More Tales of the CSA

Well, the CSA is winding down. Here's what we got in the last couple weeks.

Week 8

1 bunch turnips

1 bunch carrots

1 bunch mizuna

1 head cauliflower

2 sugar pumpkins

10 green peppers

6 pounds apples

1 bunch parsley

4 aneheim peppers

4 cubanelle peppers

4 baby eggplant

Wound up braising the turnips and their greens with some pinto beans and serving them over some soft parmesan polenta. That was a big hit with Miss Kate. OK...and I really liked seeing the cauliflower come in. It's especially tasty in this dish:


Cauliflower with Pasta in Spicy Cream Sauce

3 C. crushed tomatoes
1 1/2 C. heavy cream
1/2 C. shredded Fontina cheese
1/2 C. grated Parmesan cheese
1 medium head cauliflower, chopped
1 lb. shells
1-2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped fine
1/4 t. dried crushed red peppers
salt & pepper, to taste

Mix all ingredients except for cauliflower and pasta in a large bowl. Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil, add pasta and cauliflower and cook for 6 minutes. Drain pasta and cauliflower, add to bowl and mix. Pour into a casserole coated with cooking spray. Bake in 400 degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes until bubbly. Brown under broiler, if desired.

The recipe is very adaptable. This time out, as I had some pumpkin in from the CSA, I diced up some of that and tossed it in with the pasta and cauliflower - made a nice autumnal addition. Experiment with what you have in, different pasta shapes and cheeses.

Week 9

1 bunch beets

2 bunches turnips

1 bunch fennel

2 pints tomatillos

1 bunch red russian kale

24 (about 8 pounds) apples

1 bunch mustard greens

1 pound SHELL beans

1 bunch scallions

Enjoyed this note from our CSA farmer:

"I put the SHELL beans in capitals because you must remove them from the SHELL before you eat them. It just seems that no matter how many times I tell people that they are SHELL beans someone will complain that they where to tough, because they ate the SHELL."

So...there you go. Shell those suckers. One pound doesn't yield a lot of beans. After SHELLing them, I cooked them in some boiling water until tender, then tossed them with some extra virgin olive oil and kosher salt; served them at room temperature as starter.

Lots and lots of greens from the farm. I like greens. Kate likes greens. I don't think greens jump into peoples' minds as a 'popular' food item at home, though.

Who's to blame? Spinach was probably already on the outs when Elzie Segar debuted his Popeye character in 1929 - popping open a can of spinach for instant strength. Was Segar getting a kickback from the nation's spinach growers? As a kid, watching Popeye squeeze that can of green goop into his mouth and kicking Bluto around, I was not impressed enough to run to my mother and beg her to load my plate up with spinach - or any other questionably green thing that came from a can. (And in our house, most everything came from a can.) Greens, a term we'd yet to learn, and spinach in particular were things we HAD to eat because...gulp...they were supposed to be good for us.

Sometime in the 80's, while sporting a heavy wool beret and slinging 'product' to tourists over the counter at Au Bon Pain, I decided to give 'one a dem dere spinach 'n cheese crescents!' a try.

Yum.

I've been a spinach eater ever since - with or without the croissant. And, it's a slippery slope from there to more addictive drugs...chard, collards, kale, mustard greens. I confess, sometimes I still eat my greens and the dish can feel a little TOO good for me. There just are some dishes that are a little too honest, perhaps a little too obvious in their health benefits and earthy-crunchy roots. For me, these dishes make me nostalgic for the brief time I was at UMass Amherst volunteering with my girlfriend in the Earthfoods kitchen. A collaborative making lots of vegan and vegetarian offerings for every latter-day hippie on campus. Oh, the brown rice and tahini dressing consumed...

In an effort to maximize the CSA presence and with a nod to Earthfoods (and a reaction, perhaps, to the earlier pasta/cream sauce decadence), I came up with this dish:


Pumpkin & Mustard Greens in Peanut Sauce

2 T. peanut butter
1 T. rice-wine vinegar
1 T. soy sauce
1 t. chili garlic sauce or Sambal Oelek
4 T. water, preferably warm or hot
1 T. extra-virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2-3 C. diced sugar pumpkin
1 C. quartered tomatillos (about 4-6 small ones)
1 cup vegetable broth or water
8 cups firmly packed, coarsely chopped mustard greens (1-pound bunch)

1. In a small bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, vinegar, soy sauce, chile garlic sauce and water.

2. Heat oil in a large deep skillet or Dutch oven until hot, then garlic and saute until fragrant (30-60 seconds). Add the pumpkin to the pan along with the vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 4 minutes, then add tomatillos, cover and continue to simmer another 4-5 minutes.

3. Add the greens to the pan and cover again. Simmer until tender - another 5 minutes. (If pan is getting too dry, you may want to add a little more water or vegetable broth.)

4. Stir in the peanut sauce and cook uncovered for a minute or two. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve over rice. Garnish with chopped parsley, cilantro or peanuts.

I still have a ways to go before next week's pickup. Hope to use the holy ton of apples we have in to make some apple butter. And, will hopefully have some more canning time (this is the season for it!) to deal with those beets (before Miss Kate 'disappears' them...) and the surplus green peppers.

Happy Columbus Day Weekend. I hope you're all getting out there picking apples. Send me a pie. Maybe some apple crisp?

Catching Up with the CSA

Last few weeks have been a blur, my friends. And consequently, so has the blogging and the food-ing. Just to catch you up on the CSA haul, though...



CSA - Week 5

1 bunch mizuna
1 bunch arugula
1 bunch carrots
1 bag lettuce
4 bell peppers
2 cubanell peppers
2 st. nick peppers
2 aneheim peppers
1 pint tomatillos
1 bunch parsley
1 pint cherry tomatoes
4 pounds tomatoes



CSA - Week 6

1 bunch arugula
1 bunch Swiss chard
1 bunch mustard greens
2 pounds green beans
6 peppers
4 eggplant
4 pounds tomatoes
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 bunch scallion
1 bag baby lettuce
1 bunch carrots




Week 7

1 bunch beets
1 carrot
2 bunches scallions
1 bunch tatsoi
10 aneheim peppers
2 pints tomatillos
2 pounds green tomatoes
1 pound green beans
1 bunch turnip greens
4 bell peppers



There have been a slew of greens (good and good for you!), a lot...no, really, a LOT of peppers. And, more pounds of green beans than I think this household has ever taken in in one calendar year...let alone a month. Someone have a good recipe for the ubiquitous Green Bean Casserole?







Cooking time was at a premium lately, but I really tried not to waste anything. Greens were often braised or boiled, drained and then sauteed with garlic, other seasonings and beans for a quick vegetarian entree.





We enjoyed - end of the summer and all - some nice grilled vegetable salads tossed with the fabulous baby lettuces we were getting in from the farm. With this one, I pan seared some tilapia and served it all with some tomatillo quesadillas.





Miss Kate really liked a corn and carrot soup I came up with one night. Just sauteed some aromatics - onion, garlic, and celery, the carrots - added some vegetable stock, corn kernels I had removed from the cobs and frozen earlier and seasoning, then simmered until tender and pureed it all. No bread in the house...and you can't have soup without bread...didn't want to go out, so I made a loaf of parmesan bread and served it with another salad of those Parker Farm lettuces. (Pictured at the top.)



I had a lot of tomatoes we couldn't get through in time, so I used them in a marinara type sauce by sauteing aromatics, adding in the chopped up tomatoes and cooking until very soft, then running it all through a food mill back into a pot. Threw in a sprig or two of fresh basil and let that reduce over low-ish heat until it had a nice consistency. Used the sauce over pasta with meatballs - or Nate's Meatless Meatballs ('fauxballs' in our house), and in my favorite eggplant dish - Baked Eggplant in Mushroom Tomato Sauce - from the good folks at Cooking Light. It's a sort of eggplant parmesan that we serve with or over some angel hair pasta. Always a hit.




What else...what else? Used some of the eggplant to make baba ganoush for the lovely actors backstage at The T Plays. And threw any spare thing on hand into some tasty fried rice one night after rehearsal. (A nice alternative - assuming you have some leftover rice in the fridge - to the Midnight Pasta discussed earlier.)


Had a bunch of tomatillos to deal with - which I hadn't cooked with a lot. Saw Tyler Whatshisname on Food Network make a really easy tomatillo salsa which I've made several times to use them up. Chop up the tomatillos and some onion, garlic and peppers. Cover them in water and season, then simmer until soft. Strain out the solids into a blender (reserving the cooking liquid) and zip them up. I added some cilantro and lime juice and a some of the reserved cooking liquid to get a good consistency. Used that salsa as a verde sauce the other night for some black bean, Parker Farm corn and goat cheese enchiladas. Bueno!





Will endeavor to get back on the blogging horse more regularly next week when things calm down a bit. Just picked up Week 8 from the CSA tonight; it's truly fall - apples, pumpkins! And we'll hopefully get back to some more interesting writing and witty banter...cause, uh, that's why we're all here. Right?

Right??

Until then.

True (CSA) Confessions

OK.

It happened.

Last night, the night before I was to go pick up our next CSA harvest, I had to throw some stuff away.

There were four or so tomatillos that I didn't use in the tomatillo salsa earlier in the week. And a SMALL bunch of tatsoi I hadn't gotten around to using in a salad or something before they got a bit skanky.

And one large-ish bunch of scarlet, beautiful beets.

In one giant, painful, Eff You to the pilgrims, Laura Ingalls Wilder and her ilk, all those who made do...lived off the land...used every scrap, not to mention the host of poor, starving Indian children my mother pled for when brother Ned refused to eat his peas - I picked them up and tossed them in the trash. Yes, the trash. So I suppose that's one more Eff to the capital U to my greener friends who will bemoan this sorry loss to their compost bins.

OK. I hate myself a little. I don't, as I've said, relish the idea of wasting food. But, hey, I maintain that I remain a bad and deeply flawed individual.

I didn't toss those beets, though.

No.

Instead of making my (very European, mind you) daily jaunt to the market to pick up something for dinner, I vowed to make dinner with what we still had in and that would be...

"beets...lots of dill (now bagged in the freezer - thank you, Deana!)..."

Borscht! Or something very like it.

I've never had it. Never made it. But I knew I could make a really nice beet soup with what we still had in and serve it with a nice side salad. Sauteed some onions, carrots (from the CSA!), garlic, celery and added the peeled chopped up beets, then covered with some water and vegetable stock and seasoning and cooked that until soft. Pureed that in the blender and returned to the pot, then seasoned it and added a shot of apple cider vinegar and some of the aforementioned dill. Finished it with the beet greens which I'd washed and sliced thinly (in lieu of, what I believe is, the more traditional cabbage).

I think it made for a tasty and highly nutritious - and pretty! - soup.

Mrs. B (not the one who searched diligently for fashion deals at the now defunct Bradlees) and I sat down and enjoyed the salad (with cuke...from the CSA!) with parmesan vinaigrette. Then we moved on to the soup. Miss Kate took one spoonful and - in a stunning and uncharacteristically blunt moment of clarity - put down her spoon, slid the bowl of steaming red broth away from her and said:

"Never make that for me again."

Well...there's a first time for everything and - while I try to find ways to prepare even allegedly hated food products in a way someone might grow to like them - there was no getting this one by Miss Kate's lifelong dislike of the beet root. She's come to like them, as she stressed, in salads - particularly the lovely golden beets - but there was no getting around the fact that this dish was the oval office in the capitol of Beet Town, USA.

Props to her for trying it though, and - truth be told - I didn't have high hopes. I liked it, in the end. Eating her bowl after mine may have been overdoing it in the See, I Love This and Beets Don't Kill Department.

Thus ends our brief affair with borscht. Unless you, beet lovers everywhere, want to come over. We're keeping fingers crossed that Parker Farms doesn't show up with a bushel or two of beets, colorful delectable earthy BEETS, this week.

Stay golden, Beety Boy.

What I Did Last Summer...

I've been bad.

(Those of you who've known me since our younger days will not be surprised to learn that I am late turning in my papah!)

Originally meant to give a weekly update of the CSA harvest for those of you vicariously partaking. My fourth pickup was last night. So, backing up...


CSA - Week 2

2 lbs tomatoes
2 pts cherry tomatoes
1 bunch mustard greens
4 eggplant
3 green peppers
4 apples
10 ears corn
3 cucumbers
1 pound shell beans
1 bunch parsley

This was a bit of a lost week as we were away on vacation. Bequeathed the take to my mother-in-law, but some of it made its way with her down to me at the Cape. Felt a bit 'early' to be starting up with apple desserts, which always feel more 'right' come October - but I confess I won't just pick up an apple and eat it. Sue me.

Grabbed the trusty Cape-resident Joy of Cooking and found a recipe for an Apple Cockaigne. Hearkening back to the last 'New England' post, I'm a big fan of fruit desserts from days gone by: cobblers, grunts, buckles. (Just the names alone!) Still, those feel more cold weather to me and the Cockaigne looked interesting and provided us with the added incentive of flamboyantly over-pronounced Fraaaanch.

Cockaigne, by the way, is not a cooking term I was familiar with. (No big surprise.) Gourmet Sleuth provides this to clear things up:

The term in medieval times signified "a mythical land of peace and plenty". Authors of the famous Joy of Cooking cookbook named their country home "Cockaigne" and thus included the term on many of their "favorite" recipes included in the cookbook.

It turned out nice. Tart-like with a shortbread-ish crust. I made little pseudo creme fraiche topping with some Greek style yogurt we had on hand. Still, though, it was no G.D. cobblah.

Oh, and we made a simple sweet corn soup by removing the kernels, simmering the cobs in some water to make a corn broth, then removing those - tossing in the kernels, some butter and a splash of cream and pureeing with some fresh basil. Ta die fowah. However, next time I wouldn't puree the basil with the soup as it adds a greenish tint when you really just want that beautiful corn color. Next time I'd chiffonade the basil and sprinkle it on before serving.



CSA - Week 3

4 eggplant
3 green peppers
1 bunch broccoli
2 pts cherry tomatoes
3 lbs tomatoes
1 bag baby lettuce
10 ears corn
1 bunch raab
1 bunch beets
1 bunch mizuna

There is plenty to do with eggplant, but we LOVE this recipe from Cooking Light - Baked Eggplant with Mushroom and Tomato Sauce. It is fabulous and makes regular appearances at our house - generally served with or over some angel hair pasta.

We didn't have any mushrooms, so I sauteed up some of the CSA green peppers (the SWEETEST green peppers I have ever tasted in my life) with the onions. Instead of broiling the eggplant per the recipe, I tossed the slices on the grill. It was still summer after all. For the tomato sauce I sauteed the CSA tomatoes until they broke down, ran them through a food mill to get out the seeds and skins and then reduced that down with some garlic and a little (really, Barlow, a little?) wine. Try this dish...EVEN if you aren't crazy about eggplant. Really.

Mizuna was new to me. (Look, Mary, m'Zuzu's petals!) An Asian green. Great in salads and, I believe, often found in the mesclun mix you buy at Whole Foods or the like. One night, to use up the rest of the mizuna, tomatoes and peppers, I made a sort of middle eastern pasta salad, throwing in some chicpeas, grilled haloumi cheese and tossing it all in a pomegranate vinaigrette.


The corn (last batch from the CSA, I hear...too much work to keep the bugs off them in the later months...and this city boy girly man confesses that he won't miss the weekly army worm sighting each time one smuggled himself in on an ear and decided to explore): we can't get through ten ears in any sort of time and the quality of fresh corn on the cob deteriorates the SECOND it's picked. I shucked all the ears the night they came home, removed the kernels with a chef's knife, blanched them for a minute or two and shocked them in ice water. Drained them and froze them in a big Ziploc bag. Now we've got terrific frozen sweet corn whenever we want it.


CSA - Week 4

2 pts cherry tomatoes
2 pts tomatillos
2 bunches tatsoi
1 bunch dill
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch beets
1 bunch kale
6 green peppers
4 pounds tomatoes

Got home with the goods last night. Put everything away. (No, I did not wear the carrot tops...yet.) It's a double-batch of bad juju for Miss Kate, who is no fan of beets or green peppers. Looking for something quick, I sauteed some slivered garlic in olive oil, wilted the rinsed and chopped kale, then added a cup or so of vegetable stock. Covered and simmered for ten or fifteen minutes then added in some rinsed and drained cannellini and red kidney beans. Served that over white rice. Nice vegetarian (which we eat a lot) supper. Nutritionists far and wide (Popeye, too) sing the praises of dark, leafy greens: chock full of vitamins, iron, folate, etc. And they really can taste quite lovely - even though I haven't yet evolved to the point where I still don't feel like I'm 'eating responsibly' when consuming them. The beans are in there because they're an important source of protein if you're a veg. For a great healthy side, you could just do the kale this way without the beans and much less vegetable stock.

This will be my first time cooking with tatsoi - another Asian green that looks somewhat similar to bok choy, with dark green spoon-shaped leaves. I'm going to try it in a lo mein tonight, most likely with some of those beautiful young CSA carrots and (sorry, Kate) green peppers.

So far so good, though. Aside from some garlic and some onions and some fresh fruit, I don't think I've purchased produce anywhere since the CSA came into our life.

OK, all caught up. Sorry for the length. I will try and turn in my homework on a weekly basis now. And I will not talk in class. I will try and turn in my homework on a weekly basis. And I will not talk in class...

Learning to Share

So our friends Deana and Nick moved to Vermont (sniff...) and we have taken over their CSA share. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and this share allows us to pick up a bunch of locally grown produce from Parker Farm each week. For about fifteen bucks a week we get an assortment of whatever crops have come in. This is something I've wanted to get involved with for a while but put off because I was afraid - given our often unpredictable schedules - we wouldn't be able to make use of all the produce. (Chef B. HATES to let food go bad...) With Deana passing their torch on to us, it means we get to try it out for the last thirteen weeks of the growing season and see how it goes.

Last night I pulled into the Cambridge parking lot, where the farmers park their truck to make their drop off each week, and came home with the following: 2 bunches of sweet onions (which look like giant, bulbous scallions/spring onions), 2 bunches of arugula, 12 ears of corn, 1 bunch of yellow carrot, 1 bunch of radish, 3 cukes, 1 pound of green beans, 1 bunch of Asian turnips and 2 pounds of red potatoes. Not bad for fifteen bucks! In fact, ballparking, I think that's cheaper than it would be if I purchased that stuff at a local farmstand or supermarket. And it was all picked THAT MORNING.

Really...c'mon now...I don't know that I've ever eaten a carrot that hadn't been sitting in a bag in someone's fridge for who knows how long. These yellow carrots are tender, tasty, asparagus-thin...beautiful.

I also love that you get in what you get in...whatever is ready to be picked each week, so you have to figure out what to cook and eat based on what is REALLY in season. (You know...I'm sure there were pilgrims who didn't like green beans just like me, but if that's what was growing on the farm that week, pilgrim, you're eating green beans. Oh my God...is this how the Thanksgiving green bean casserole was invented?!)

Last night I rushed home with my bounty, figuring out what to cook for dinner and how to store everything. Do I keep the giant bunch of carrot tops? Can you eat them? Apparently you can and they're very nutritious - but I need to find out how to prepare them. And, hey, I found this interesting tidbit on the web:

"Carrot tops were considered a fashion statement when worn by the ladies of the English court. The lacy green foliage provided an attractive hair ornament or an adornment on their hats."

So screw cooking 'em...I'm gonna wear mine! Another storage tip I found is to twist or cut the carrot tops off and store them separately as they can pull moisture from the carrots themselves.

So what did I make? Based on a Deborah Madison recipe, I boiled some of the potatoes and the gorgeous little Asian turnips (snipping off the tops and reserving the greens). Sliced up a bunch of the green onions and sauteed them over low heat until they carmelized. Once the potatoes and turnips were cooked I fished out the turnips, sliced them in half length-wise and set them in the pan with the onions to also get some carmelization going. Drained and mashed the potatoes with some goat cheese and a little butter and milk. While all that was going on I boiled the turnip greens separately and drained them. Served the greens, turnips and onions over the mashed potatoes and it was a terrific (super fresh) vegetarian meal.

Ready for another 'genius' observation? Fresh-picked vegetables and greens are DIRTY, man. This is not the scrubbed up, waxed up produce from your local grocery store. Farmer Steve in his weekly email has said how muddy everything is from the copious amounts of rain we've been getting - so much that it's inhibiting their harvesting. Maybe the stuff is muddier than usual or maybe not...hey, it grows in the GROUND and they just picked it and threw it on the truck to bring to us! Maybe a little more washing, rinsing and scrubbing than usual - but well worth it.

If you're interested, I recommend looking into a CSA near you. I think we're hooked. Here's a little blurb from the USDA on it:

"Community Supported Agriculture consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community's farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production. Typically, members or "share-holders" of the farm or garden pledge in advance to cover the anticipated costs of the farm operation and farmer's salary. In return, they receive shares in the farm's bounty throughout the growing season, as well as satisfaction gained from reconnecting to the land and participating directly in food production. Members also share in the risks of farming, including poor harvests due to unfavorable weather or pests. By direct sales to community members, who have provided the farmer with working capital in advance, growers receive better prices for their crops, gain some financial security, and are relieved of much of the burden of marketing."

Can't wait to see what we get in next week's pick up!