Stock Sunday

We recently took the plunge and signed up for the "chicken freezer special" through our CSA farm.  Because of this we now are the proud owners of 5 cut up chickens (which comes out to be 25 pounds) that are sitting pretty in the freezer waiting to be used.  The farm divided the chickens up into bags of wings, legs, breasts, thighs and carcasses and you could have even gotten the feet as well which we politely declined.  (Look, I'm an adventurous eater but I'm drawing the line in the sand when it comes to chicken feet considering just thinking about them I'm starting to feel a gag reflex coming on).  So I'm sure you're probably asking yourself right now "what the hell are they going to do with all that chicken in that house?" but the way it was divided up makes it very easy and approachable to cook with and who doesn't love a good deal on loca-vore chicken?  So right now our freezer is stocked pretty full and the first project that I wanted to tackle upon picking up our chickens was to make a big stash of homemade chicken stock to have for the season.  The quality of store bought stocks have greatly improved over the years and I'm a huge fan of how they sell it in the paper cartons now so it's easy to store whenever you just need a little bit but nothing beats homemade chicken stock.  My life has been insanely busy lately and when I saw that I had a free day on Sunday, I jumped at the chance to stay home all day and just cook and clean and attempt to get caught up on all of those projects that keep piling up.  You do need a good few hours at home to make homemade stock but was mainly a hands-off, self-maintaining project that has now produced around 10 quarts of chicken stock for the season.  My inspiration for the stock came from this article on chicken stock from the September 2011 Bon Appetit but is very easy to adapt to whatever ingredients you have at home.  Here is the rundown:

In a large roasting pan, I threw in all of my chicken carcasses and tossed them in some vegetable oil and a few generous grinds of freshly cracked pepper (I decided to leave out the salt so I can control my sodium levels when I'm actually using the stock to cook).  In a 375 degree oven, they roasted for about 45 minutes until they developed a nice brown crust to them.  I know not everyone has chicken carcasses lying around their kitchens so you can also use chicken wings, a left over roast chicken that you had the night before or even buy a cheap whole chicken that you can cut up. 

It's been a while

I'm sure by now some of you probably think I've fallen off the face of the earth and this blog has been abandoned.  By before you send out the search committee, I'm here ready to start up again.  I know it's ridiculous how long I've been away and haven't posted anything but I promise that it's been one hell of a busy jam-packed September but I'm back.  I actually haven't been in my kitchen all that much lately and of course I'm feeling the river (make that ocean) of guilt over this because I feel like I'm missing out on making some really great meals or using my farm share veggies to their full potential.  So at this point, we can't go backwards but only forward so I need to lose the guilt and just not waste another minute dwelling on lost time.  I'm here and fully committed now.  Here is a recap of how I've spent my September so far.

-I ran a 5k on Labor Day and it ended up being fantastic!  You have to understand that regardless of how much I like to work out and do athletic activities, I've never been a great runner and really didn't find it all that enjoyable.  My first 5k run took place on Thanksgiving Day 2005 with 3 inches of snow on the ground and lets just say it wasn't a banner experience in the least bit.  But I never let go of the idea of really wanting to be a runner so I started running more this summer and took the New Haven Labor Day plunge.  It was a great weather morning, the course was a nice run through East Rock and downtown New Haven and I ran better then I thought I would so really what more can you ask for.  I can't wait for next year now and have kept up the running habit post race so maybe I've finally turned the corner on being a runner.  I used to think that I wanted to run a marathon by the time I'm 30, I don't think I have 26 miles in me but 3.1 is more then enough at the moment.  Here is a pic of me, right after crossing the finish line.




Can you spot me...look right center

 -One of my closest friend's Carmina got married!!!  She's the first of my friends to walk on down the aisle and she had the rest of us lovely ladies as bridesmaids.  We had a fantastic weekend of events and a really fun time celebrating the nuptials of Carmina and Anthony.  They hosted a fabulous reception with quite the dance party and now we get to look forward to our next bridesmaid experience next summer for my friend "Bride B" Deanna.

-My side baking business "Catiecakes" is off the ground and running and we even have business cards to prove it.  My bride friends have kept me quite busy these past few months between baking for engagement parties, bridal showers and welcome bags.  Here are some of the mini cupcakes that I made for a shower last weekend. 

catiecakes: home baked - valley made

-And I did accomplish a little bit of cooking in between.  After going out to dinner 3 times last week and even though the meals were all good, I was itching to stay home and cook.  So last night we hosted a few friends for dinner and an old favorite found its way back to the table that we haven't made all season.  For as long as I can remember, my mother made these simple "Baked Tomatoes" and they now get requested by people who come over for dinner like they did in this case.   They are really easy to make and taste delicious right out of the oven and sometimes even better reheated the next day.  Take advantage of tomato season before it's over, and I promise that this will become a favorite on your table too.

Baked Tomatoes

Preheat your oven to 350.  Take the skins off of the tomatoes by scoring them with an x on the bottom and plunging them in boiling water for a few minutes until the skin is loose. 

Once the skin is off, slice them in half and arrange them flat side up in a baking dish. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and a touch of sugar and then top with chopped up shallots, shredded Swiss cheese, crushed up Ritz cracker crumbs and Parmesan cheese.  Drizzle with melted butter and in goes the baking dish into the oven.

Bake for 20 minutes until the cheese is really melted and you start to develop a golden crust on top of the tomatoes. 

CSA Week 14: The To-Do List for the Week

I couldn't go pick up our farm share this Friday and with the farm having no power for a majority of the week (therefore no email was sent out with the list) so we were in for a total surprise with what was on deck.  After dividing up the share, this is what we took home

-3 ears of corn
-1/2 of a large cantaloupe
-7 good sized cucumbers
-2 bell peppers (1 green and 1 purple)
-4 large tomatoes
-1 bunch of beets with greens attached
-1/2 pound of carrots
-2 large eggplant

I knew that I had a very busy week ahead of me and in order to put everything to good use, some planning and a schedule was going to need to be involved.  You have to understand that I'm a list maker and for the most part, one that thrives off of a schedule (when you rely on metro north for a majority of your transportation every minute counts!!).  For as long as I can remember I have been obsessed with the weekly Kate Spade planners and even with iPhones and all, I still can't bring myself to give them up and even after the year is over, the past planners go on a bookshelf just in case.  So I sat down and mapped out what we got in the box, different ideas that I had at first thought with what I wanted to do with them and finally went back and started to schedule when all of these veggies would be eaten.  As you can see below, here is a peak inside of one of my notebooks:

With some veggies like the tomatoes, corn, carrots, and beets I had instant ideas on how I wanted to use them.  With some such as the peppers and eggplant I was going to have to dig deep on some new tricks because I for one have totally hit the eggplant wall and then with a quick glance at my calender to see a mostly free Sunday, it came to me what was going to take place with the cucumbers...I was going to make pickles!!!!  I love many different types of pickles but never made by own before.  I kept seeing different blog posts and recipes for "DIY" pickles at home that looked intriguing and really what else does one do with 7 large cucumbers?  So I set up my canning station in the kitchen this afternoon, used a basic pickle recipe that all I had to pick up was fresh dill and more white vinegar and within an hour the jars were filled and complete and now we just get to play the waiting game for a few days to see how they turned out. 



just waiting for their brine bath



Surviving Hurricane Irene, Freezer Deposits and Baking Redemption

With Hurricane Irene hitting Connecticut over this past weekend, I had a few quality days at home to catch up on some of my kitchen/cooking projects.  With the hype over the storm starting on Thursday and then New York basically shutting down for 2 days I knew I had to take advantage of the time to try out some of those projects that I keep wanting to accomplish.  I know I've fell off the wagon with telling you all with what has been coming in the farm share and this Friday, I will stat listing again what we come home with.  This week, we did take home another batch of kale (yes, it's back) and a number of green peppers, both of which I wasn't really into cooking in anything.  So instead of letting it go to waste, I figured let me start to plan ahead to the time in the winter when we are going through farm share withdrawal so I made a few deposits to the freezer for future use.  Both the kale and peppers got a quick parboil and then got frozen in freezer safe bags and now they are sitting pretty ready to used in soup or other dishes.  I also fried up 2 big eggplants into cutlets and froze them as well to be used for eggplant parm sometime in the fall.  

By Sunday afternoon cabin fever was starting to take place in our house even though we never lost our power (for anyone who has lost their power over the past week because of Irene, I know it hasn't been pleasant so I'm sorry that I'm rubbing in all of the cooking that I've done) and I knew we were going to have to do something before bored-ness or crankiness came into play.  So what else to do but invite over a few friends and family members for a "hurricane survival party".  We had a fully stocked fridge and pantry after getting caught up in hurricane preparedness talks and since we had a few blizzard dinner parties this winter, why not keep the tradition alive with other weather conditions.  We had a great summer meal of steaks, roasted potatoes, salad, and sauteed fresh corn accompanied by wine and lots of laughs where everyone was just so relaxed with such a lazy weekend behind us.  At the last minute, I decided to throw one more dish into the mix and had all of the ingredients to cook up the Grilled Squash Ribbons with Prosciutto and Mint Dressing from the most recent 'Food and Wine" magazine.  Really easy to pull together, took only a matter of minutes to cook and was different play on grilled veggies that I've never had before.  Can't wait to break out the skewers and do this again before the summer is over.