thoughtful consumption

This week I ordered some snacks separately for a business meeting. Especially because half of the people are from out of town, it will be nice to offer some local goodies.

2 kinds of mini muffins, peanut butter bars, and rosemary-nut mix

I also ordered 5 pounds of apples. Wondering how many apples is 5 pounds of apples? Here you go.

Here’s what came as part of my standing order: (more…)

Read Full Post »

Here’s what we’ve been enjoying this week from our CSA box:

blueberries, apples, peaches, nectarines, and Asian pears

basil, peach relish, onions, and garlic

field peas!, tomatoes, and fingerling potatoes

yellow beans and yellow squash

And here’s my online order

eggs, basil, Asiago cheese, and lemon verbena

Wednesday night was an all-local feast. Here’s the set-up…

basil, field peas, vinegar made from Fran’s herbs, butter, bacon fat , cornmeal, sweet onion,squash, garlic, and tomato

I cooked the field peas with a spoonful of bacon fat and a clove of garlic and topped them with the fresh basil and a splash of vinegar.

(This is vinegar I started a few months ago with an herb bundle from Fran. It’s tasty! I can’t wait till fall when the field lettuces return! In the meantime, I’ll try to remember to dress my veggies with it. The peach relish would be yummy on field peas and other veggies, too. It’s sweet from the peaches but it’s also got garlic, peppers, and ginger for some zing.)

I sliced the squash on a mandolin, tossed it with some cornmeal, chopped garlic and onion, and salt and pepper, and then sautéed the mix in butter. The tomato I just sliced and served. Chris inhaled it immediately. We enjoyed this supper so much. Fresh field peas are amazing delicious.

The rest of the basil has now become pesto. Not quite a cup’s worth. I froze half of it. If I don’t get to the other half tomorrow, I’ll probably freeze that, too, to be safe. Fresh basil doesn’t last long, but frozen pesto is terrific. I ate my last of last summer’s stash about a month ago to make room for more. It was still really good. I ate some of it with a spoon and the rest we broiled on some slices of good bread.

The tomatoes were gorgeously ripe. I didn’t get to two of them until yesterday, and they had a couple of black spots at the end. I thought, Hmm… these sure didn’t last as long as the tomatoes a month ago did. Well, duh, Susan. It’s August, and these are achingly ripe tomatoes not intended to sit on a kitchen table for long. Anyway, no worries. I cut off the small black spots and chopped up two of the most gorgeous, meaty, red tomatoes you’ve ever seen. They made incredible rustic marinara sauce (tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, and red wine cooked over low for a couple of hours). So don’t let your August tomatoes sit, and don’t be scared off by some spots if you do. There’s gold in them there ‘maters.

The yellow beans were surprisingly good. A year or so ago, I had a bag of these I didn’t like so much. Maybe these are better, maybe I’m still growing up. We cooked them Southern-style with some of the aforementioned bacon fat. We roasted the potatoes after tossing them in some salt and olive oil. Very tasty little potatoes.

Asian pears are fun. They stay crisp after cooking so you can sauté them. Another idea is shredding them for slaw. Taste-wise, I think they taste more like tart apples than pears. I think I’m going to try to make a fancy-ish dessert : sautéed Asian pear slices with brandy sauce and goat cheese. We’ll see.

Enjoy your food!

Read Full Post »

First up… watermelon spritzers!

Wednesday afternoon was hot and I needed to use up some watermelon chunks from a couple of weeks ago to make space in the fridge. So I used that watermelon, some seltzer, and the stevia from this week’s herbs…

to make two of these…

Kinda fun and different. Here’s what else came in this week’s box… (more…)

Read Full Post »

Here’s what was in my CSA box this week:

• potatoes
• corn
• zucchini
• sweet onion
• zephyr squash
• sweet Italian peppers
• tomatoes

• figs
• peaches, peentos, and nectarines
• blueberries
• dilly beans
• garlic

An ode to corn

The corn has been tremendous this year! And so easy, too. Just toss a couple of ears, husk and all, into the microwave and cook 2 x 2 minutes. The ears will be too hot to handle, but after a minute, they’re easy to shuck and desilk. And good enough not to need butter or pepper. It’s practically a convenience food. (more…)

Read Full Post »

More summer fun in this week’s CSA box!

purple green beans!

apples, peaches, flat peaches, and a nectarine

tomatoes and a green pepper

sweet corn!

Asian eggplant

arugula

field lettuce!

eggs, garlic, and goat cheese

A trip to the store

I stopped by the Farmers’ Fresh store on the square in downtown Carrollton.

shrimp, summer sausage, bacon

Frozen shrimp is a staple for us in stir-fries and sautéed in garlic as a quick supper. It’s so convenient because it needs practically no defrosting.

Summer sausage was new and exciting. It seemed like a good idea because it should last a while and go great with a host of summer vegetables. Many meals in the summer end up with lots of veggies and no protein. Sliced summer sausage to the rescue!

I’d like to make an argument that the bacon will last a while, too, but it won’t. Bacon burns a hole in my refrigerator door. Everything’s better with bacon. Yum. Bacon. (And sulfite-free!)

honey and garlic

I’ve been using raw honey from Colorado (gasp!) for about a month. And I’m a little stuffy. A connection? I’m going back on the local stuff. I like the taste better, anyway.

cheese!

I can make up good, rational reasons for buying everything else, but this cheese is pure indulgence. I’ll eat it in the afternoons as a snack. I’ll let it come to room temperature first, though. Eating cheese like this cold from the fridge is criminal!

Last night’s supper

Pulling food out of the CSA box is the best kind of meal planning. I had no idea what we’d have for supper before then. Afterward, I knew we’d have corn and lettuce because those are best eaten right away. The goat cheese is not incredibly fresh, so I wanted to use some of it, too. And those baby eggplant were just too cute to ignore.

Here’s what we ended up with…

shrimp in garlic, lettuce, tomato, and arugula salad, sweet corn, and broiled eggplant with goat cheese!

Eggplant plans

Baba ghanoush is a great thing to do with eggplant. (Especially once you’ve sprung for an $8 jar of tahini.) I roasted three Asian eggplants and combined the innards with a couple of tablespoons of tahini, some olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and the juice of half a (juicy) lemon. This made about a cup of baba ghanoush. It’s really good, and you can just keep tasting it as you make it and add more ingredients as needed. One thing I learned is that it’s better after a day in the fridge, so make it ahead of time if you can.

Broiling slices with goat cheese is fun, too. Just slice the eggplant (anywhere from 1/8-1/2 inch depending on how much you like eggplant. It can get slimy and greasy to me, so I stick to 1/8” slices.), brush slices with olive oil and broil for several minutes (depends on the thickness). In the last couple of minutes, sprinkle the goat cheese on top, along with any herbs you might have lying around. Delish!

Here are more recipes for eggplant.

Enjoy your food!

Read Full Post »

Here’s this week’s haul en masse (except for a cantalope that I forgot in the fridge). It was one heavy box of goodness!

• green beans
• Asian eggplant
• tomatoes
• yellow squash
• gazpacho
• quail eggs (more…)

Read Full Post »

Lovin’ the summer produce! Check out today’s lunch…

Oh, the Southern goodness!

(I did not fry the chicken.)

And here’s what came in this week’s box. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Summer colors!

This week, I wish I had the room  to take a picture of my whole CSA order. It was so colorful. Instead, here are the individual pictures, which you can combine into a CSA collage in your mind.

arugula and beets

Along with some local goat cheese, these two make an awesome salad. I’ll roast the beets and chill them. Then I’ll slice them and add them to the arugula along with the cheese. No salad dressing required, although a sweetish vinaigrette applied with a light hand is nice.

okra and summer squash

This is the prettiest okra ever! I should probably do something besides chop, bread, and fry… nah. This week we’ll have fried okra breaded with flour and some Riverview Farms corn meal. I like veggies fried in plain old, non-virgin (less pricey) olive oil. So tasty!

The squash will get sliced, breaded, and fried, too. Maybe not deep-fried, though. Something more like this. (more…)

Read Full Post »

I’m really excited about this summer season and the presence of beets and potatoes. (Last year, we got lots of rain at the wrong time, and there weren’t any beets or potatoes to be found. )

The potatoes are Yukon Golds. They are not overly happy potatoes…

but they seem friendly enough.

(They’re also delicious cubed and roasted with olive oil, rosemary, salt, and pepper.) (more…)

Read Full Post »

Here’s what I got last week in my CSA box from Farmers Fresh:

blueberries, peaches, and strawberries - oh, my!

dill, Mexican tarragon, par-cel, and thyme

(soft and mild) radishes, (sweet) onions, and (enormous) carrots

eggs and spinach

lettuce and tomatoes!

The tomatoes were terrific, and early summer’s so nice because you get tomatoes and lettuce. For me, one of the shocks of eating local, seasonal produce was that lettuce and tomatoes really don’t overlap that much – even though we eat them together all the time conventionally.

I also ordered some stuff from the store:

strawberries, sorrel, and beets

(By the way, sorrel and roasted-then-chilled sliced beets is the world’s best combination.)

Not pictured: crunchy sprouts.

Lots of salads!

Lettuce, tomatoes, spinach, sorrel, beets, radishes, onions, sprouts, and carrots call for lots of salads. Here’s one:

And here’s another:

The funny thing about this salad is its tiny-ness. This is a 6” salad plate, and those eggs are a half a dozen quail’s eggs, scrambled. It made a perfect little late-night supper. (The quail’s eggs were kind of neat. They’re frustrating to open, and the taste – at least, for scrambled eggs – is not that different from chicken’s eggs. Still, they was cool to try, and they’re supposed to be really good for you.)

Monday, I made fried rice with lots of local stuff. We started with leftover Carolina Gold rice and then cooked up some local eggs and a handful of sustainably-harvested Georgia shrimp. Then we added these veggies:

snap peas, sprouts, onions, beet stems, radishes, and carrots

For sauce, I combined some soy sauce, sherry, dark sesame oil, and some homemade chicken broth. The broth and the Carolina Gold rice made for some rich-tasting rice.

which I forgot to take a picture of until we were almost done eating.

We’ve been eating lo mein for so long that this fried rice was a really nice change of pace.

What’s left over

I still have some beet greens left to sauté with raisins and local pecans. We’ll probably have that tonight for supper. I have some dill left, which is great because I ordered more beets from the store. Fresh dill is really tasty with beets.

I also have some thyme and blueberries. Maybe we’ll have a summery cocktail this evening.

It’s Wednesday, so I’m off to get more CSA-goodness. Enjoy your food!

Read Full Post »