CSA week 3: conquering the Asian green mix

After feeling like I did really well with week 2's box and being totally in love with the kale and escarole, here is the rundown for what came in week 3:

-1 bunch of green onions

-1 Bok Choy

-2 kohlrabi

-1 bunch hakurei turnips (At first glance, the first thing that came to my mind was Harajuku which was the name of Gwen Stefani's backup dancers when she went solo as a singer.  Obviously we are talking about 2 completely different things here, but for a quick explanation they are a small white bulb that has a sweeter taste to it compared to a regular waxy turnip that you would find in a grocery store).

-1/2 lb leaf lettuce mix

-1/2 lb Asian/braising mix 

-1 head red deer tongue

-1 head red leaf lettuce

-1 head romaine lettuce

-1 2 inch sage plant

All of the lettuces went to salads throughout the week and by the following Friday (which is the day that we pick up our box) there was no lettuce left.  The hakurei turnips were trimmed and will be used with the ones that we get in week 4 since you do not get a lot of them and I believe a simple pan sear with some butter and sugar is going to be the preparation method of choice.  Our sage plant was planted along with the rest of our herbs and as you can see below are coming along nicely on the deck.

Re-Inventing Food Memories

When I was in high school, one of my first jobs was working as a bus girl and waitress at a restaurant named Frankie's Grill in Derby.  Working in a restaurant gives you a different respect of others who work in the hospitality business and when I look back at the experience , I really learned a lot about the inner workings of the food business and what makes people happy when they go out to eat.  In working at the restaurant for almost 2 years, I enjoyed my fair share of meals there and continued to go back after I stopped working there until they closed a few years back.  Because I would eat there often, I had a rotation of favorite dishes that included the Chicken Milanese, salads with the house dressing, barbecued chicken tenders and the pasta carbonara that would be my special occasion dish that was ordered once or twice a year but my real favorite was pane cotto.  For those of you that have never had pane cotto, it is considered an Italian peasant food originally made with stale bread, Italian white beans and greens that is sauteed in a pan and then baked all together in the oven to get the top nice and crispy.  I've had pane cotto at other places but it never tasted like Frank's.  I had forgotten about pane cotto until a few weeks ago when CSA box 2 came and contained a big head of escarole and then it dawned on me that I could tackle this dish on my own and try to recreate Frank's version.   Once you break apart the recipe, it is actually a really easy dish to make and has room for your own adaptation.  The recipe I used was out of a "Cooking with Chef Silvio" cookbook that my mother had given me for Christmas last year that contains a number of classic "old-style" Italian dishes.  At first taste, it wasn't quite Frank's pane cotto but after a few more tries it definitely has the potential to get there and made great lunches throughout the week paired with some salad. 

Happy Summer!!!

Hello summer!  Now that it is officially arrived, here's to 93 days of great weather, fantastic meals on the grill, and lots of outdoor activities.  There is something about these summer months where everyone is more relaxed, and the schedule slows down a touch to give you the opportunity to really just soak it all in.  Make yourself the promise that you'll eat outside more, resist the urge to jack the oven temperature up high, and consume as much fresh and local produce that you can. 

And let's not forget stocking up the freezer with all of those cool treats for hot days (and for all of the Connecticut kids...a case of Hummel's hot dogs).

homemade ice creams ready to be consumed 

Someone brought their "A" Game...

It's always a treat for me to go over someone else's home for dinner since I tend to throw a lot of dinner parties myself but tonight's meal might make my top 10 list for 2011 so far.  I was lucky enough to be a guest at Denise and Ray's house for an AMAZING summer dinner!!!!  For those of you that don't know Denise and Ray, they are absolutely wonderful people, a lot of fun to be around and friends of ours that not for a moment would I ever consider anything less then family.  Denise and Ray are both fantastic cooks, have a true love for eating a good meal and when you go to their home you better come with an empty stomach because their meals can best be described as multi-course, restaurant quality, deliciousness...let's just say they did not disappoint tonight.  

We started off with a garden salad with lettuces picked from Ray's garden that was assembled inside of a homemade, crisp parmesan cup.  As you can see from the photo below, I was so into eating the salad that I forgot about taking a picture until it was almost all gone but hopefully you get the idea of the parmesan crisp (and obviously you can see that the almost empty bowl was a sure sign of success).  

Strawberry Harvest

Last friday, Andrew and I went and did our first pick of the season for strawberries at Jones' in Shelton.  Since Andrew worked there last year,  I had somewhat of an expert as a picking buddy and even though it was still considered "early picking" we filled up one of the large baskets in no time at all.  It was a beautiful day out so it was nice to spend some time outdoors and for those of you who haven't been to Jones' yet, it's a great experience any time throughout the year whether you are picking Christmas trees, pumpkins or berries because the scenary is beautiful and you get to spend some quality time becoming one with mother nature (yes, you read correctly...those words actually came out of my mouth.  See this is what happens when you work in the concrete jungle of New York City).

CSA Week 2: Kale as a "super food" and more leafy greens.

We made it through week 1 of the CSA, consumed pretty much everything and are now moving on to week 2.  Here is the run down for what we received: 

-1 bunch kale
-2 kohlrabi bulbs
-1/2lb bag of baby leaf lettuce
-1/3lb bag of Asian mix
-1 head of romaine lettuce
-1 head of green leaf
-2 heads of escarole
-1 2in basil plant
-1 2in sage plant
-1 4in rosemary plant

The lettuces went to salads and as of Thursday we only have a small amount of lettuce left over.  The plants were all added to our herb pots on the deck which are growing nicely and will be used throughout the summer as I cook and I'm going to make a slaw out of the kohlrabi (In doing some further research, the taste of it is a cross between a cauliflower and a turnip and you treat it like the rest of your root veggies).    I have big ideas for the escarole that I will share the results of in a new post and then there are these stubborn Asian greens that I'm having a hard time getting into and considering they are on the list for week 3, I'm going to have to find a way to like them fast.  I once read somewhere that when you are trying to get someone to like a food that they've never had before, you want to pair them with other well liked foods and flavors so that way they have something familiar to hold onto and enjoy and then it doesn't seem like this foreign thing you are eating.  So I think we are going to go the stirfry route with some pork/chicken and other veggies and make it seem like homemade Chinese food...details to come.

Hitting the Recipe Jackpot...

So I admit I've been on somewhat of a scone breakfast kick lately.  I'm not partial to any one particular flavor but the problem with buying scones on the go is that a)it becomes an expensive habit and b)they are always massive when you get them from a bakery.  I've been on the lookout for am easy and delicious scone recipe that I could make at home and I came across this one about a month ago.  We usually have chefs or different food businesses in the store on Saturday afternoons demoing their products or showing off their culinary skills and one of my favorite's has been this woman named Hazel Sy who is the voiced behind the food blog "tasty pursuits" (which is a great read).  Hazel's first trip to the store resulted in the phenomenal pork and cabbage fried dumplings that I made for a party back in the winter that were scoffed up in minutes and were so easy to make that my brother was the one that was charge of the assembly.  With that being said, as soon as I saw that Hazel was going to conquer the scone I knew that I had another sure winner on my hands. 

I adapted my recipe for Hazel's a little bit because the original one is served with a great orange honey butter but spreads and additional calories aren't exactly conducive to the morning commute.  So instead I just added some orange zest to the scone batter and didn't miss out on any additional flavor.  Her recipe also uses a mini scone pan which made them look adorable in perfect little triangles but the last thing I need in my life is another speciality baking pan so I just proportioned them out using an ice cream scoop and baked them on a cookie sheet which gave them more of a rustic look. 

CSA Week 1: getting over the bok choy wall

This year we decided to join a CSA in our house.  For those of you not familiar with what a CSA is it stands for Community Shared Agriculture and basically the short gist of it is that you join in the beginning of season, choose whether you want a half or full share, pay a certain fee upfront, and then each week you go to the farm and pick up your designated share to eat and enjoy.  I've heard about CSA's for a number of years and was always intrigued at the concept and our friend Maria (among many other things, my modern earthy crunchy friend who would become a farmer in a heartbeat if she could) joined last year and I was always amazed at the amount of veggies she would get each week from it.  We are going the half route this year to ease into the program and to also gage how we make out going through the box on a weekly basis because we have pretty busy lives and aren't home all that much.   The only drawback to a CSA is that you don't get to pick what you get in your box so if you are a picky eater or have a major aversion to lets say tomatoes then it could become a problem.  I on the other hand loved the idea of the challenge of not knowing what you were going to get each week and looked at it as an opportunity to expand my veggie palate with certain things that were not in my cooking/eating repertoire.  My only rules that I threw out to my family before Box 1 arrived was that we needed to be totally committed to whatever arrived in the box so we wouldn't be wasting a lot of food each week and to throw away any preconceived notions that one might have on a particular veggie so that way the mental wall wouldn't automatically go up at the first thought of certain things.   We are doing ours through Stone Gardens Farm in Shelton, CT and each week Stacia, who heads up the farm sends you an email letting you know what to expect in the box as well as some recipes and ideas on how to use the contents.  At first thought, I had this brilliant idea that I wanted to be surprised each week (because for some reason, I've been on this kick lately where I'm all about surprises) so it would feel like some crazy cooking challenge to have the contents of the box in front of me and then I would just be able to go with it but I've broken down and started reading the emails so I could be mentally prepared for what we are getting. 

Week 1's Box consisted of the following:
-a bunch of bok choy
-a head of red deer tongue lettuce
-a head of green leaf lettuce
-a half bag of Asian greens
-a bunch of radishes
-a 4in oregano plant
(for some reason looking at it now I feel like I'm forgetting something but I will update if I remember what it is)

The lettuces are not an issue at all in our house because we eat a lot of salad and I'm prone to just bring a bag of lettuce with me to work for lunch with a few mix-ins and call it a day.  The radishes also were used in salads and the oregano plant was potted with the rest of our herb plants on the deck.  I'm not going to lie but I'm still a smidge freaked out on the Asian Green mix so I think the best use for this is going to be stir-fryed along with a protein and rice.  My biggest challenge though from week 1 was the bok choy.  We never ate bok choy in my house growing up and have always shied away from recipes in it because the few times that I did have it, it wasn't good so my relationship with it wasn't a good one.  But I thought of different flavor combinations that I liked already and kind of treated it like spinach so during an Asian-inspired meal of honey balsamic salmon and sesame noodles, I sauteed the choy with some garlic and siracha (Asian hot sauce) and we had success on all ends.  Bok Choy can now have a permanent place in my veggie diet.