thoughtful consumption

This year, I’m baking Christmas with walnut-craisin biscotti. It’s the only thing I bake well enough to give as a gift.

The original recipe is Martha Stewart’s. My changes are

• spelt flour instead of whole-wheat,
• craisins instead of raisins,
• chopping up the walnut halves, and
• cutting the sugar to ¼ cup (or less)

Not too sweet and makes the best breakfast or afternoon snack.

So far, I’ve made four loaves worth. Well, five if you count the one I forgot to add the sugar to. I get to keep that one. It’s surprisingly good, and a little honey makes it perfect.

Four more loaves to go before Friday. Wish me luck!

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beautiful, slender carrots and lettuce

These carrots would be gorgeous steamed with butter and parsley. Or raw as snacks or in salad.

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green onions and Bordeaux spinach

The green onions smell so good and will be great in salads, stir fries, or grilled. Tomorrow or Friday at the latest, we’ll have a wilted spinach salad. I’ll cook some bacon and crumble it and then quickly sauté green onions in the grease. Then I’ll dump the bacon bits and onions in leftover salad dressing, heat it, and then pour it over the spinach. (more…)

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Defrosted a pound of local ground beef this week. Half of it went into tacos, and the other half, cottage pie.

Tacos

The lettuce and tomato from last week along with the locally made taco mix from a week or so before had me thinking tacos with ground beef.

Here’s our taco bar:

beef seasoned with taco spice mix, chopped tomatoes, caramelized onions, and lettuce

No sour cream 😦

The tortillas are from Kroger. They’re nutty and filling and better-tasting than most flour or corn tortillas. (more…)

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So glad to have produce even in this weather!

radishes, hakurei turnips, sweet potatoes, and apples

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cauliflower and Bordeaux spinach

I was never a fan of cauliflower until I started eating the local stuff. (more…)

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We finally turned our heat on yesterday. It looks like it might stay cold for a while now, and one can only so many sweaters and hats without feeling silly. Thankfully, farmers are smarter than Chris and I, and they’ve kept things warm on their farms with greenhouses and hoop-houses.

First, here’s what came with this week’s dinner for two package from Farmers’ Fresh.

Asian roots and greens

baby pac choi, daikon radish, and Asian turnips

Komatsuna greens

I’ve been cooking greens in our standard manner of sautéing with raisins and walnuts. Then the stems end up in either a stir-fry or a casserole along with the roots. They also might be nice in a chicken soup. Or even diced fine and added to a bowl of ramen. (more…)

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Don’t miss this new farmers’ market in Douglasville!

Every Thursday from 4-7pm (Winter Hours)
Crossroads Church
5960 Stewart Parkway
Douglasville, GA 30135

For more information contact us at: cafe1010market@gmail.com or visit them on Facebook.

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Here’s the produce that came in my CSA box this week.

Fuyu persimmons and apples

The persimmons look like tomatoes, don’t they? They’re a firm persimmon with a texture kind of like an apple and a tart, slightly spicy flavor. While, they can be eaten raw like apples, the texture wasn’t enough apple-like for me to eat a whole one raw. (Clearly, I did have a slice, though.)

Instead, I made persimmon mini-cobblers. The idea was solid. The only problem was that two persimmons makes about 1 ½ cups of diced fruit – about half of what I needed. I should have made half a dozen cobblers, but I spread the fruit thin and went with the whole dozen.

It’s tasty as cobbler, but the cobbler part completely overwhelms the persimmon part. (more…)

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two big, beautiful apples

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hydroponic lettuce and broccoli

The head of lettuce is very dense. It yields more salad servings than you might imagine. Also, don’t sweat the brown/yellow color on the broccoli. It’s from cold weather and doesn’t affect the taste. Steamed broccoli became the vegetable of choice at so many restaurants that I got tired of it. Local broccoli right out of the ground, however, brings the romance back. (more…)

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Amazingly enough, some summer veggies have lasted into November:

grape tomatoes and Asian eggplant

Last week, I made a yummy, simple pasta dish with these tomatoes. First, I heated olive oil with a crushed clove of garlic on low until the clove was just brown.

While the garlic was heating, I tore over to Lucy’s herb garden for some fresh thyme. Thankfully, the garlic takes a long time to cook on low.

Then I chopped the little tomatoes in halves and quarters and added them, the thyme, and some salt  to the pan.

Looks like I removed the garlic clove, too.

At some point, I added a little red wine and let in bubble. (more…)

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Get to your produce right away this week. The incredibly humid past couple of days will mess up your stash fast. My produce was practically dripping when I pulled it out of the box.

Pull it out, dry it off, and rebag it. Just turn the bag it came in inside out. If it’s leafy stuff, put a paper towel in the bag to absorb some of the moisture.

And remember it’s great to have some rain!

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There were lots of colorful things in this week’s box, but the radishes were the most amazing. They are so big, bright, and smooth.

The baby squash are really pretty, too.

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To carve or not to carve? This beautiful, dark orange pumpkin is a pie pumpkin, which means I could bake it like a winter squash and make pie, soup, or just baked pumpkin.

Or we could make a jack-o-lantern. I’ll talk it over with Chris and decide.

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Lettuce and grape tomatoes

No clever ideas necessary here – just salad with tomatoes (and beautiful radishes). These little tomatoes also make great snacks.

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Arugula smells so dreamy when you dump it out of the bag! I like arugula best as salad, but we’ve got so much salad, that I will blanch and freeze this in preparation for a creamy pasta dish in the future.

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Enormous and pretty pac choi! Pac choi leaves have wonderful color and texture. These leaves are large enough to make stir-fry “cabbage wraps.” Basically the idea is to steam the leaves just until they’re pliable. (Microwave them in a stack like tortillas, for example.) Then load them up with stir-fried vegetables or seasoned meat or curried lentils or whatever. Treat the stems like celery. Chop them up and add them to stir-fries or soup.

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Them’s baking apples, but you can snack on them in a pinch. They taste like sour apple candy. I’m going to core, peel, halve and roast these, however, to give me an excuse to make more bourbon sauce.

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Carolina Gold rice, eggs, and Sea Island red peas

The rice and the peas will hang out in the fridge for a while. I’ve got too much produce to be eaten first before resorting to dried foods. One possibility, though, is making fried rice or steaming this rice and using it as part of the pac choi wrap filling.

Fresh eggs always rock. Accept no substitute.

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