Here it is! Winter CSA, Month 3

We picked up our January share at the monthly indoor winter farmer's market in Norwich, VT. It's nice that it continues through the winter, but it's not nearly as interesting as the weekly summer market. In winter, we basically go just to get our share (and maybe a scone and a cup of coffee for the road). We're in and out in fifteen minutes, tops. At the summer market, however, there's so much more to look at and there is usually live music, as long as the weather is good. We like to take our time, check out all the booths, and do a few laps.


Anyway, January's share is not too bad. No more parsnips (woohoo!). The rundown:

-two cabbages
-four rutabagas
-four celeriacs
-six beets of varying size
-one enormous daikon radish (it must be at least 15" long!)
-about four or five pounds of carrots
-about five pounds of potatoes, some small (great for roasting) and some large (great for baking)
-one random bulb of garlic thrown in at the last minute

We also purchased some fingerling potatoes. Yes, five pounds of potatoes is plenty for the two of us for a month, but I just can't resist those wonderful fingerlings. I toss them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and herbs, and roast them until the skin is golden and crackling and the flesh is meltingly soft.

I think this is a good assortment. I'm working on a new carrot soup recipe, and the daikon will come in handy when I make something from one of my Japanese cookbooks (per my resolution). We used to eat rutabagas a lot when we lived in London, although we didn't know it at the time: the Brits call them "swede," and we used to get this pre-chopped carrot & swede blend that we could steam or roast. I'll have to do a little research on new (to me) ways to prepare them. I'm also looking for new beet recipes; I usually roast them, but the antioxidant levels drop when exposed to heat, so I'd like to add some raw beet recipes to my arsenal.

Anyone have any good root vegetable recipes to share?

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming...

I promised a picture of this month's share, which we just picked up on Saturday, but due to technical difficulties (i.e., I left my camera elsewhere and can't get it back until this afternoon), that will have to come tomorrow. Instead, I offer a sweet and salty treat to perk up your Monday morning.

Remember the chocolate pretzel tart I mentioned in my review of the Harrison? Well, Food and Wine got The Harrison's pastry chef to share her recipe as part of a feature on milk chocolate in this month's issue. The recipe is online here, so you can try it at home! I would, but after a December filled with cookies and biscotti and all kinds of indulgence, I'm trying to cut back on sweets for a while. If you don't like chocolate with pretzels (shock! horror!!), you can try one of the other recipes, found here, such as milk chocolate pots-du-creme, or milk chocolate cookies with malted cream, or... okay, I'd better stop before my willpower disappears. Back to my sugar-free, caffeine-free, vanilla tea, which tastes like cake batter and can hopefully distract me from all that chocolatey temptation.

Winter CSA, Month 1

I have been remiss in posting pictures of our winter share. This is a shot of the first winter share, which we picked up in early November:


Pretty incredible, isn't it? And yes, those are my pink-stockinged feet in the corner. I had to stand on a chair in order to get far enough away to get everything in frame. And this isn't actually everything: we also had a huge bag of onions, shallots, and garlic bulbs (to last throughout the winter), a bunch of dried rattlesnake beans, still in the pods, and as much basil as we could pick.

The basil was turned into pesto and frozen in cubes; likewise, I roasted most of the squash and steamed all of the kale to freeze for future use. I have a few pictures of meals made from this harvest, which I will post eventually. A lot of my pictures from this time did not turn out very well. The days were getting shorter and the light more elusive, and by mid-November, it was usually dark out before I even started cooking dinner.

What about month 2, which we picked up in early December? Well, I never photographed it. As I mentioned, I kept getting sick, and I was very busy, and frankly, what we got in month 2 was just not as pretty. Think parsnips. Lots and lots of parsnips. Plus carrots, potatoes, and more cabbage than I will ever know what to do with. We still have some cabbage in the fridge, and we're going to pick up month 3 tomorrow!

Check back Monday for a picture of tomorrow's haul, and have a wonderful weekend.

Sorta-Stuffed Squash

Here's the stuffed squash post I mentioned last Friday. I call it Sorta-Stuffed Squash because every stuffed squash recipe I've ever seen involves stuffing the squash and then baking it. Sometimes the squash is partially baked first, but it always ends up in the oven after being stuffed with some sort of mixture, usually rice-based. This recipe cheats by cooking the filling separately from the squash and just throwing them together at the end.

You might think cooking the squash and the filling separately is more complicated, but both steps are actually very easy and totally hands-off once you've got them on the heat. After halving the squash and scooping out the seeds, put a pat of butter in the hollow of each half and roast them, cut side up, for about 35 minutes at 400 degrees. The exact time will vary from squash to squash, but they should be tender when you stick a fork in them.



Once the squash is in the oven, make Rebecca Blood's brown rice and lentil recipe, which I've mentioned before. It couldn't be simpler - just lentils, rice, and water - then add salt and/or a little red wine vinegar when it's done. The lentils take about 25-30 minutes to cook, so your squash and your lentils will be done around the same time. Meanwhile, rinse and spin your lettuce, make your dressing, and you've still got twenty minutes to check email, watch the news, or - my favorite - enjoy a glass of wine.

When both the squash and the lentils are ready, scoop the lentils into the squash hollow. Tada! You're done. The rice and lentils absorb some of the melted butter from the squash, and the sweetness of the roasted squash nicely complements the salted, earthy taste of the lentils. This meal is a hat trick: easy, healthy, and cheap.

Year in Review: Cooking in North Carolina, Part 2

At the beginning of the week, Dan, Rob, and I went to the closest grocery store in order to stock up on cereal and sandwich provisions and the like for breakfasts and lunches. This grocery store happened to be inside a Super Walmart. When I went to select some fruit for snacks, I was disappointed to see that the peaches were from California. It just didn't make sense to me. When you are in one of the best peach-producing states in the country, at the peak of peach season, why are you shipping peaches from three thousand miles away? Yes, peaches are delicate, and they don't travel well, but it seems like madness to me to waste all that gasoline trucking things across a continent when better-tasting ones are growing an hour away. Okay, rant over.


Since the market wasn't until later in the week, for the first few days we reluctantly snacked on the California peaches, which were firm enough to survive the cross-country trip but frankly not that exciting. When Wednesday finally came around and we could purchase local peaches, they did not disappoint. They were twice the size of the California peaches with one hundred times the flavor. I am not exaggerating. All the peaches I've ever eaten in my life, added up, would not have the impact of a single bite of one of these peaches. It was like eating the sun.


So it was with great reluctance that Dan and I sliced up all these peaches to make gallettes. We briefly debated not serving dessert and eating all the peaches ourselves - they were that good! - but decided that would not be in the spirit of the week. With such excellent main ingredients, I wanted to keep the preparation as simple as possible, so we tossed the peaches with a small amount of brown sugar and a generous dose of cinnamon and piled them on top of roll-out pie crusts, casually folding over the edges to hold in the juices. We baked them at around 400 for twenty-five minutes or so: until the smell was unbearably good and the crusts were golden. We went with gallettes instead of regular pies for a few reasons. One, the open face shows off the beautiful color of the peaches. Two, with peaches that good, who wants a double pie crust? This kept the fruit-to-crust ratio high. And three, there were no pie pans in the rental, so this was also a practical decision that allowed us to use the pans on hand.

The gallettes were served a la mode. Sorry for the lousy final picture: we were in a rush to serve and eat these. I'm sure you can understand.

Year in Review: Cooking in North Carolina, Part 1

Last summer, Dan and I had the pleasure of spending four days on the beach in North Carolina with his extended family. They've been renting a beach house on the same little island every summer for years, and this was the first time since Dan and I got together that we'd been able to attend. There are a lot of traditions associated with the Holden Beach week, and one is that each night, a different couple cooks dinner for the entire family. Dan's dad Rob teamed up with us, and the men agreed to follow my lead. Now, at this point, we were several weeks in to our first CSA experience, and so I was excited to find out what North Carolina had to offer in terms of fresh, local produce. I used this search tool to find a farmer's market in the Holden Beach area.

The nearest market turned out to be in Southport, a short drive from Holden Beach. Southport, you may remember, is where we enjoyed a wonderful meal over the water at Provision Co. It's an idyllic village on the coast, and the farmer's market is held on Wednesday mornings at a park overlooking the harbor. It was a small market but the produce selection was more than satisfactory and a bluegrass band on the steps of the town hall enthusiastically provided the soundtrack throughout our visit.

When deciding what to cook, I originally thought of ribs, but it turns out Uncle David and Aunt Maureen always make the ribs. So then I thought maybe fajitas. Well, Scott and Melanie do tacos. So then I decided to stop making plans and just see what was available at the market. The first thing we bought, and the best, I think, was the amazing peas pictured above. Mississippi red crowder peas, according to the farmer who sold them to us.

The farmer recommended shelling the purple (drier) ones, slicing the green ones like green beans, steaming both lightly, and tossing them with any kind of oil. She also said a bit of bacon would bring out a natural smoky flavor. I followed her directions almost exactly, but instead of just oil, I used Newman's Own Balsamic Vinaigrette. These peas were amazing. I never thought I would enjoy peas so much. For me, a big bowl of these would have made a satisfying dinner on their own. I'm drooling just thinking about them.

But just peas wouldn't cut it, I knew. Nevertheless, at least we had our one local dish. Looking around the market, I found great vegetables for grilling and decided we would do kebabs as a main dish. We picked up big, fat, Vidalia onions, red and green peppers, yellow squash, and zucchini. Later we got chicken, mushrooms, and grape tomatoes from the grocery store and spent the afternoon chopping almost everything into large (1-1.5") chunks (leaving the mushrooms and tomatoes whole) and threading them on skewers. Kebabs look prettier when you mix everything up, but the reality is a mushroom and a chunk of zucchini and a piece of chicken all cook at different rates, so for the best taste, we threaded like with like so everything could cook how long it needed to, no more and no less. When it was all done, we dumped it all on a huge platter. I had planned to make Thai peanut sauce but when we found out there were a couple of people with peanut allergies, we switched that to an apricot-mustard dipping sauce (recipe below).

Part two, which covers the dessert we made, will be published tomorrow.


APRICOT-MUSTARD SAUCE
*learned from Alexia in college

2 tablespoons apricot jelly
1 tablespoon stone-ground mustard
1 cup plain yogurt (fat-free, lowfat, or whole milk is fine)

Put everything together in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until warm and blended.

That's it. It couldn't be easier, and it's very yummy. Adjust the jelly and mustard amounts to your taste. Serve over poached chicken, or grilled chicken or shrimp, or with grilled veggie kebabs. Whatever you can think of, it will probably taste good with this sauce.

Scones Are Simple

If you look at the new banner above you'll see a close-up of one my homemade scones. Scones are actually really easy to make and require only a handful of ingredients. My super-easy customizable recipe follows; have fun experimenting with different flavors and let me know what your favorites are (I like almonds, dried cranberries, almond flavoring, and orange zest).



SARAH'S ANY-FLAVOR SCONES
1/2 c. butter, COLD
2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
3/4 c. milk
flavorings of your choice

Preheat oven to 400.

Cut together butter and flour into a fine meal. You can leave it coarser if you want; it makes for a more crumbly scone.

Stir in baking powder, salt, and any dry flavorings (i.e. nuts, citrus zest, dried fruit, chocolate chips, ground tea leaves - whatever you can think of!).

Add any liquid flavorings (e.g., vanilla or almond extract) to the milk. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the liquid. Stir just until the dough comes together.

Now comes the time to make a decision: do you want crumbly scones, like you get in American coffee shops? Or do you want a fluffier scone, which is more English-style?

For crumbly scones, immediately turn dough on to a floured surface and knead about eight times. Do not over-knead! Form into a cirle, about 3/4" thick, and slice into six or eight triangles. Separate the triangles and place them on a lightly-greased cookie sheet and bake 20-25 minutes, or until lightly golden brown.

If you want fluffier scones, you can knead immediately a lot more than 8 times, or you can take the lazy route and let the dough sit for 25-30 minute before kneading 8 times. The more you knead it (or the longer you let it sit), the more the gluten gets activated, the more fluffy and less crumbly the scones will be. Form in to triangles and bake as described above.

Serve with butter, jam, lemon curd, or clotted cream. Enjoy!

I had planned to write about a simple stuffed squash recipe today, but last night, the sniffles that I thought were just from allergies developed into a full-fledged headbanger of a cold. I'm holed up on the recliner with my fleece blanket and my hubby's gone to get me cold-fighting provisions. So I wanted to ask, what are your favorite home remedies? Dan's getting me chicken soup, of course, which is probably helpful because it's warm and mild and slides easily down an irritated throat. I've also requested ginger tea, which we usually have on hand but just used up, and fresh lemons.

In high school, whenever I got sick, which was a lot, I'd get the fresh lemon slices from the dining hall salad bar and mash them with hot water and honey. Both honey and lemon are packed with immune-boosting antioxidants, and some studies suggest that honey may also function as a cough suppressant. This page recommends adding onion broth to your hot lemon and honey drink; maybe it works, but I won't find out, because just the thought of that makes me gag! I guess I'll stick to ginger tea with honey and lemon -- ginger has powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. And of course, my number-one sickness fighter: sleep. I'm going to settle in for a long nap right after I get my chicken noodle soup.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Resolutions

I'm not usually the New Year's resolution sort. I've made a few half-hearted attempts in the past, but they never seem to stick. I guess I find something odd in the idea that this date is somehow different from any other when it comes to making a change. I've certainly made resolutions in the past that I have successfully met, but never on January 1. I've found that making one small change at a time, when the time is right, works for me.

That said, I do have a few changes I would like to make in terms of food and cooking choices. And I might as well announce them now, since I hope you'll see a difference here, although I am by no means promising to take on all these challenges fervently and immediately. Instead, I'll try to make these changes a little at a time, gradually building speed, until they become habitual.

1) Eat more fish. A few years ago I started cutting back on meat. I had no intention of going completely vegetarian, but after reading a lot on the subject, I became convinced that most us here in the US eat way more meat than is necessary or healthy. I also wanted to cut back on my grocery bills, and one of the easiest ways to do this is to buy less meat. Pretty soon, we were down to about one meal with meat per week and still getting a balanced diet thanks to other protein sources like beans and dairy.

However, with all the strength training I've been doing this year, I really needed to increase my lean protein consumption, and for health reasons, I can't eat too much soy, so we're back to eating chicken or turkey two or three times a week. Fish is an excellent alternative, loaded with omega-3 fatty acids that are good for your heart and your brain, so I'd like to work my way up to eating fish at least once per week.

2) Drink more green tea. I drink A LOT of tea. Seriously. I give my husband a hard time about drinking a whole pot of coffee by himself every day but I definitely rival that with my tea consumption. Especially now that I work from home, it's all too easy to pop in to the kitchen and fix another cup of tea. Now, there are worse vices, of course, but since I drink so much tea, I'm going to try to swap some green tea in for my normal cups of Irish Breakfast or Constant Comment. I drink my black tea, whatever the flavor, with some milk and one teaspoon of sugar. It's not terrible, but when you drink as much tea as I do, it sure adds up. Switching to green tea for two or three cups per day will help me cut back on sugar and its empty calories. Also, while tea in general is loaded with antioxidants, higher levels are found in green tea, so that's a plus. For more on the health benefits (and risks) of green tea, go here.

3) Use my cookbooks more. I have a great collection of cookbooks, some handed down to me, some purchased, and some received as gifts. I particularly love my regional Italian cookbooks (Tuscan and Istrian) as well as the Thai, Armenian, and Japanese ones. With the exception of the Japanese, I've made at most one recipe from each of those books - and some I have never used. I love to look through the books, read the recipes, get ideas, and drool over the amazing photography, but ingredient lists of fifteen or more tend to earn a "no way" from me. As I've mentioned before, patience isn't one of my strong suits, and I'm more apt to fake it by picking out the few strongest flavors and tossing together whatever I have in a simplified mock version. While there's no way I'm going to start grinding exotic spice blends in my mortar and pestle on a daily or even weekly basis, I really ought to try to make some of these recipes as written once in a while. If I'm feeling up to the challenge (and the cost of the unusual ingredients), I may even have to look for the most complicated recipe from each book and give each one a shot. At the very least, this year, I want to make one recipe from each book that I have not made before and without cutting corners.

So there we go. Three food-related resolutions that I hope to achieve at some point over the next year. What about you? What changes do you want to make in 2009? Don't forget, you don't have to have a Blogger account to comment!

What do you think?

Here's the new look! Please bear with me as I tweak it over the next few days. Some older posts might look a little odd with the new formatting, so I'm going back in to the archives and making adjustments. I've also added a list of some of my favorite blogs and websites, which you can find on the right if you scroll down.