thoughtful consumption

Have you tried any of the ears of popping corn? It’s really easy to turn them into a delicious treat. Amaze your family and friends with magical popcorn.

Easy CSA Microwave popcorn

1. Put a cob in a paper bag and fold it over.
2. Microwave for about 90 seconds. (Just like with store-bought microwave popcorn, listen for the popping to slow to about 1 per second and err on the side of less time.)
3. Carefully remove and top with salt, butter, or other seasonings.

Before, I popped the kernels off of the cob and then popped them on the stove in oil. But the microwave method is easier. If you want to make it on the stove, though, here’s how. (This post also includes a recipe for making caramel corn.)

We just sent my step-son, who’s off at a college, a care package that included a cob, a paper bag, and some salt. (He’ll have to find his own butter.)

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Here’s how to make popcorn on the stove. 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.

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Here’s a bread recipe from MotherEarth News.  It’s called Dutch Oven Beer Bread, or Bread Even Susan Can Make. The recipe is as user-stupid as they come.

• 3 cups of self-rising flour (or 3 cups all purpose + 1 ½ tbsp baking power and 1 ½ tsp salt)
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 bottle of beer (I’ve read you can also use ginger ale or anything fizzy.)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a Dutch oven (if it’s not well-seasoned)
2. Mix the dry ingredients together.
3. Pour in the beer. Don’t over mix. White streaks are okay.
4. Dump the dough in the Dutch oven and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

after baking

No kneading, no rising, no nothing. And the results were awesome. That’s what Chris kept saying over supper: “This is awesome.” The bread is a little crunchy on the outside and wonderfully chewy on the inside. The beer and sugar add just enough flavor. I used an amber ale  although it’ll be fun to experiment with different beers. I could easily see us making this bread once a week this winter. Great for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. An epic win, as the kids say.

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Fried rice is the traditional vegetable vacuum in my kitchen. But now there’s a new contender: shepherd’s pie!

Shepherd’s Pie

I made this Thursday night and served it with an arugula and lettuce salad. Chris and I ate the whole thing!

And when it was all gone, Chris licked the serving spoon clean.

Here’s what was in it.

• .625 lb of CSA beef (approximately)
• a bunch of green onions, chopped
• a large Asian turnip, diced
• a large purple radish, diced
• Worchestershire sauce
• brown mustard
• 2 little cloves of garlic, minced
• a cup of beef bouillon
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 ½ cup mashed potatoes

I sautéed the turnip, radish, and garlic in the butter. Once they were soft, I added the beef and cooked it until it was no longer pink. Then I added the green onions, Worchestershire, mustard, and bouillon. After it cooked down a little bit, I scooped it into a baking dish and topped it with the mashed potatoes.

(The mashed potatoes I had frozen weeks before. I mixed in an egg and then flash froze them in muffin tins to get serving size portions. I defrosted five of them in the microwave for this dish.)

Then the dish baked at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes until the potatoes were brown.

This recipe idea came from Elise at SimplyRecipes.com.

Future Pies

I’m sure there are lots of other veggies that could go in here. Maybe even some of those turnip greens blanched and chopped. Or the peas, Brussels sprouts, and various green beans in my freezer.

And I read that beef actually makes “Cottage Pie” and lamb makes “Shepherd’s Pie.” So now I have a good excuse to try some ground lamb from Gum Creek.

Between Pioneer Porridge and Shepherd’s Pie, I think we might be able to make it through the CSA off season!

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Here’s one of our favorite lunches. It’s quick, easy, and inexpensive, and we’re always surprised at how satisfying it is.

(more…)

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Winter squash are great!

They keep a long time on the kitchen table and are easy to prepare. We use this method for acorn squash and the bottom half of butternut squash. It comes from this recipe at Allrecipes.com. The comments for this recipe have a bunch of interesting tips including how to make the squash in the microwave instead of the oven.

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. (Actually, you can use almost any temperature. If you’ve got something else to go in the oven, just throw the squash in and it’ll be happy.)
2. Bake the squash whole for about 30 minutes.
3. Remove the squash and slice the squash in half long-ways (or longitudinally, if you prefer).
4. Scoop out the seeds and the goopy parts.
5. Put the squash halves in an oven pan with the peel down.
6. Place a pat of butter and a teaspoon (or more!) of maple syrup in each squash half. You can substitute brown sugar for the maple syrup. If you’d like not-so-sweet squash, see other seasoning ideas at the end of this post.
7. Pour half an inch of water in the pan. This keeps the squash moist.
8. Place in the oven. You can check it after 30 minutes but longer is better. Use a fork to see if the flesh is soft.
9. Allow a few minutes for the squash to cool before serving. Serve the halves intact or scoop out all the flesh and serve that.

Butternut squash neck slices

After baking the whole squash for 30 minutes, cut off the bottom. The bottom can be cooked using the method above. Then peel the neck and slice it into ¼ to ½ inch slices. Place these on a cookie sheet and drizzle with butter and maple syrup or brown sugar. Bake for 12 minutes or so at 350. The slices are done when they’re soft, but be careful not to leave them too long or they’ll get dry.

Whichever part you use first (neck or bottom), wrap the other in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator when it’ll keep just fine for a few days.

Not-so-sweet squash

We like our squash with butter and maple syrup, but you could play around with other flavors. For instance, you could use olive oil instead of butter and cinnamon, ginger, cardamon, or lemon zest instead of maple syrup.

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We love fresh radishes in salad. But what do you do with radishes when you’ve run out of salad?

I searched and found this page of 10 Tasty Radish Recipes.

Last night, I tried #7 Baked Radish Chips.

I sliced the radishes thinly and as evenly as I could (which was not very even).

Then I sprinkled them with garlic salt, paprika, and chili powder and put them in the toaster oven at 350 degrees.

They they baked for 10 minutes on one side and 10 on the other. I served them with sour cream for dipping, and we ate them all up.

I’ll definitely make these again. They were great for snacking and easy to make.

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This is a very rich recipe to be eaten in small doses or on cold days after lots of exertion. It’s also a great way to use up random greens if you’re like my family and not too into greens in general. I’ve used spinach, kale, mustard greens, and radish greens so far and all with good results. In fact, one kale recipe seemed especially good. Eating the greens makes up for the artichokes, butter, and cream cheese, right?

All these measurements are approximate. You can vary them depending on what you have.

A clove of garlic, minced

2 tbsps of butter (You could probably go with less or use olive oil here.)

8 oz cream cheese (I use Neufchatel to cut down on at least some of the fat. You could also try sour cream or yogurt cheese.)

1 can of artichokes, chopped fine

1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated

1/2 cup cooked and chopped greens (I’ve used spinach, kale, mustard greens, and radish greens so far. Here are some instructions for blanching greens. They cook way down so you can start with a bunch.)

1. Melt the butter with the garlic in a large microwave safe dish. Put the cream cheese in to get it softer, too.

2. Chop up the artichokes. I do this in the blender. They don’t seem to chop well by hand even with a decent knife.

3. Mix the artichokes, greens, and cheese in with the cream cheese mixture. Heat everything again in the microwave for 60 seconds.

4. Serve on toasted bread, chips, pita bread, or a spoon.

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