I used a beef stock recipe from simplyrecipes.com.

In addition to the bones and some chopped onions and carrot, there were these ingredients .

thyme, carrot peelings, onion bits, bay leaves, garlic, and par-cel

The bones were rubbed with olive oil and put in the over to roast along with the onions and a carrot.

Here’s what they looked like after the roasting.

Then the bones, onions, and carrots were dumped in a stock pot and joined by the other ingredients.

The roasting pan was deglazed to get some of the last browned bits. Then enough water to cover the ingredients was added, and the whole thing was brought to a slow simmer.

I’m not sure how long I simmered it – several hours, I think. Then it spent the night in the fridge, which made the skimming so much easier.

The next day I strained it and poured some into containers and some into ice cube trays to have handy stocklets for flavor.

Beef stew

The first thing we made with the stock was beef stew from the How to Cook Everything cookbook. I had some potatoes and carrots from Farmers Fresh that I’d been dreaming of using in stew.

Onion soup

We also made onion soup based on another simplyrecipes.com recipe. I added more bay leaves to this soup and forgot to take them out after making it. The bay flavor was too strong – especially the next day when we ate leftovers. So those recipes are serious when they say “Remove the bay leaves.”

By the way, I love onion soup, but I’ve never seen the point of “French” onion soup where you cover the top with cheesy breadness. It just makes it hard to eat. Much better is to make the soup and some killer cheese toast (with good cheese and bread) on the side. Then you can dunk the toast to your heart’s content.

The stock’s all gone now except for the stocklets. Guess I’ll have to make more soon so that we can make vegetable soup.

Enjoy your food!

Lo-mein is great for using up scraps. Often my lo-mein-like dishes are made with stems from various vegetables from recent CSA deliveries. But over the past couple of weeks, I’ve found myself with mostly scrap leaves.

The leaves!

• Recipes for cooking Brussels sprouts always say to remove the loose, outside leaves and trim the tough ends. The ends can go, but the little leaves are too cute to throw away!
  

• Broccoli spears and crowns often have leaves. Especially when small, they are good in stir-fries or even tossed in salad. (You can also chop up stems and cook them, but my stems were skinny and not in great shape.)
• I don’t think of celery leaves as scraps. (But I used to.) They are wonderful to add to almost anything you’re cooking – including lo-mein.

The shrimp!

The shrimp were from the Farmers’ Fresh store. I’ve bought a few bags before, and the shrimp have always been delicious – and time-consuming to clean. However, the shrimp I pulled from this new bag were easy. Only one of six needed any cleaning after I peeled them. This is a good thing, except I feel bad for shrimp caught and frozen on an empty stomach.

The sauce!

I’m so happy to have hit on a simple, non-sweet lo-mein sauce recipe. Roughly, its 3 parts soy sauce, 2 parts sherry, and 1 part sesame oil and sweet rice vinegar. Just keep tasting it till you like it. Whisk it up and add it to the pan after cooking and removing the protein and veggies. (You can also stretch it with another part or two of pasta water.) Let it bubble for a minute and then add the (al dente) pasta to the pan and let it cook in the sauce for a couple of minutes. Finally, add back in the rest of the ingredients, heat through, and serve.

The dried figs had been around awhile, and I wanted to use them. We ended up with a lower spinach to fig and walnut ratio than I would have liked – especially considering how much spinach evaporates when it hits a hot pan.

The variation worked well, however. (Thanks, Cartoon Kitchen for a great, flexible recipe!)  The spinach and walnuts were terrific, but I probably won’t seek out figs for this dish again. They have a rich, mellow flavor, but the chewiness and seediness are a little distracting.

We ate our spinach with some yummy roasted butternut squash…

… and reflected on how pleasant it is to eat food that’s this good for you and enjoy it.

I used a bunch of CSA ingredients in these pancakes:

• broccoli leaves
• broccoli stem
• green onions
• three-grain pancake mix
• dried oyster mushrooms
• eggs
• garlic
• celery leaves
• half a carrot man

Check out this carrot – isn’t he strange?

Yes, he is a he. No, I won’t turn him over to prove it.

Here’s everything sliced.

The dried mushrooms are awesome! When you reconstitute them (by soaking them in hot water for five minutes or so), you not only get mushrooms but also mushroom stock.

I used a cup of that stock as the majority of the liquid for the batter and made up the rest with soy sauce and water. The batter is better thin – more crepey, less pancakey. It should quickly drip off a spoon rather than fall in clumps. This batter is 4 little eggs, about 1-1/4 cup liquid, and about 1-3/4 cups pancake mix.

The other half-cup of stock, I reserved in a bowl and then added soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, garlic, ginger, and scallions.

All pancakes need syrup, right?

Yummy! Mushroom stock has terrific flavor, and I look forward to using it in lo mein and in other non-Asian casseroles!

Here’s the batter with the vegetables added in.

I poured roughly 3/4 cup of batter onto a skillet preheated to medium with a teaspoon of peanut oil.

This batter is too thick because it doesn’t run to the edges!

Flip after four or five minutes. Wipe out the skillet and repeat.

And here’s dinner!

That’s marinated coleslaw, not kimchi. I’m not that cool. Nor am I cool enough to think to drizzle sauce and sprinkle scallions on the pancakes before taking a picture. Sigh.

Vegetable pancakes work well with CSA vegetables. The dish definitely calls for some slicing, but no more than fried rice or lo mein. The success of this dish really depends on how happily you cook pancakes. Pancakes can be tricky, although I’ve learned three tips:

• Patiently wait until the pan is hot and stably so. You don’t want the temperature increasing as you go.
• Use a teaspoon of oil (for non-stick) and wipe out the pan between pancakes.
• Don’t fall for the idea of making one last really big pancake. A thick cake will burn on the outside before it’s done on the inside. Make two small pancakes instead. Which is hard because you have to stand there and make them both. Tough. No one wants to eat a intriguingly burnt, yet impishly underdone pancake.

However, I intend to use these lessons for blueberry pancakes more than veggie ones. I’m really glad I tried the dish, and the pancakes were delicious. Still, I prefer lo mein because pasta beats pancakes any day of the week. But the dish works great – especially if you can prep it and talk someone else into making the pancakes!

Walnuts have become a staple in my house after we bought an enormous bag at Sam’s so that I could make biscotti Christmas gifts. Even after all the baking, we still had a couple of pounds of shelled walnuts. Thinking, “We’ll never get through that many walnuts,” I’ve used them in everything I could think of this winter: with greens and pasta, in salads, oatmeal, and desserts. And last week, I scurried off to Sam’s to buy another enormous bag of walnuts.

Health nuts

Nuts are good for you. They’re high in unsaturated fats, Omega-3 fatty acids, and arginine. The Harvard School of Public Health touts the cardiovascular benefits of eating nuts, and The Mayo Clinic describes their part in healthy Mediterranean diets.

Nutty ideas

Here are some nutty dishes we love:

KRP

• Pick a green: kale, mustard, beet, turnip, bok choy, Komatsuna, sweet potato – just not collards.
• Pick a dried fruit: raisins, craisins, figs.
• Pick a nut: pine nuts, walnuts, macadamias.
• Sauté the fruit and nuts in olive oil and remove.
• Cook the greens until wilted.
• Return the fruit and nuts, salt and serve.

KRP = Kale with raisins and pine nuts

Here’s a post with more details about the recipe.

Try out new green, fruit, and nut combinations; the lists above are of the ones we’ve had, but they’re certainly not exhaustive. The only tricky part is when you start changing greens. The tougher the greens, the more cooking time they will need. Also, some greens cook down more (Komatsuna and sweet potato, for instance) so you have to start with more than you would if using tougher ones (like kale). I’d forgotten that kale and Komatsuna were so different, and the last time I made Komatsuna greens this way, I wound up with half as much cooked Komatsuna as I needed. Thankfully, there was more Komatsuna in the crisper.

Pasta with lemon, walnuts, and fresh herbs

A quick, light dish of nutty, olive oil-y, lemony pasta plus whatever fresh herbs you have lying around. For more info, see Herby meal #2 of this post.

Pasta with pine nuts

Another great, quick pasta dish – this one’s got butter, pine nuts, Parmesan, and pepper.

Hearty salad

Make salads heartier with toasted nuts and cheese! So far, my favorite salad is arugula with toasted walnuts, chilled roasted beet slices, and goat cheese.

To celebrate all those great years, here’s a post from 2008 – My favorite recipe of all time. The recipe comes from “The Minimalist” column Summer Express: 101 Simple Meals Ready in 10 Minutes or Less. I’m not sure if it’s still my favorite recipe of all time, but it’s definitely way up there and I am grateful for it and many others.

Green cabbage

Green cabbage has a tightly-wrapped, round head and can last a long time in the fridge. Here’s an extraordinarily large example of green cabbage from last year in the center of this pic.

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And here are the two best recipes we’ve found for green cabbage.

Cabbage For Those Who Dislike Cabbage

This is a fast, simple recipe that Chris and I ate almost every day for a week or so last winter. Note that this recipe makes 6-8 servings. Be ready to scale it down because it’s not nearly as good leftover. Cut off and shred as much cabbage as you need for a meal (roughly a cup and a third per serving), wrap the rest up, and put it back in the fridge. Also, it’s fast because I never cook it as long as the recipe calls for. I saute the cabbage at first for less than five minutes – basically until it gets super-green. Then I add the vinegar and cook it for less than 10 minutes on medium-low. My mom adds the vinegar, covers the pan, turns off the heat, and lets it finish “cooking” that way. The upshot is if you’re not a fan of limp cabbage, half the times for this recipe.

The last time I made cabbage for 2 I also had some green onions, so I added some of those.

cabbage, garlic, the white part of a green onion, and its green parts

blurry cabbage served with hot corned beef pita. I still remember this lunch - it was so good!

We like this recipe so much I’m afraid we no longer qualify to eat it.  D’oh!

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7-day Cole Slaw

This is my mom’s recipe, and she’s been famous for it since I was a toddler. It’s a vinegary cole slaw that will last (at least) seven days in the fridge. Although cole slaw is usually a summer dish, this cole slaw can be a nice break from all the heavy, creamy winter dishes we eat around the holidays.

The recipe calls for a sliced bell pepper, but we leave it out because we don’t like them. Also don’t miss the second to last line, “Cover and refrigerate overnight.” I’ve made that mistake at least once.

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Red cabbage

Red cabbage is a tightly-wrapped, round head of a reddish-purple color. It also lasts pretty long in the fridge.

Braised Red Cabbage

This recipe is from my mom, too.

But this one was dictated over the phone, so you get an improved transcript.

• Shred a small head of red cabbage and place in a bowl of cold water.
• Saute a sliced onion and apple in olive oil in a large pot.
• When soft and a little brown, scoop cabbage out of the bowl and into the pot. (The only water added is that which is clinging to the cabbage.)
• Cook for 10-15 minutes on medium, stirring occasionally.
• Add a ¼ cup red wine vinegar, a ¼ cup apple juice, and bacon bits. If you’re shy about vinegar, you can start with half as much.
• Cook for 20 minutes more on medium-low. Stir, taste, and adjust the seasonings as it cooks. If it needs more flavor, add more vinegar. If it gets too tart, add more apple juice or a little sugar.

When I made this last night, I didn’t have any apple juice, but I did have three apples that were on their last legs. So I added extra apples and used water instead of apple juice.

local bacon, apples, and cabbage; the onion came from somewhere else.

Turned out delicious!

cottage pie, salad, and red cabbage

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Savoy cabbage

Savoy is kind of like green cabbage, but its leaves are curly and more delicate in both flavor and texture. And it doesn’t last as long. You can stir-fry it like green cabbage but cook it for a much shorter time. In my experience, it’s best to err on the side of undercooking this cabbage.

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Napa or Chinese cabbage

Napa cabbage is a lot like Savoy cabbage but even more delicate. Consider separating the hardier stems from the leaves when stir-frying so that the stems can cook longer.

Cabbage Wraps

Both Savoy and Napa leaves are great for cabbage wraps. Steam wet leaves in the microwave or dunk in a pot of boiling water for 5-10 seconds each – just enough to get them pliable. Then add some seasoned meat or tofu mixture, wrap, and enjoy! Here’s one interesting recipe.

I’m thinking about trying these with some green cabbage leaves (no delicate cabbage at the moment in the fridge), some cilantro, and some non-vegan Gum Creek sausage.

Tuscan kale stems, Shiitake stems, and garlic

I sauteed the veggies in a little peanut oil before adding them to the soup. During the last minute of cooking, I stirred in the two eggs, beaten.

Here’s the fairly good-looking result.

Sadly, it’s not as good as it looks. Shiitake stems I’ve used in stir-fries with heavy sauce, and the sauce covers the bitterness of the stems. Not so with ramen soup.  Other mushroom stems are fine, but Shiitakes are too bitter. Next time, they’ll join the compost pile, and I’ll use some of the dried oyster mushrooms from the freezer instead.

Other than that, the soup was okay, although I wish I’d chopped the kale finer. It was hot soup on a cold winter afternoon, and we ate all of it.

I plan on doing more ramen soup experiments. Usually when I think of vegetable soup, I think of an afternoon’s undertaking making a whole stockpotful. This is a nice way to have a bowl or two of vegetable soup with some random vegetable pieces.

My leaves never perked up as this site suggested they would. Explanations for failure include 1) I didn’t trim the stems the first time before putting them in water, and 2) it’s chilly in my house because we’ve held off turning on the heat.

The bad news is I have to use up the basil in the next few days. The good news is I have to use up the basil in the next few days.

About half of the basil, we had in tomato-basil pasta for lunch. Here’s the basic recipe for two.

Tomato-basil-Parmesan pasta

• Start water for pasta.
• Heat 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil on medium low. Add a crushed clove of garlic and cook for about 15 minutes. When the clove is a little brown around the edges, remove it.
• Add pasta to the boiling water.
• Carefully add a cup of roughly chopped tomatoes to the oil. If you just toss them in, you might get spit on. Add a dash or two of salt.
• While the tomatoes cook, chop a handful of fresh basil leaves.
• Drain the pasta and dump it in a bowl. Pour the tomatoes and oil on top of the pasta and mix well. Then add the basil and top with grated Parmesan.
• Serve immediately to hungry campers.

I followed this recipe except I cut ¼ inch instead of ¾ inch rounds (whoops!) and used basil in place of all the other herbs.

Tomato, basil, and goat cheese - oh, my!

I cut the largest and straightest eggplant from this week’s delivery into rounds, dipped them in honey-balsamic vinaigrette, and spread them out on the broiler.

These went under the broiler for about 10 minutes. I flipped them halfway.

While the eggplant was broiling, I chopped up half the basil and added it to the diced tomato along with the rest of the vinaigrette and some salt.

With a couple of minutes of broil time left, I topped the rounds with goat cheese. The creamy texture of the goat cheese makes this easy to do by hand.

When the rounds were done, I moved them to a plate and added little bits of the tomato-basil mixture.

Supper plate or appetizer tray?

We were very happy with this supper, and the best news is we have enough goat cheese and tomato-basil mixture left over to make more tonight!