CSA week 9: up and over the hump

Here is what we took home in this week's box out of the full share:

-2 lbs of yellow squash and zucchini
-4 ears of corn

-2 lbs of cucumbers (slicing and kirby)

-1 lbs of red potatoes
-1 lb onions

-1 large eggplant
-1 bunch hakurei salad turnips

As I said in my previous post about CSA week 8, it is starting to feel like we are hitting a wall and are not going through the veggies as effortlessly as we did in the beginning.  But after a few days at home and a mental recommitment to the CSA cause, I'm ready to get back on the wagon and have a number of ideas for whats to come to carry us through the rest of August (and since this summer feels like it's going at warp speed, I have to squeeze every ounce out of it during this month).  We still have the turnips and red potatoes kicking around that I plan to use for dinner on Sunday where I've already decided that we are going to have a classic summer meal of hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad and the classic Italian marinated string beans that we will talk about in the post for week 10.  We use a lot of the cucumbers just in salads but I've also been dying to try my hand at pickle making so depending on how many we get next week this will probably become my "DIY" project.    The zucchini and corn went to another batch of pasta that we had on Monday night which was great and my mother actually embraced her inner baking skills as well and made a chocolate zucchini cake that our friend Maria had passed along the recipe of.  I was pretty excited when my mother informed me she was going to bake because you have to understand that she has never really been an enthusiastic baker so I knew that when these rare moments happen, you have to savor it and enjoy them.  The only adjustment that was made to the recipe was that the nuts were omitted but they were not missed at all and  I look forward to making it again when we have a plethora of zucchini.  I will talk about how I used the onions and eggplant in the next post but the food that needs a few minutes of recognition was the meatballs with the Swiss chard and tomato sauce. 

Happy Birthday Andrew!!!

I couldn't resist but to give my brother Andrew a big birthday shout out on the blog...

To one of the most enthusiastic eaters to consume my cooking on a regular basis, the original "earthy crunchy" in our house, and our own personal wine man -  Welcome to the year of 25!!!!  I always joke and say that everyone should be my brother because he's just an all around wonderful individual who happens to fall into these great experiences that I'm always quite envious of but to be his sister is a pretty close second. 

Happy Birthday! 

PS: I couldn't have picked a better picture to desribe him...this is so Andrew!!!

CSA Week 8: Part 2: A plethora of farm fresh veggies

 I've realized that I've become somewhat of a slacker blogger this week considering we are almost at the end of week 9 and I'm still talking about what we ate during week 8.  But sometimes life gets in the way and it's been a really busy past few weeks...like can you honestly believe it's frickin August already!  I'm still trying to figure out where the hell July went and when I'm going to be able to squeeze some of those leisurely beach days in before labor day comes along and then before you know it we will be in the throws of fall, picking apples (nothing like mentally rushing the seasons).  So to put week 8 to bed in order to move onto week 9, here is a quick run down of a few of the gems that we consumed last week.  If anyone would like a recipe feel free to comment and I promise to be back on the recipe kick next week.   

just another way to consume the kale...I ended up mixing some sauteed kale with the 3 grain blend from Trader Joe's and Parmesan cheese to give it almost a risotto like texture. 

The Canal House roasted squash with breadcrumbs

Israeli couscous with grape tomatoes and basil

I'm still trying to get the hang of this whole blog concept because usually halfway through any given meal that I cook, I jump up to photograph whatever dish we are eating before it is completely consumed so all of you have a visual.  Unfortunately  I wasn't fast enough with the fried green tomatoes and this week's batch of zucchini fritters but it was probably a good sign that there wasn't anything left to take a picture of!!!

CSA week 8: Part 1: The corn has arrived!

Here is what we took out of our full share this week:

-1 head of cabbage
-3 lbs of yellow squash and zucchini
-1/2 lb beans (yellow)
-1 greenhouse cucumber
-1 lb pickling cucumbers
-1 bunch of swiss chard

-1/2lb bag of leaf lettuce mix
-1 bunch curly kale

-8 ears of sweet corn

I'm going to dive right in because we have had quite the busy CSA week and good things are still to come!  The way I'm going to do this week is actually break it into a few posts so you don't feel like you are reading a novel and that way there is more to enjoy.  I was home for a few days to recharge and beat the heat in Connecticut so on Saturday night, we had a few people over for dinner and I made one of my favorite meals: shrimp tacos, black beans and rice, a creamy cilantro slaw, and did a quick pan saute on the corn.  This was the first corn of the season that I had from the farm because I personally hate buying corn from the grocery store and the flavors were so amazing that it was worth the wait.  In the past we were always believers in the method of just boiling the corn and then eating it right off the cob and I had many happy corn filled summers like this.  But I was looking to try something new so here is the run down of the corn and this is going to be the preferred method of cooking this summer because its so easy.
-Cut the kernels off the cob using a sharp knife or a corn zipper (I should probably be an advocate of the corn zipper but if you are confident with your knife skills then go for it).  See the picture below for the technique that you want to follow when cutting.  It always helps to have a flat surface so that way your corn cob isn't tilting all over the place.  There is no other way around this but you are going to have corn kernels flying all over your counter when you are cutting them off.  It's just the nature of the game and I promise that it's worth the cleanup.

-Heat a few tablespoons of butter in a large frying pan until melted.  Toss in some chopped up onion and a few cloves of garlic and saute for a few minutes until it starts to get translucent.  Toss in your corn kernels and let saute for another few minutes, giving it a stir every once and while making sure it all gets coated in the butter.  Once your corn is tender but still have a nice bite, finish it off with salt and pepper and throw in a few leaves of chopped up basil.  

Tonight I was feeling a bowl of pasta so after a quick inventory check of the fridge this is what I came up with:
Spaghetti with bacon and squash
-Heat your large frying pan (if you haven't figured it out yet, one of my go to pans is a 12inch fry pan of a 4quart saute pan because they are so multi-purpose) until hot and toss in 4 slices of bacon that you chopped up into a 1/2 inch dice.  Once this starts to brown, toss in 1 cup of squash (I used a combination of zucchini and yellow squash) that you have cut into 2 inch long matchsticks, and 2 cloves of chopped up garlic. 
-Let this all cook together for a few minutes, then add 2 tablespoons of butter and about 1/4 cup of heavy cream and continue to cook until your sauce starts to thicken up.  
-Meanwhile have your pasta cooking next to the frying pan (I used a 1/2 pound of spaghetti) and steal a ladle full (or 1/4 cup) or the starchy pasta water to add to your frying pan to help your sauce along.  The pasta water tip has truly revolutionalized the way I cook pasta and this simple step makes such a huge difference.  
-Once your pasta is ready, toss it into the frying pan giving everything a good coat.  Finish the pasta off with salt, pepper and a few tablespoons of parmesan cheese.   

  

CSA Week 7: The Zucchini Circle

So I fully admit that I have gotten a little behind schedule with blogging about our CSA life but here is the recap of what came in our box for week 7.  We have actually upgraded to a full share for the rest of the season because we had a friend that was interested in joining and it works out great because you get more then double the contents.  This is what we took home out of the share:

-2 lbs new red potatoes

-1 bunch early onions

-2 bunches of beets

-4 lbs yellow squash and zucchini

-1 greenhouse cucumbers

-1/2 lb  leaf lettuce mix

-2 bunches of radishes

-2 bunches of hakurei turnips

-1 bunch of toscano kale

Monday night was our smorgasbord vegetable dinner night where we used up a lot of our veggies to go along with the pork tenderloins that I did on the grill.  We roasted up the new baby potatoes with butter, olive oil, salt and pepper and finished them off with some fresh rosemary from the herb pots.  They had a delicious, earthy flavor and don't need to be "over-prepared" in some fancy recipe.  We had a bunch of broccoli from last week that we cooked up, and then sauteed up another batch of the hakurei turnips like I have been doing all season. 

Being mindful of last week's kale debacle, I picked a night that only I was eating (or so I thought) and made a new version of a kale pasta dish (yes, I'm still fully invested in the kale).  This week we had the toscano kale which is a little bit of a different variety then the curly kale that we have had all season since the leaves are larger and flatter (more like a collard) and have a dark green hue to them.  They sauteed up really nicely and I tossed them with some sweet Italian sausage, garlic, olive oil, white wine and some umami paste (an upgraded tomato paste that has become my new obsession).   In went the pasta and a small handful of Parmesan cheese and I had a dinner that I really enjoyed.  The next day I came to discover as I was looking for the leftovers, Andrew also happened to like this version as well since there was hardly any left and now we just have to get my mother on board for this and we can have another enjoyable kale dinner .  

As I said last week, all of the August food magazines have arrived in our house and they are all chock full of fantastic summer recipes that involve lots of farm stand produce.  If you know anything about me, you'll know that I have been a faithful reader of  the big food magazines such as Bon Appetit, Gourmet and Food and Wine for years and actually have quite the cataloging system in order to save all of the back issues.  The magazines and I had been in a rut lately ever since Gourmet closed at the end of 2009 (which I still haven't gotten over) and then I felt like B.A. had gone stale but my hope has been renewed ever since Adam Rapoport took over as B.A.'s new editor in chief and it feels like a completely different, exciting, new magazine.  I have made so many things out of the magazine over the past few months, the point of view is hip, relaxed and refreshing and I encourage you to pick up an issue if you haven't read through one lately so you can have the same success.  And how can you not be excited for an August issue when the last line of the editor's letter reads as this: "Because eating local isn't just about some political statement, it's about good taste".  

Here is one of my favorite's from the August issues that I know is going to become one of my instant summer classics - Zucchini Ricotta Fritters.  I'm not usually drawn to Mario Batali recipes but the picture of these guys sucked me in to try them in the first place and after one bite I was hooked.  They were super easy to make and would either be a great mini appetizer or a perfect light summer supper with a green salad on the side.  Usually zucchini becomes the hindrance of the garden because you get so much of it but I can not wait to make these again next week when the new round of it arrives.  And since our friend Maria stopped over Thursday night when I was cooking up the fritters, it reminded me of a blog post of hers last summer when she talked about the zucchini quiche recipe that my mother passed along to her more then a decade ago which is another easy summer recipe.  It's all one big culinary circle!!    

I've become that "earthy crunchy" kind of girl

7 weeks into the summer of the CSA and I finally took the plunge Monday night and made the kale chips.  We have gotten an over abundance of kale so far and as Andrew told me earlier, it's going to keep coming all summer.  Before this summer, I had never had kale before on a regular basis, always thought it was quite the hippie vegetable but I've done a pretty damn good job in embracing the leafy greens and making them a variety of different ways.  Regardless of what the food is though you are bound to hit the point of no return whenever you are eating something on such a consistent basis and we hit that wall quite hard last week.  I made the pasta with the tomato sauce, ricotta and kale like I did a few weeks ago and maybe because it was 9:45 when dinner finally made it on the table and I was ready to eat my arm off since I was so hungry that I was ok with the dish but my mother and Andrew were not feeling it at all.  I spent my dinner listening to comments of "the kale is too big" and "there is so much kale" that I was just like pick it out but I knew I was going to have to ease up on the onslaught of kale that I have been pushing on my family. 

So here is where the kale chips come into play.  Everyone who I know that has had them absolutely loves them and has told me what a breeze they are to make and that you will use up a lot of the kale in the process.  Stacia from Stone Gardens included a recipe for them in our weekly email and they really were so simple to make. 
-Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. 
-Pull the kale leaves off of the stalky middle and rip into 2-3 inch pieces.  Give them a quick spin through the salad spinner and then toss them with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and arrange onto a cookie sheet in a single layer.  Sprinkle the kale leaves with Parmesan and salt.
-Pop in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes until the leaves crisp up and start to brown on the ends. 

nice and crisp right out of the oven

Maybe it was because I was starving again from just coming from a zumba class but they were really good.  So good that the next day I proceeded to inhale the whole bag of them when I was at work on a conference call and a hell of a lot healthier then the potato chip binge that we sometimes like to go through in our house.  Now I'm looking forward to the next batch of kale that is coming to do this again. 

CSA Week 6: Bringing home a Philadelphia classic

Here is what came in this week's box:

-1 bunch of baby beets and greens

-2 bunches of collards

-1 bunches of kale

-1 bag of broccoli crowns

-1 head of romaine lettuce

-1 head of red leaf lettuce

-1 1/2 lbs yellow squash and zucchini

-1 greenhouse cucumber

-2 kohlrabi, purple or green

-1 bunch of hakurei turnips

-1 2 inch chive plant

We are at the 6 week mark of our CSA farm share and I have been really enjoying it so far.  I feel like because of it, we have been eating a lot healthier and also not going to the grocery store as much (which is great considering I used to feel like I would go shopping 3 times a week).  Once I get the box home, I always like to take inventory and do a quick initial trim/prep on the veggies and get them into plastic bags and containers so that way when I'm ready to cook, I've already saved myself a few minutes with my prep work.  The veggies also last a lot longer with the initial prep time so by taking a few minutes, I'm extending the freshness of everything.  I do have to admit that I feel like a borderline slacker this week because we do have a few things left over but they still look good so I will incorporate them into next week's dinners.  All of the lettuces went to salads as usual and I'm going to really miss them since we are coming to the end of the lettuce season and being as salad has become one of my main food groups, I'm going to have to change it up very soon.   Monday night, I made a zucchini cornbread from the July issue of Bon Appetit which was good but if you make it I would recommend serving it with a honey butter to give it a little bit more sweetness.  It seems like zucchini is on everyone's mind being as all the August magazines came this week (Dutch, the mailman must want to scream some weeks because we do a big part in keeping the magazine world still in business)  and they all have these great recipes for zucchini which I can't wait to try out.  The beets got a simple foil roast in the oven with just salt, pepper and olive oil and they were so delicious that you could eat them like that but I tossed mine into my salad one day for lunch. 

The thing that I was the most excited for this week was the new addition of the collard greens to the box because I had never cooked with them before but was excited to break out my Lee Brother's Southern cookbook for some helpful hints on cleaning and cooking them.  My real inspiration though for them came from my brother's co-worker Zep who told him how to cook them Italian style with garlic, pancetta and white wine (really what could be bad when you add those 3 things to any dish).  Here is the quick recipe for the Zep Collards:
-Cut the collard leaves away from the stalky middle part and give them a good rinse.  Cut them up pretty finely so they will cook up pretty quickly.  I layered a bunch of the leaves together, rolled them up like a cigar and chopped them up that way and it worked great.
-In a large saute pan,  heat a few tablespoons of oil, and toss in a quarter of a pound of chopped pancetta and let saute until it releases some fat and begins to get crisp.  Throw in a handful of chopped up garlic (I used a good 5-6 cloves)  and let cook until it becomes soft.  Toss in half of your collard greens and let cook for a few moments until they start to shrink down.  Once this happens, toss in the rest of the leaves and pour a good glug of white wine into the pan (a 1/4 cup is good) and let cook until almost all of the liquid is evaporated. 
-When the leaves are nice and tender, season with salt and a small pinch of crushed red pepper and finish them off with a drizzle of balsamic. 

somewhat intimidating when they are are coming at you like this straight from the box

You can enjoy the collards just like this or you can take it one step further like I happened to do.  It just so happened that it was the weekend of the St. Mary's festival and we had some leftover porchetta in the house.  I was thinking of ways to re-do my leftovers and the idea to replicate one of my favorite Philadelphia delicacies came to me and I knew this was going to be good.  The cheesesteak is symbolic with Philadelphia but it's so much more of a culinary city then that.  They have amazing restaurants (which many of them at BYOB!), some of the best gelato you will ever have from Capogiro,  and an Italian market which is so much fun to shop at on weekends.  Don't get me wrong, the cheesesteaks are good and I've ate my fair share of them going to college in Philly but the real deal sandwich is what you can get at DiNic's at the Redding Terminal Market.  DiNic's makes this fabulous roast pork sandwich which they serve on a Philadelphia hoagie roll (for all of the New Englanders out there: we can call it a grinder roll) and then top it with sharp provolone chunks and sauteed broccoli rabe...It is amazing because all the flavors blend into each other and you just sit there at the counter eating and watching all of the activity of the market.  Maybe I'm bias but I would put it up against a Geno's or Jim's cheesesteak any day because it's just such a different flavor. 

DiNic's roast pork sandwich valley style

So I might not be in Philadelphia but I knew I could make the "valley version" of this sandwich and it was a pretty good stand in.  Here is the sandwich lineup:  what else to put it on but a Altimari's Portuguese roll, the porchetta from Saint Mary's church and the "zep collards" which came from Stone Gardens.  This might only be a once a year occurrence since you have to wait for when the porchetta is available but who knows, I might be assembling my sandwich next year at the back of the booth.