thoughtful consumption

Member packs

If you haven’t got your member pack yet, don’t panic! They’re being delivered several at a time over the next few weeks. Here are some better pictures of some of the items in the member pack.

goats' milk soap sampler

3 lip balms

Mint syrup

I enjoy fresh mint in my tea, but I didn’t think I could get through all of the spearmint and peppermint I’d picked up last week. So I made mint syrup. It only takes a tiny bit – maybe a quarter of a teaspoon – to sweeten and perk up a cup of tea. The first time I added way too much, and my tea tasted like chewing gum! But just a little bit is really nice especially in the afternoon. And it keeps me from running through my honey too quickly.

Not very green but full of minty goodness!

Steamed veggies and feta cheese

For our supper last night, we had steamed peapods and beets (the orange things) with crumbled feta cheese. The beets were baked a few days ago, so I got one out of the fridge and sliced it. It worked out well because the peapods and the cooked beets both only needed a minute or two in the steamer. All I added to the veggies was some Jane’s Krazy Salt and the feta cheese.

The other part of the meal is leftover pita crisps we made last week with oregano, rosemary, and green onions. Reheated pita crisps are good, but I guess it’s more accurate to call them pita chews.

Lentils, leeks, savory, and rice grits

I was pleased to find this recipe that calls for leeks and savory. However, it seems silly to me to add sausage on top of lentils, so I just served the lentils with rice grits instead.

I chopped up the leeks like green onions starting at the white end and going up to where the leaves started flaring. Maybe I went into the green parts a little too far, but I hated to waste them.

Lentils are a funny food. I’d never say lentils taste great, but they are really satisfying and leave you feeling well fed.

(The wine doesn't hurt, either.)

Pecans

We finally shelled all our pecans this week. I made some candied pecans according to this recipe. (I doubled the egg whites and cinnamon and added two teaspoons of vanilla.) These are so good it’s not even funny. And pretty easy to make once the pecans are shelled. We’re snacking on the bigger pieces, and we’ll put the little crumbles in salads or on ice cream. (I am not a gifted pecan sheller, so we have lots of crumbles.)

Look ma, no meat!

With pecans, lentils, leeks, peapods, and beets, who needs hamburgers? I have no intention of becoming vegetarian, but everything we’ve enjoyed making and eating this week has been meat-free. It’s pretty easy to do when you have such good stuff to start with.

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This pack is sent to everyone who purchases a sustaining membership for $100. Members also get online store discounts.

Here’s what was in my member pack.

• 2 peanut bars – so scrumptious! I’ll be ordering these from the online store for special occasions.
• 3 lip balms – peppermint, pink grapefruit, and honey
• goat soap sampler – 6 cute little soaps in different scents
• 8 oz Café Campesino coffee
• corn grits –whole grain and stone ground
• a handy tote bag
• 6 oz local wildflower honey
• CSA cookbook
• spearmint
• yellow polenta
• Carolina Gold rice
• tea clip and bags for making herbal teas
• herbal tea mix: chamomile, lemon balm, and catnip
• Three-Grain pancake mix

Whole grains

I was excited to see all the grains. I’ve really enjoyed cooking (and eating) them. I’ve learned that less-processed grains have great texture and taste. It’s not all just indistinguishable starch. For instance, I used to think of grits as the substance from Waffle House that’s best covered with cheese. But real grits are incredible with some butter, salt and pepper, and I’d never put cheese on them. (What? And cover up all that corn grit taste? No way!)

There are plenty of fancy recipes for making polenta, but it looks like corn meal to me and that means I’m going to make at least some of it into cornbread. I love cornbread and haven’t made any in a while. I’m sure it will be divine with this stuff although I may add a little flour if the texture seems too coarse.

The polenta and the rice come from Anson Mills in South Carolina. They grow heirloom varieties and mill them in old fashioned ways that protects their flavor and nutritional value. Read more about them at their website www.ansonmills.com.

For the rice, I’m going to use this recipe from the Anson Mills site. You cook the rice and then dry it the oven for a few minutes. Huh. I’ll give it a try.

Because these are whole grains and milled without heat or preservatives, it’s important to keep them in the fridge or freezer.

Herbs and tea

I appreciate the tools and instructions for making herbal teas. I drink a lot of regular tea, and I’ve always wanted to experiment more with herbal teas. I’ll use the herbs from the mix fresh for herbal tea, but I’m going to make the spearmint and the mint from this week’s box into syrup. I can’t imagine getting through this much mint fresh.

Making syrup seems pretty easy. Boil a cup of water and sugar for each cup of mint leaves. When the sugar dissolves, add the mint, remove from the heat, and let it sit with the leaves in it for at least an hour. Then remove the leaves and put the syrup in the fridge. Then add to tea in place of honey or sugar. I’m also hoping that you can just add some of the syrup to hot water with lemon and make mint herbal tea.

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I added the gourmet upgrade to my standard package this week. Plus we got our cool member pack which I’ll describe more in my next post.

• eggs
• banana nut muffins (started with six, but you know how that goes)
• salad enhancers: carrots, snow peas, broccoli buds, peppermint?
• kale
• snow peas
• gourmet salad mix
• onion
• strawberries
• feta cheese
• herbs: oregano, winter savory, violets
• orange beets!
• leeks

Enhanced salads

I went crazy and used everything in our salad last night. In addition to the gourmet salad mix, we had carrots, snow peas, broccoli buds, beets, green onions, and violets. Looking back, I think it was kind of overkill – especially considering that the gourmet mix is interesting enough to stand on its own. It probably would have been better to save the enhancements for a boring romaine salad from our garden.

Nevertheless, it was delicious! The orange beets taste the same as regular beets although it’s been a while since I had a fresh beet, so I may have missed some subtle differences. Last night we ate loaded baked potatoes along with our loaded salad, so I just wrapped the beets in foil and baked them along with the potatoes. Then I chilled, peeled, and sliced them to add to the salad. Fresh beets are terrific – definitely one of the things I’ve learned to love since joining Farmers Fresh.

Another day, another salad – woo-hoo!

We’re were enjoying a week of great salads even before yesterday’s delivery. Monday we had a spinach and romaine salad with canned tuna (in oil), parmesan cheese, and green onions tossed in a chervil honey vinaigrette. Tuesday we had spinach and romaine salad tossed in a bacon vinaigrette and topped with swiss cheese, bleu cheese, walnuts, craisins, and green onions. I really think the key is tossing everything together and chilling it on the plates for about 15 minutes before serving. It makes a big difference in the flavor. And it gives you a few minutes to clean up or prepare something else.

Today we’ll have the gourmet mix tossed with feta cheese and maybe some beets. The feta is terrific and very mild, so I don’t want to cover it up with lots of flavors. This weekend we’ll go back to romaine and spinach mixes once the gourmet mix is gone.

How do you say “Old Faithful” in Chinese?

We’ll have more fried rice this weekend, too, with kale, snow peas, and onion. I’m out of shrimp, so I’m defrosting a portion of pork loin from the freezer. I’ll try to remember to chop and marinate it before it completely defrosts because it’s much easier to slice it thinly that way.

The fried rice I made for my mom on Mother’s Day turned out okay. I cooked it in her cast iron seasoned Dutch oven, but I didn’t use enough oil and some of the rice stuck to the bottom and burned. Guess I’m spoiled by my dear friend Mr. Nonstick Saucier.

Fun with leeks and savory

The leeks would probably be good in fried rice, too, but I want to make something that highlights them. Looking through some recipes, I thinking about doing something with lentils, bacon, and the winter savory. Something like…

• Cook some lentils
• Microwave some bacon and then sauté sliced leeks in some of the fat
• Add in the lentils, some balsamic vinaigrette, savory, salt, and pepper
• Stir it around for a couple of minutes and serve

I’ll probably save the bacon for salad toppings rather than putting it back in with the lentils.

Preserving the bounty

I’m air drying the oregano along with the bunch from last week. With oregano, you don’t lose a lot of flavor when it dries. So I’m drying it in preparation for later this summer when we go seriously Italian with the tomatoes, zucchini, and eggplant.

The strawberries went directly to the freezer. My husband said the novelty of fresh strawberries has worn off for him. No problem! They can chill out in the freezer for a while. Later they can be smoothies, strawberry topping, or even daiquiris!

Egg plans

We’ve still got some eggs from last week, so I get to go wild with eggs this week. We’ll have some scrambled eggs with the last of some cooked red cabbage or with any of the salads for a bigger meal.

My husband’s been hankering to make a pound cake, and I see no reason to stop him. A whole cake takes a whopping six eggs, but the results are worth it. We can always freeze half of the cake in chunks and then surprise ourselves with them later.

Or maybe we’ll take the cake to my mom’s. A couple of weeks ago, she made a great pound cake. I figure if we take one to her, we might start a pound cake war that could escalate out of all proportion. The collateral damage would be delicious.

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• herbs: chives, chervil, and cilantro
• English peas
• green hydroponic lettuce
• Bordeaux spinach
• strawberries (1 lb!)
• eggs
• blueberry muffins
• radishes
• green onions
• red hydroponic lettuce

This week’s collection is very spring, don’t you think? The chive flowers, radishes, strawberries and the delicate green colors looked really pretty spread out on the table. The blueberry muffins are moist and delicious. These muffins are the right size, too, for a satisfying, quick breakfast or treat.

C Herbs

The herbs are cool for a couple of reasons. One is the chervil. I’m sure I’ve had this in herb mixes before, but I’ve never had it by itself. It tastes like a subtle parsley with a little licorice thrown in. I’ve already made some salad dressing by mixing some chopped chervil with vinegar, sugar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. It was really good on the delicate hydroponic lettuces and radishes. Here’s another vinaigrette recipe from The Spice and Herb Bible. It’s written to be served over seared tuna, but it will probably go with lots of things.

____________________________

Chervil Vinaigrette

Combine

1 tbsp chopped fresh chervil

1 tbsp cider vinegar

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1-1/2 tsp Dijon mustard

½ tsp crushed garlic

Whisk in

2 tbsp olive oil

until the whole thing emulsifies.

__________________________________

We’ll definitely use some chervil and chives on salads and chives on loaded baked potatoes. If I had my way, I’d toss the chives, chervil, some garlic, salt and olive oil with fresh pasta. But I don’t think anyone else likes pasta without red sauce as much as I do.

The other reason I like this herb bag is the cilantro came in a manageable amount. I’m not a huge cilantro fan, but I can work with this much. I’ll add it to salsa and tacos sometime this weekend or next week.

Strawberry Freezes Forever… or just for a few days

I went ahead and froze some of these strawberries after we had a couple go moldy in the fridge last week. My husband enjoys them fresh but doesn’t always get through the whole supply. Many more things can be done with frozen strawberries than can be done with moldy ones, so I’m freezing them now. Fresh frozen strawberries can be defrosted a little into a delicious slurry that’s just as good as fresh,  if not better on a hot day. Frozen berries can be added directly to smoothies and ice cream or put in a pot and cooked down to sauce. Or they can be used to make dressing for Bordeaux spinach.

But I don’t intend them to languish in the freezer for months. Freezing as a short term storage solution is what Mark Bittman wrote about this week. I find the concept helpful because I tend to think about my freezer as long term storage for enjoying stuff out of season rather than as a short term tool. It also inspires me to get back to organizing my freezer. Maybe.

Cooking for Mom

This weekend we’re going to make shrimp fried rice for my mom for Mother’s Day. I’ll use green onions and eggs and hopefully some pac choi from my mom’s CSA box. I don’t like English peas that much, so even though they’re naturals for fried rice, I’m not putting them in. Instead, I’ll cook them as a nice side with another meal.

Update on Peas

How to Cook Everything has a great, easy pea recipe. I ended up with a little more than a cup of peas, so I melted a tablespoon of butter (or you can use olive oil) in a little skillet. After it was hot, I added about a tablespoon of chopped chervil and chives to sizzle for a minute. (These seasonings were just one of the possibilities listed in the book for peas.) Then I added the peas and cooked them about two minutes. Right before they were done, I sprinkled a little salt and sugar over them. The recipe was easy and quick, but I still don’t like peas. Thankfully, everyone else ate them up with no problemh.

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Here’s this week’s haul. School’s out for a couple of months, and I am looking forward to having more time to play with my food.

• Ezekiel muffins
• eggs
• pecans
• oregano
• spinach
• red leaf lettuce
• more lettuce (Bibb?)
• more pecans
• carrots
• strawberries
• collards

I also ordered extras from the online store.

• Café Campesino regular and decaf coffee – We’ve ordered from these guys before and enjoyed the coffee, so we were happy to see them added to the CSA store. The prices are about the same as on the Campesino website but without the extra shipping.

• Honey – My husband drinks coffee, but I like tea with honey in it as well as peanut butter and honey sandwiches for breakfast. So I’ll have no problem getting through this jar of honey. There have also been reports that eating local honey helps with allergies. It seems like a tasty remedy to try although it’s important to remember not to give honey to children until they’re more than a year old and their immune systems can handle it.

This week

I’ve already enjoyed some scrambled eggs, salad, carrots, and most of the muffins.

Heaven on a blue plate!

Those eggs were last week’s eggs, and this week’s eggs are slated to become French toast for Sunday brunch. Probably with strawberries on top or that strawberry sauce mentioned in a CSA newsletter a couple of weeks ago.

The lettuce is already gone. It made three or four really nice salads along with the carrots and leftover arugula from last week. Now it’s time for spinach. I’m thinking about a spinach salad with hot bacon dressing for early next week.

These pecans are big which makes them easier to shell. Or at least you get more pecan meat per shelling. I plan to candy this bunch according to this recipe.

Leftovers

Several days ago, we had a nice CSA supper with sweet potatoes, salad, red cabbage, rice grits, and broiled flank steak.

I just cooked the grits like rice, and they came out fine. They have a really satisfying texture. After this supper, I decided to try rice pudding using rice grits. I found this easy recipe, and it was delicious. I could have eaten the whole pot in one sitting!

I still have some grits left. I think I’ll just cook them with rice and serve them alongside the spinach salad with bacon dressing.

I’ve got a lot of spinach, and I’m working on some kind of spinach alfredo dish to try. It’s always strange to me how you can have so much raw spinach but once you cook it down it’s hardly any at all!

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Here’s what we got this week!

• carrots
• baby collards
• sweet potatoes
• arugula
• mixed lettuce
• Bordeaux spinach
• banana-nut muffins
• eggs
• cherry tomatoes
• red leaf lettuce (pictured below)

With the weather heating up, we might not have this wonderful lettuce much longer. So I’m grateful for every bit we got this week. The red leaf lettuce was enough for two plus scrambled eggs and carrots for supper. These eggs make plain-old-boring scrambled eggs a delicious treat.

Woo-hoo! Scrambled eggs for supper!

A cautionary tale about washing lettuce

I was in a hurry and didn’t do a good job washing the red leaf lettuce. When I sat down to eat, I noticed an inchworm in my salad. While I agreed with my husband that it wouldn’t have killed me to eat an inchworm, it certainly would have killed the inchworm, and inchworms are too cute to eat or smush, in my opinion. This particular inchworm was relocated to the holly tree just outside our kitchen.

Mixed lettuce

Friday I made a salad with the mixed lettuce. It’s a wonderful mix – like instant gourmet food. Next week, I’m going to add some of the arugula to it, too. This lettuce will make great “tuna salads.” Here’s what we do for a fast meal: Mix together some lettuce, quartered cherry tomatoes, shaved parmesan, pepper, and some nice vinegar. Then mix in a can of tuna in olive oil. The oil from the tuna combines with the vinegar to make the dressing. Chill the plates for a few minutes and serve with bread and carrots.

Spinach and Arugula

I think I’m going to take Janet up on her pizza idea – or make spinach-artichoke dip. I’ve got too much spinach, I think, to get through raw, which is my favorite way to eat it. Instead of red pizza, though, I may try a white one with spinach and arugula and lots of olive oil, salt, pepper, and parmesan. I got some really good Port Salut cheese at Sam’s, but I’m not sure how it would do on pizza, and I don’t want to risk wasting it.

Arugula has lots of uses and is always great with parmesan cheese. I’m also imagining a pasta dish with wilted arugula, cherry tomatoes, and some shrimp or hot sausage. I’ll chop the tomatoes in half and cook them with some olive oil, garlic, wine and crushed red pepper. Then I’ll add the shrimp and let it cook on low until the shrimp’s done. Finally, I’ll add some chopped arugula so it can wilt just a little before serving it over pasta with lots of parmesan cheese. If I use sausage, I’ll brown it and remove it leaving a little of the fat. Then I’ll cook the garlic, tomatoes, and olive oil for a bit along with the fat. Then I’ll add the sausage back before adding the arugula.

Amateur spotlight

This is the best year yet for our garden. We’ve got peas, lettuce, onions, potatoes, and carrot tops.

The carrot tops that my husband planted look very healthy and are growing like mad. I guess at some point we’ll have to pull a carrot top up and see if it’s making more carrot bottom. If that’s the case, we might have to make a whole new garden just for recycling carrot tops!

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This week

Whew! What a week! Sorry it’s taken so long to post this week. Here’s what we got this past Wednesday.

• eggs
• rice grits
• spinach
• green leaf lettuce
• red leaf lettuce
• cherry tomatoes
• spearmint
• strawberries
• Ezekiel muffins…

… but you’ll just have to take my word on that last part.

The Ezekiel muffins are still my favorite muffins. I even like them better than the chocolate-raspberry ones!

The lettuce is great as usual. We’ll make lots of salad with the tomatoes. The spinach we’ll eat after the leaf lettuce is gone since it seems to last longer. I glad I got some grits. I’ll cook them ahead of time with lots of butter and salt and then heat them up for breakfast in the morning. Or in the evening along with scrambled eggs and salad. Maybe I’ll get some Canadian bacon, cut it into chunks, and toss it in the grits, too.

The strawberries don’t look as bright as the ones in the past, but my husband says they taste just as good. In fact, he likes them better because the seeds are smaller. I only eat my strawberries processed in smoothie form. Although the strawberry sauce Janet wrote up in the CSA newsletter sounds great, too.

I’m enjoying the spearmint in my tea. It’s good in hot tea, but I think it’d be great in iced tea. Next week, I’m going to take a couple of sprigs with me and put them in iced tea if I go out for lunch.

Leftovers

Fried

What do you call fried rice when you forget to make the rice? I forgot to make rice this week, but it turned into a happy accident. I started with leftover kale and chard, some onion, shrimp, and eggs. I followed my regular shrimp fried rice recipe and added some oyster sauce along with the soy sauce. I chopped up the chard stems to cook with the onions and added the leaves with the kale.

fried rice - hold the rice

When it was done, I dumped it over some lo mein noodles hidden in the pantry. It was great. I never imagined myself eating that much kale and chard in one sitting.

Caramel corn!

We finally made the popcorn we got several weeks ago. It was wonderful! And it’s so much fun when you lift the lid and there’s white fluffy popcorn. It’s like a magic trick. We followed this recipe from Zorra on Chowhound: Use 1 tablespoon of oil to ¼ cup of corn. Heat the oil in a sturdy pan with a lid. Add three kernels. Once they’ve all popped, add the rest. The hard part is you have to keep shaking the pot and trying to let some steam out with out letting any corn part out. But it only takes a few minutes. And leave the top on until you only hear a couple of pops. I had to peek, and a bunch of pieces popped right out!

The popcorn's very white in real life. Must be the butter filter on my camera.

The popcorn was delicious, but that was only act 1. Then we turned to this great recipe from Allrecipes.com. We made ¾ cup of corn, and it came out to close to 5 quarts, so we just followed the recipe with the exception of using our CSA cane syrup instead of corn syrup. The result was terrific – if eating entirely too much caramel corn in one sitting can be considered terrific.

Herbs and more

We roasted a chicken with lots of our rosemary (plus garlic, onion, and lemon).

We ate it for dinner with a nice salad, orzo pasta, and sweet potatoes.

I put salad burnet, rosemary flowers, parsley, and violets in with the lettuce.

I was really surprised by the rosemary flowers (the smallest purple ones). I was worried they’d be strong, but they were very delicate and delicious. I put one stem into some water in the hopes that it would continue to flower.

(No luck yet.)

We baked the sweet potatoes along with the chicken. When they came out of the oven, they just fell out of their skins, and we mashed them up with some butter.

I like butter.

The next day we made some chicken salad with leftover chicken and some of the herbs: salad burnet, chives, and parsley. It made really nice sandwiches.

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Here’s a picture of my Wednesday box. We got

• carrots,
• Bordeaux spinach,
• sweet potatoes,
• Butterhead lettuce,
• strawberries,
• tomatoes,
• eggs,
• parsley, and
• strawberry-banana-walnut muffins.

We plan to make plenty of salads with Bordeaux spinach, Butterhead lettuce, carrots, and tomatoes. The Butterhead lettuce has a definite butter taste. A lot of times, I don’t mix the lettuces because I like the distinct tastes. But the Butterhead is so strong, I think we’ll mix it with the spinach – and possibly some romaine from our garden! The carrots are rich and delicious. Three cheers for stubby carrots! The tomatoes will be good on salad, but we also might make some kind of egg dish with the plum tomatoes and parsley.

I wanted to make a strawberry dressing with the strawberries… but we’ve already eaten them all up. My husband eats them fresh, and I make smoothies. My favorite smoothie is yogurt, three strawberries, a banana, milk, ice, and honey.

This weekend, I’ll bake the sweet potatoes and then peel them and mash them with butter. That’ll make two sweet potatoes work for three people as a side.

So Saturday: muffins for breakfast, and for dinner, I’m thinking sweet potatoes, salad, and maybe a roast chicken. Then we can use the chicken that’s left for putting on top of salads later.

Leftovers

Currently, I still have some red cabbage, green onions, rosemary, kale, and chard. The green onions, chard and kale will probably become fried rice. I looked through the Bittman book, How to Cook Everything, but I didn’t see a chard recipe I was eager to try. Fried rice, on the other hand, is always a hit and makes great lunches, too.

I may not put any red cabbage in the fried rice, though, because it makes blue spots on the eggs. So I may just cook the red cabbage at some point. It’s keeping pretty well in the fridge.

I hope to use the rosemary in roast chicken this weekend. Or maybe in something with the tomatoes and parsley.

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Here’s what came for April Fool’s Day…

• kale
• carrots
• strawberries
• chard
• banana nut muffins
• tomatoes
• green onions
• herbs: salad burnet, violets, chives, and rosemary
• half dozen eggs

Half of the kale already made it into shrimp fried rice. And the other half may wind up in next week’s batch. It’s really a good and easy recipe once you get the steps down.

I’ve started making smoothies with the strawberries along with a banana, some yogurt, and some ice. It’s really good.

I’m not sure what to do with the chard yet, but it’ll be fun to look around for something good to try. I just got the cookbook How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman that Sharon and Joanna recommended. So maybe I’ll see what Mr. Bittman has to say about chard.

We’re having loaded baked potatoes tomorrow with green onions and chives. These onions are so tiny that I won’t have a problem slicing them up and eating them raw on salads or with dip.

I combined these tomatoes with last week’s tomatoes to make a fresh tomato sauce for pasta the other night.

The herbs are a pretty batch including violets and salad burnet. I actually had to buy lettuce at the store today, but I’m sure it will taste good with the leftover tomato slices, green onions, and salad herbs.

And I was happy to see that the carrots weren’t so slender and elegant this time. It seems to me that the stubbier the carrot, the better the taste.

I’ve already used a couple of eggs for fried rice. For the others, we’re planning biscotti and brownies. Biscotti makes a great breakfast or afternoon snack, and brownies are good anytime!

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Finally, I got to have my favorite supper: fresh scrambled eggs with cheese and a salad. With the other eggs, I made shrimp fried rice – which is quickly becoming a staple for us. We use whatever veggies we have left over. This time it was turnips, green onion, kale, red cabbage and sprouts.

Update: If you use red cabbage, some of the color will transfer to the eggs making them a scary blue color. Everything still tastes fine, but it’s still kind of strange.

Some of the tomatoes became part of the salads, but I peeled and chopped the plum tomatoes to make fresh tomato sauce for pasta. That was fun to do. I just sautéed some garlic, added the tomatoes, some wine and herbs and let it all cook until the pasta was done. It was pretty good!

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