Spinach.  Part of this went into salads, and the rest will go into the lasagna.

Every week there's also a "choice" vegetable that isn't in each box, but is available.  This week's choice was burdock, and I left it there.  I figured I had enough new things to try with the hon tsai tai and pea vine.  I've enjoyed everything I've eaten so far, and will post updates on the leafy greens next week.