CSA Update: 5/20/12

What’s that saying? “The squeaky wheel gets the grease”… or something like that? Well, after  Ashlee from Eatwell Farms read my complaint about the lackluster strawberries, she actually offered to send me replacements! In an email, she wrote,

We’d be glad to send you extra strawberries with your next delivery on May 16th.  They’ll be in a separate paper bag with your name.  Anytime you receive sub-par produce, please send me an email, and I’ll schedule a replacement.

I heart Ashlee and I heart Eatwell Farms! Even more so after we went strawberry picking yesterday, but that’s a future post.

Back to the business at hand! Here’s what we got in our Eatwell CSA box on Wednesday:

strawberries
cilantro
arugula
romaine lettuce
French breakfast radishes
spinach
eureka lemons
fava beans
chard
red spring onions
green garlic
wakefield cabbage
bonus: basil tips

Due to our upcoming crazy busy weekend, we knew we weren’t going to get to cook very much. So we had to strategize — what would we cook and what would we give away?

For Wednesday, TC had a brilliant idea: PIZZA! Now, even though I’m a lactard, I still like to have pizza every once in a while (with 1-2 lactaid pills, of course). We got refrigerated ready-made dough and sauce from Whole Foods and set to work. We piled on the toppings: cheese (duh), basil, spinach, mushrooms, red onion, jalapeno peppers, and green garlic. It was SO GOOD! And pretty easy too. We made two pizzas — one regular (white flour) crust and one whole wheat crust. On the side, we made an easy salad with romaine lettuce, carrots, red onion, and avocado with honey mustard dressing (not homemade, sadly). It was a very successful adventure. I’m certain that pizza night will make it into our regular CSA rotation.

Homemade pizza = fun, easy, and delicious.

Besides the romaine lettuce, we had a LOT of greens to work with, as usual. TC took the cabbage to use or give away, which left me with the arugula, spinach, and chard. I was inspired by recent success with making random pasta dishes to try again with these greens. Basically, I made Bacon and Broccoli Pasta but subbing broccoli with greens. I also added some of the basil and green garlic. And guess what? It was great! I love salad, but I love pasta more. Not to mention that pasta lasts so much longer as leftovers.

Prepping the greens. Lots and lots of greens!

Finished product, garnished with Parmesan. Delish.

And just like that, we used most of our CSA box!

p.s. Can’t get enough of CSA goodies? Check out this link party over at In Her Chucks!

CSA Update: 5/5/12

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Here’s what we got in our Eatwell CSA box on Wednesday:

strawberries
mixed mustard greens
mixed lettuce
sugar snap peas
Italian flat-leaf parsley
eureka lemons
fava beans
stir-fry mix (kale, collards, chard, and arugula)
white spring onions
green garlic
fennel
turnips

I even remembered to take a picture this time! Aren’t you proud of me?

Front row, left to right: strawberries, green garlic, eureka lemons, fava beans, white spring onions, mustard greens. Second row: Fennel, turnips, sugar snap peas, stir-fry mix. Back row (in bags): mixed lettuce, parsley.

We ate the strawberries first, since they looked like they were already well past ripe. After eyeing the delicious looking pints of fresh strawberries at Whole Foods for the past 2 weeks, I was SO excited to get our own from Eatwell. Sadly, these did not live up to my expectations. They were kinda bland, and a couple were rotten. But hopefully this is just because it’s early in the season. I hope that by the time we go to the farm on May 19th to pick our own strawberries, we’ll get some nice sweet ones.

Here’s what we’ve made so far with this batch of produce:

1. Five spice eggplant and ground pork. Basically this recipe, subbing out the tofu with Marin Sun Farms ground pork, and green garlic and white spring onions in for the garlic and green onions. It was very good, if I do say so myself.

Five spice eggplant and ground pork. Yet another one of those dishes that tastes better than it looks.

2. Salad, featuring mixed lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, sunflower seeds, and homemade tahini dressing. I love tahini dressing, but I’ve never made it before. It’s so easy! Basically, it’s just tahini paste, water, garlic, salt, and sugar. I wasn’t completely captivated by the recipe that we used, but when I tweak it just right, I’ll be sure to post it here. We ate the salad with this unique, delicious, and healthy pasta dish from the Post-Punk Kitchen.

Simple salad with tahini dressing.

Creamy red chard linguine

3. Turnip and parsley cake. This was an utter disaster… probably the worst thing I’ve ever made. If TC and I weren’t sharing a plate, I would’ve spit it back out. What promised to be a potato latke-type veggie pancake turned out more like undercooked mushy turnips. The parsley only made it worse, IMHO. Even smothering the thing in ketchup couldn’t save it, that’s how bad it was.

Major turnip fail.

4. Steamed tilapia with sweet chili sauce. The same night as the turnip fail, we managed to pull off a fish win. This was a recipe that I originally got 10+ years from a family friend (specifically, my brother-in-law’s sister LO). It’s usually done with a whole fish, but I went with frozen tilapia filets from Trader Joe’s. It’s super easy and very tasty too!  I forgot to get ginger so I had to put some powdered stuff in there, and we subbed the green onion with white spring onions. Delish! I’ll post the recipe soon.

Steamed fish covered in yummy sauce.

5. Sautéed mustard greens with garlic and oyster sauce. Collard greens are still our #1 favorites, but these come in at a close second in my book. We got two varieties — a flat leaf and a curly green. The curly one was sort of spicy, in a horse radish-y way.

A cast iron pan full of greens!

6. Sugar snap peas. We’ve been eating these raw as a snack. They are so good! Might be my favorite thing out of this whole box.

Tomorrow, we’re going to try our hand at cooking fava beans for the first time with this recipe. Wish us luck! Oh, and I’ll probably make this recipe with the fennel on Monday or Tuesday. Of course I’ll report back and let you know how it goes.

p.s. Can’t get enough of CSA goodies? Check out this link party over at In Her Chucks!

POU Project: A Visual Companion to The New Best Recipes

Remember when I was unsure about my Period of Official Unemployment (POU) project? Well, I’m happy to announce that I’ve come to a decision: I will provide a visual companion to The New Best Recipes cookbook (TNBR, henceforth). The thing is, as great as TNBR is, it doesn’t feature any photos. And since the recipes are already close to perfect, I’m not going to tweak and repost them here. So, I thought, “Why not show the photos of the stuff I’ve made as I go along? Maybe something along the lines of the plum crisp post.”

So, without further ado, here are my cooking adventures from the past few weeks:

1. Pasta with Sautéed Mushrooms and Thyme (p. 264)
This recipe called for campenelli or farfalle pasta, but I only had rotini on hand.  I also omitted the 1/2 cup of cream (due to my lactard status). Despite these alterations, it turned out great. The one cup of Parmesan added at the end added surprising, delicious creaminess, and I feel that the heavy cream would’ve sent this pasta over the edge. At least for my taste, anyway. Super highly recommended!

2. Pasta and Quick Tomato Sauce (p. 245)
What can I say? I was on a pasta kick. And a mushroom one too, apparently; I thought I’d add some substance to this recipe to make it more of a meal. (Ingredients: tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, basil, sugar, salt, pasta.) While it was easy and quick, I’d only give this recipe a 7/10 because it doesn’t reheat well…which, given how much leftovers I eat, is a major minus. But when freshly prepared, it’s very good. My recommendation: this would be great as a no-fuss carb portion for a dinner party.

3. Hummus and Homemade Pita Chips (pp. 13, 16)
I had never made hummus before, and after this recipe, I will never buy hummus again. It’s so easy! Great for parties too: I made this twice in one week. I feel that this recipe is a little heavy on the tahini; I might cut back a little next time. Also, I’d like to experiment with adding some roasted red peppers, spice, or pine nuts. Anyone out there have a good recipe? I’m still on the fence about the homemade pita chips. They are pretty good, but also a bit of a hassle. You only save a couple of dollars, max, but I suppose they are healthier for you than store-bought chips. Also, you get to tell everyone, “These are homemade pita chips, I made them myself.” And that, my friend, is worth a lot more than a couple of bucks in my book.

4. Black Bean Soup and Cornbread with Jalapenos (p.63, p. 693)
This represents my favorite and least favorite out of everything I’ve made from TNBR. The black bean soup, while time-consuming, was Awesome. (Yes, that’s Awesome with a capital “A.”) Despite ZB’s (aka “The Prince of Beans”) strong recommendation of using ham hock to cook black beans, I had always omitted it, mostly out of laziness or frugality. Well, for this recipe, I finally went to the butcher and asked for a ham hock (about $4.50 for a decent sized piece). It was SO worth it. The ham hock added a smokey richness to this soup that was magnificent. I was also delightfully surprised at the raw, diced red onion garnish. It wasn’t pungent at all, but added a fresh crunch that nicely complimented the soup.

On the other hand, the cornbread was a disaster. I don’t know what happened. It could’ve been that the cornmeal I bought was poor quality, or maybe I over-mixed it. Also, the recipe said to omit the sugar if adding peppers, which I thought was odd. As it turned out, it probably would’ve been better with some sugar in it. I love cornbread too, so this was particularly disappointing.

5. Quick Tomato Sauce for Pizza (p. 669)
Sorry, no picture. This sauce was very quick, easy, and tasty. Highly recommended.

Bonus: a completely unnecessary photo of a nearly empty brownie pan, just because.
This was a pan of brownies that were eagerly consumed following a chili cook-off. I followed a recipe called “Katherine Hepburn’s Brownies” from The Gourmet Cookbook. It’s very simple: chocolate baking squares, butter, egg, flour, salt, vanilla. The resulting brownies are thick, a little dry (in a good way), and rich.