lettuce!

It’s nice to have lovely lettuce for salads during this crazy-warm winter. When winter is cold, I don’t crave salad so much, but it’s all good this year. The bigger leaves could also be used as wraps if one were so inclined. I went ahead and washed and spun all of this. It’s in the salad spinner in the fridge awaiting further instruction.

Update: We defininitely ate this up as salad with sliced radishes. Since eating “farmers’ lettuce,” Chris and I have gotten into the habit of eating our salad without dressing. The lettuce doesn’t need help, and once you get used to going without dressing, it seems weird to cover up the taste with something heavy. Give naked salad a try.

Mt. Bordeaux Spinach

The other day, neighbor Lucy mentioned that she was craving some Bordeaux spinach. I hope she wasn’t kidding because I have a mess of it here. Considering the lettuce, I might snag the babiest of the spinach and add it to the salad spinner. But lettuce must be eaten as salad, and spinach can be cooked. So I think I’m going to cook my share.

Update: I did give about half of this away. We sauteed a bunch of the rest last night with walnuts and craisins.

radishes and greens

The radishes themselves will go in salads. The greens are pretty enough that I’ll toss them in when I cook the spinach.

Update: By the time I got to cooking the spinach, the radish greens had gotten slimy. Oh, well. The radishes themselves were delicious, though.

a big ol’ green cabbage

Green cabbage is fun. Shred off what you need for a dish of stir-fried cabbage or cole slaw. Then wrap the rest of the head in a plastic bag and put it back in the freezer. It will last for weeks this way! Just keep shredding as needed.

Update: We made this into a marinated coleslaw. Still eating it. Coleslaw is great for the second week of a preseason-delivery. The first week, we have salad with every meal, and the second week, we have cole slaw. It also makes a good excuse to pick up some barbecue or fried chicken.

yellow squash, parcel, rosemary, and cilantro

This picture doesn’t do justice to this yellow squash. It is a rich golden yellow. No pastel, anemic looking squash, these.

Update: This squash made delicious stir-fried squash. The secret, I think, is to mix up the onion, squash, and cornmeal ahead of time and put it in the fridge. Then, when you go to stir-fry it, the cornmeal stays coated on the veggies. Yum!

Par-cel is great for cooking. The flavot is somewhere between parsley and celery, and you can use the stems as easy as the leaves. I think I’m going to use some in some tuna salad sandwiches this week.

The best way I’ve found to keep herbs is in a bouquet in the fridge.

My herbarium

Just fill a glass with water, trim the stems, stick ‘em in, and cover with a plastic bag. Every couple of days, replace the water and turn the bag inside-out. Maybe trim the stems, too. Herbs will keep a couple of weeks this way.

Update: The herbs are all gone except for a little rosemary. We added the par-cel to salads and the cilantro to some Sea Island red pea soup.

popping corn, apples, and acorn squash

I think our acorn squash was recently picked and needed more curing. I’m going to ask the farmers about that. We cooked it last night and were disappointed in the lack of flavor. I think that’s a symptom of not being cured enough. So don’t rush to cook your acorn squash if you have one. Give it a week or so on the table first.

Updates: The seeds, on the other hand, were great. I tossed them in olive oil and baked them at 250 in the toaster oven.

The popping corn is great. We just microwave it in a paper bag. In our microwave, it takes between 90 -105 seconds. It varies between cobs, so it’s important to listen. When there starts to be pauses between the pops, take it out. We err on the side of unpoppedness. The unpopped kernels stay on the cob, so there’s no danger of crunching down on one. Be careful, though, those kernels left on the cob will burn your hard something fierce.

Update: We’ve had a couple bowls of popcorn lately. We used to coat it with salt and melted butter, but now we just eat it plain. Easier and healthier. I love it when being lazy is virtuous.

grits, eggs, bread, and cheese

Grits are the world’s greatest starch. Go ahead and give yourself the time to cook grits as a side to your favorite meat or veggie. Cook them in water, stock, or milk.

Update: Haven’t made grits in a while, but I ordered some green tomatoes this week. One of our favorite dishes is grits, green tomatoes, and Parmesan cheese.  The Gouda cheese is very nice and melty. Makes a good grown-up grilled cheese sandwich.

Here’s what I ordered extra this week.

goat cheese, prosciutto-like pork, and butter

I don’t have to explain the butter, right? Butter good. Goat cheese is also good, but I ordered this particularly to go with the red pepper jelly from the first pre-season delivery. I think the combination on little toasts will be nice. And as long as there are little toasts around, you might as well put this cured pork. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m excited.

Update: Instead of using the pepper jelly, I’ve been warming olive oil with rosemary and garlic, pouring it over goat cheese, and serving it with nice bread and wine. Makes a great late supper. I wasn’t too into the sweet flavor of the pork, I chopped it up and heated it and made a spinach salad last week. The other day I tossed it the rest with olive oil and pasta.

Enjoy your food! I’ll be back with more today or tomorrow!

No word on why it happened yet, but I’m happy to have control again.

I’m trying to get it resolved and will post again soon from somewhere.

Thanks, and I hope you’re enjoying your food.

Preseason is fun, but it’s strategically different from the peak of summer. The winter produce lasts longer, and you have two weeks to use it. Here’s what we got in our first Dinner for 2 preseason 2012 box.

Brussels sprouts, Jerusalem artichokes, and sweet potatoes

I’ve never had Jerusalem artichokes. All the recipes I’m seeing seem to treat them like sort of like potatoes. You peel and boil them and then bake or sauté the slices. I’m thinking of making a tiny sliced sunchoke sauté to be topped with sour cream.

I never liked Brussels sprouts till I got them fresh and tasty. Most recipes call for removing the unfurled leaves before cooking sprouts. And you definitely should. Just don’t toss them. Keep them around for a fast stir-fry. For the sprouts, chop them in half and sauté them in some olive oil and butter with a little garlic and salt and a lot of pepper. Remove them before they get too mushy. Mushy sprouts are not yummy.

Tuscan kale, goat sour cream (sour goat cream?), roasted red pepper jelly, and some buttermilk whole wheat bread that I couldn’t resist taking a chunk out of

I had the sour cream before;  it’s good on everything. The jelly will be better with actual goat cheese, so I’m going to hold on to it until I can score some goat cheese.

The bread is dense, and tasty. In fact, here’s what we had for a late-night snack yesterday:

local bread, butter, and honey. Mmmmm…

hydroponic lettuce, frisee, and parsley

These will make yummy salads. Some of the frisee may join the unfurled Brussels sprouts leaves in a stir-fry. Along with broccoli leaves. (See below.)

Broccoli and yellow squash

Summer squash?! I know it’s been warm, but that’s kind of crazy. I guess somebody’s got an awfully cozy greenhouse. Stir-fried squash does sound nice and warm, though.

Apples and eggs

Both far superior to their conventional Kroger cousins.

I also made an online store order…

More beautiful Tuscan kale!

You simply can’t have too much. Especially when recovering from weeks of rich holiday fare.

2lbs of honey - at least a week's supply

Sausage, fava beans, and (prepped) baby butternut squash

The butternut squash were cute and tiny, but we were so excited to have Tuscan kale and butternut squash for supper that we started prepping right away. The squash just got peeled, cubed, tossed with olive oil, and roasted at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Add hearty herbs if you’ve got them before cooking, but I like to add salt and pepper better after cooking.

I really enjoyed the fava beans in a box from last season and wanted to try them again. I read somewhere that they store better out of their outer pods. And I can see why. The pods are so thickly insulated. Must be great when alive, but something of a moisture death trap after picking. Thankfully or irritatingly depending on how you feel about shelling peas, fava beans have an inner shell, too.

Fava beans: one casing down, one to go

When I’m ready to cook them, I’ll boil these guys for about a minute and then plunge them in ice water to stop the cooking. Then the shells come off easy, and the peas inside are bright green and look kind of like big butter beans. Even if the outer shells look a little past their prime, the inner beans are still okay.

Last time, I just sautéed the beans with garlic. Maybe I’ll try something more ambitious this time.

Nah. What could be better than olive oil and garlic?

Enjoy your food!

Check out last year’s pre-season deliveries:

Week 1

Week 2

And from 2010…

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

This preseason is four deliveries and comes in two sizes: dinner for two at $188 and family at $248. The boxes are larger than regular weekly deliveries. There’s more information on the Farmers Fresh CSA Sign-Up page.

In order to participate in preseason or a regular season CSA starting in March, you have to join as a member for 2012, too. It’s $100 if you’re new and $60 to renew. Membership includes a member pack (which is usually a box of interesting non-perishable stuff like honey and grains) and a discount on store purchases both online and in person at the Carrollton store.

2010 renewal member pack

2009 member pack

Carrots and cabbage

Asian turnips and pretty radishes

So I now have a root cellar (aka a plastic bag in my crisper)

These roots will last a few weeks like this. The cabbage will, too. A head of cabbage is a wonderful thing to have in a fridge. You can just slice off what you want to cook for a meal, sauté it fast in some garlic and butter. Fresh, local cabbage is really tasty like that. (Especially if you get some Hickory Farms sausage as a gift and serve it on the side.)

Kale is another great winter veggie here in Georgia.

If these kale leaves look a little flat and sad, it’s because I already stemmed them. In the next couple of days, I’ll chop the leaves roughly and sauté them with raisins and pine nuts. The stems are in a bag with broccoli and Bordeaux spinach stems from last week. If the mood or opportunity strikes, I’ll make a stir-fry with these. If not, they’ll get an early start on their future as compost.

Same goes with the radish greens. Radish greens are not as yummy as, say, Tuscan kale or Komatsuna greens. But they’re edible. So I’ve reserved them in a separate bag for a possible later sautéing.

We also got apples and blueberries frozen from this summer.

The blueberries make wonderful pancakes and muffins. Or just add them to some yogurt or cereal.

Behold the yummy lettuce – all washed and spun.

We’ll have some nice salads with carrots and radishes. I’m glad it’s warmed up a little. When it’s super-cold, a big tossed salad isn’t quite the treat it seems on more temperate days. I want soup or something toasted with cheese.

Here are some herbs: Syrian oregano, lemon thyme, and cilantro

I think the Syrian oregano has more of a peppery taste than regular oregano. All of these herbs are stuck in a glass of water in the fridge and covered with a plastic bag  - along with some Italian parsley from last week. I’ll make some noodle soup with beef stock and the cilantro some time this week. I’m not sure what will happen with the oregano and thyme, but if they’re anything like the parsley, I’ll have a week or so to decide.

Eggs, granola, and popping corn

The popcorn is lots of fun. Just put it in a paper bag and microwave it for about 90 seconds. Popcorn makes a great nighttime treat when you’re just about sick of sweet stuff. Load up on the butter and salt to make it treatier.

Or make caramel corn.

• Italian parsley
• eggs
• delicious apples!
• potatoes
• coffee
• Bordeaux spinach
• pumpkin
• arugula
• butternut squash soup with topping
• field lettuce
• fava beans!
• broccoli

The apples are so sweet! Who needs Christmas candy with these around?

Fava beans are cool. Try this recipe with instructions for preparing them

I’ve roasted the pumpkin and prepared pulp for pumpkin bread. Yum!

The potatoes felt soft, and I was worried about their condition. However, once chopped, drizzled with olive oil, and roasted in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes, they were delicious.

The parsley has been great to have around. I thought about making tabouli with it, but instead I’ve kept the stems trimmed and in a glass of water covered with a plastic bag. I’ve had fresh parsley on pretty much everything. Last night, I just made pasta with olive oil, Parmesan, and parsley. It was yummy!

I had the soup for lunch one day with some lettuce the smallest spinach pieces for salad and some cheese toast. It was tasty, and I like the texture that the topping added. (Notice the fresh parsley!)

Enjoy your food!

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!

Swiss chard!

a very photogenic vegetable

Winter veggies!

carrots, kohlrabi, and cauliflower

Tomatoes, lettuce, and garlic

Oh, my!

Sweet stuff!

apples, honey, and pumpkin goat cheese

Wondering what to do with pumpkin goat cheese? Try graham cracker sandwiches…

I also picked up a few things from the online store

eggs, rice grits, on-sale goat cheese, and garlic

Brushchetta

The first night we made bruschetta. I chopped up the tomatoes and some garlic and cooked them in olive oil for about half an hour. Then I dumped the goat cheese (non-pumpkin variety) into a bowl with some olive oil and let that warm up by the stove. Then we spread the cheese and oil on some French bread slices, topped with the tomato mix, and put them under the broiler for a few minutes. It really needed some basil or Parmesan cheese but was still good. A sprinkle of finishing salt helped.

The goat cheese was on sale because it wasn’t super fresh. When you start getting fresh goat cheese, you learn it has different life stages. Basically, it goes through a gradual souring process that gives you plenty of warning. I had gotten the cheese to eat fresh in a sorrel salad, but after tasting it, I went with yummy bruschetta instead. I like how, with fresher food and some cooking experience, things aren’t either “fresh” or “bad.” There’s this whole psychologically healthier spectrum of “We can work with this.”

Stem-fry

Better than it sounds. Basically I stemmed the chard and left the leaves for sautéing another day. Then I cut up the cauliflower into florets for steaming another day and reserved those stems. And I had some baby pac choi stems from last week. Here’s the all-local cast (except for the onion):

cilantro, garlic, onion, pac choi, cauliflower, chard stems, chicken stock, eggs, and shrimp

(Okay, so the shrimp’s not exactly local, but it is Georgia coast shrimp, and it did come from Farmers Fresh.)

I didn’t have leftover rice, so I started cooking some rice grits. Then I ended up adding the rice grits. So it wasn’t fried rice, and it wasn’t stir-fried stuff over rice. More than anything, it was Asian gumbo.

And it was good.

Sausage-kohlrabi hash pockets

We made this up last night, and it worked well for a winter supper.

1. Slice up the kohlrabi and some garlic. Sauté in olive oil or butter for a few minutes and then let cook on low for about fifteen minutes. Add mustard, white wine, and/or a splash of nice vinegar at some point.
2. Half two pieces of pita bread and stick them in a slow oven to toast a little.
3. Cook bulk sausage in another pan and then add to kohlrabi. Deglaze sausage drippings with more wine.
4. Cook a little bit longer and then stuff into toasted pita pockets. Serve with lettuce and carrots.

Cauliflower

If you’re like us, cauliflower has always been the non-vegetable: colorless, tasteless, and mushy. Local cauliflower is different, though. There’s such a thing as cauliflower flavor. The best way to try it out is just to steam florets. They take a little longer than broccoli – maybe seven minutes? Just keep testing with a fork. They should be easy to pierce, but not mushy.

Try them with nothing first and then add salt or seasoning. Or Hollandaise sauce….

Enjoy your food!

par-cel, cilantro, and winter savory

Big, Beautiful, Bordeaux spinach

yummy lettuce!

Fall-appropriate vegetables!

Not-so-fall-appropriate vegetables. (But we’ll take them!)

Pac choi and popping corn

Ground beef and Taco Spice Mix

I did some ordering from the store, too.

sorrel, yogury, honey, and eggs

catnip for tea!

catnip mice and a herb-flower wreath for early holiday gifts

So far and other plans…

We’ve been enjoying the lettuce with carrots as well as radishes from last week. We haven’t used the little tomatoes for salad because we had other plans…

This is the start of bruschetta for a late supper tonight. It’s just tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, red wine, and salt and pepper. I’ve got some bread ready, so when we get back from the gym, we’ll just slice it, top it with tomato stuff and Parmesan cheese, and put the slices under the broiler for a few minutes. Can’t wait!

I’m planning to make beef stock and then beef stew this weekend. We’ve got these nice carrots and par-cel this week. From weeks past, we have beef bones and potatoes. I’ve had the beef-stock-making-plan before, and it fell through. I’m hoping the lure of beef stew will make the difference this time.

I did finally make and freeze some chicken stock. So someday soon for lunch or even breakfast, I’m going to make chicken and egg soup for one using stock, an egg, ramen noodles, garlic, dried peppers, and cilantro. (It’s for soup for one because Chris doesn’t like cilantro.)

These apples are unbelievable good. I hope there are more to come!

Salisbury Steak

While the taco spice mix is very nice with ground beef (it has this delicious dry-sweetness to it), I’d been itching to make this Salisbury Steak For Grown-Ups recipe from Nourished Kitchen. However, I haven’t yet made my beef stock, so I had to use bouillon. Which kind of violates the whole Nourished Kitchen philosophy, but oh, well. I also used a white onion instead of shallots. Everything else, I pretty much followed.

Brown onions in ghee.

(Ghee is great! Especially when Farmers’ Fresh runs out of butter on the online store. You can buy ghee in a tub made from organic milk from pasture-raised cows. And it can sit out and stay good for months!)

Chop and brown mushrooms.

Make patties from beef, diced onions/shallots, a beaten egg yolk, and salt and pepper.

After searing the patties on both sides, smother with onions and mushrooms.

Go back in time and start the sauce (2 cups stock, 2 cups wine, 2 sprigs of thyme). Reduce by half, remove the thyme, and then dump over the patties, onions, and mushrooms.

Serve with roasted sweet potatoes and winter savory and lettuce!