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Fun with CSA herbs

February 5, 2011 by Susan

This past week, I’ve had a lot of fun using the herbs that came in the most recent pre-season delivery.

Herby meal #1: Mediterranean supper snack

Leftover restaurant pita is the best – don’t ever leave any in the basket! Brush it with excessive amounts of olive oil, top with herbs and cheese, and toast for a light, simple treat.

Toasted pita, dried figs and honey, apple, Pinot Grigio

I slow-cooked some sliced garlic in olive oil to give the oil more flavor. Not sure if it worked, but it made me feel special. The cheese was Asiago, and the herbs were mostly thyme along with some winter savory and rosemary (from my very own bush).

I really love this kind of light supper late in the evening! Continue Reading »

Posted in CSA reports, Farmers Fresh CSA | 1 Comment »

The Butt Needs Braising (and Love)

February 2, 2011 by PJ

On the long journey to becoming a true locavore, one quickly learns that the biggest lifestyle change after daily cooking is in the food-buying paradigm. A normal food shopper goes to the most convenient store when it is most convenient for him or her. A locavore lives by the schedule of the farmers. Eggs aren’t available every day, all day. Farmers have schedules and run out of product. Farmers don’t have a vast distribution network.

This forces the budding locavore to plan his week around food shopping. I’m not a purist, but Saturday mornings mean that I have to be at the Morningside Farmers Market by 9:30am to pick up beef, pork and veggies, at the Decatur Farmer’s Market to meet my chicken & egg dealer by 11:00am and supplement as necessary from Your Dekalb Farmer’s Market. Excessive? Certainly for some. But once you’ve made pasta with a farm-fresh egg or had Berkshire pork that was raised with care, it’s hard to go back. Continue Reading »

Posted in The Saturday Meal | Leave a Comment »

Introducing The Saturday Meal

February 2, 2011 by Susan

I’m thrilled to announce a new feature here at thoughtfulconsumption.com – a guest column, The Saturday Meal, written by Pedro of Foodie Atlanta. Pedro and I were lucky enough to meet and eat at Park 75’s blogger luncheon last May. His enthusiasm and passion for cooking make me cast about for some other verb to describe what I do in the kitchen, and I hope to learn a lot from these Saturday adventures. In light of Pedro’s gifts in writing and photography, I know we will enjoy reading about them!

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CSA tip: Cook like a peasant

January 31, 2011 by Susan

One way to get more out of your CSA subscription and keep your CSA kitchen sustainable is to collect dishes that are flexible, easy, and veggie-intensive. It’s not hard to do – dishes like this exist in every food culture and have the following characteristics:

  • high vegetable to meat ratio (perhaps infinite)
  • infinitely variable in amounts and ingredients (with a few seasonal restraints)
  • can serve as one-dish meals
  • don’t call for a lot of additional ingredients
  • don’t require too much attention or time once you get the idea down

Veggie lo mein!

Here’s a quick list of possibilities. (Our two current favorites – lo mein and cottage pie – are discussed in more detail below.)

  • vegetable soup or stew (pretty much everywhere)
  • cottage pie (Britain)
  • ratatouille (France)
  • briami (Greece)
  • lo mein, fried rice (China)
  • yaksoba (Japan)
  • pad thai (Thailand)
  • gado gado (Indonesia)
  • curries of all sorts (India)

Continue Reading »

Posted in Farmers Fresh CSA, Peasanthood, Tips | Tagged | 3 Comments »

Tips for a sustainable CSA kitchen

January 31, 2011 by Susan

Sustainability doesn’t stop at the farm. Joining a CSA is neither sprint nor short-run performance – it’s a lifestyle change. (You’re not doing it just because it’s trendy, right?) Check your dreams of instant local food bliss at the door. There’s simply too much work to be done.

Is your operation sustainable?

It’s a good idea to prepare for this long-term effort by dreaming up and adopting sustainable practices for you and your household. By sustainable, I don’t mean environmentally sound. I’m talking about  careful stewardship of your household’s most valuable resource: your sanity.

Continue Reading »

Posted in CSA notes, Farmers Fresh CSA, Tips | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

Bon voyage, The Minimalist!

January 28, 2011 by Susan

“The Minimalist” column in The New York Times has been one of my favorites for years. Like in his cookbook How To Cook Everything, Bittman proposes general notions that encourage understanding and experimentation rather than the rigid perfectionism of set recipes. Now after more than thirteen years, “The Minimalist” is coming to an end.

To celebrate all those great years, here’s a post from 2008 – My favorite recipe of all time. The recipe comes from “The Minimalist” column Summer Express: 101 Simple Meals Ready in 10 Minutes or Less. I’m not sure if it’s still my favorite recipe of all time, but it’s definitely way up there and I am grateful for it and many others.

Posted in Recipes | 1 Comment »

1/26 Second pre-season delivery

January 27, 2011 by Susan

The second preseason delivery of 2011 came in an enormous box with plenty of good stuff inside.

bread, butter, and eggs

We’re excited about making peanut butter sandwiches with this bread. We haven’t gone on a good peanut butter sandwich binge in a while. Toast the bread, use local honey instead of jelly, and cut it in quarters for even more bliss.

I’ve got about a pound and a half of Sparkman’s butter in our fridge already, so this block is headed to the freezer for now. It’s nice to have butter you feel good about using, but  it’s a bit of a pain to measure carefully in this conformation when you’re used to the little sticks and their convenient markings. Good thing I don’t measure butter carefully. My rule of thumb is when in doubt, it needs more butter.

And I love the bright pepto-bismol egg carton! Out with the chewed-up, dingy grey! The carton and its contents make me smile. Continue Reading »

Posted in CSA reports, Farmers Fresh CSA | Tagged | 1 Comment »

Finally did right by a chicken

January 20, 2011 by Susan

Ever since I started eating local food, I’ve had a dream of roasting a free-range, happy-except-for-that-last-day chicken. I’d serve delicious roast chicken, pull the rest of the meat for other dishes, and make stock from the carcass. If you’re going to eat a chicken, it seems only right to use as much of said chicken as you can.

But something’s always gone wrong. One time I misread the recipe and dreadfully overcooked the chicken. Last time, Chris was too efficient with the kitchen clean-up and tossed the carcass before I could make stock.

Finally, it all came together earlier this month with a chicken I received last fall as a member of a CSA program run by Judith Winfrey and Joe Reynolds. Continue Reading »

Posted in CSA reports, Farmers Fresh CSA | Tagged | 3 Comments »

Sausage-stuffed kohlrabi

January 19, 2011 by Susan

Kohlrabi is related to cabbage and definitely sports a cabbage-y flavor. Often kohlrabi comes with stems and leaves attached. You can sort of see a whole kohlrabi in this picture of a CSA delivery from May 2009.

The kohlrabi's the purple thing towards the left laying on its side.

But it’s easier to see in this picture from Washington State University’s herbarium.

Last week, I received a green bulb and a purple bulb without tops. Continue Reading »

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Pre-season so far

January 19, 2011 by Susan

We’re a week into CSA pre-season and our first delivery. This past week, Chris and I have eaten lots of salad. The hydroponic lettuce was a little bitter and not keeping so well from last week’s extreme temps, so we powered through it and finished it at lunch today. Now we’re onto the baby spinach and romaine.

The apples are amazing – fresh, crisp, and bursting with flavor! They remind me of my childhood and apple-flavored Jolly Ranchers. (I never understood why that flavor was considered “apple” until I started eating local apples.) Afternoon snacks of apple and Havarti slices have made this a wonderful week.

People, see to your sweet potatoes. In the fall, I got used to ignoring sweets for a week or so, but these guys need to be cooked promptly. They’ve already done their time in storage. I’m chopping and roasting the rest of mine tonight even though we probably won’t eat them until tomorrow

For lunch today, I got the tiniest bit fancy and made sausage-stuffed kohlrabi. Turned out pretty good, but fancy doesn’t do it for me. I wish I had made a casserole-like dish with the same ingredients instead.

Coming up…

Tomorrow, I think we’ll have roasted sweet potatoes and Komatsuna greens. Prepping the Komatsuna will leave some large stems that I’ll include in a lo mein stir-fry along with some green onions, cabbage, and my last Asian turnip. And I want to make French toast with the whole-wheat sourdough bread this weekend.

Enjoy your food!

Posted in CSA reports, Farmers Fresh CSA | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

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