Zucchini-fest!

Another great (or not so great) thing about the CSA, depending on how you look at it--zucchini, zucchini, zucchini.  This versatile veggie has been included in almost every week’s assortment.  Luckily, I like zucchini.  Still, I had to come up with some creative ways to eat these suckers up.  Here are a few dishes I've tried this season:

Zucchini and Tofu Quesadilla, with Tomatillo (also from CSA!) Salsa

Zucchini Patties, stacked Napolean style with ricotta and tomatos from you guessed it!

Zucchini and Tomato Tart (any idea where the tomatos and corn came from?)

Zucchini Chocolate Cake (note to self: cake should be sweet. please don't skimp on the sugar next time )

Sweet Zucchini Bread from the Joy of Cooking (6 loaves worth so far, chocolate chips = nice touch!)

More than a garnish...

One of the great aspects about this whole CSA thing is that I’m getting the opportunity to cook veggies that I have never even considered dealing with.  When have I ever bought red cabbage (which I have tended to view as more of a garnish for a restaurant salad bar than anything substantially edible!)?  Boy, was I wrong.  Upon consultation with the Joy of Cooking, I ended up making “braised red cabbage.”  The shredded cabbage was perfectly tender but succulent at the same time, and I wanted the delicate, sweet-sour flavor to never end.  And look at the gorgeous hue!  We ate this as a side with some sauteed potatos and onions (both also from the CSA bounty), and marinated, lightly seared tofu. 

CSA: Week 1!

After months of eager anticipation, I finally picked up my first share of organic veggies from Yellow Wolf Farm. 

This is my first time buying into a weekly share.  While I do have some nit-picky criticisms about the experience as a whole, there is so much to love about it--eating seasonally, supporting a local farm, super fresh meals, and, as I've quickly found, being creative with what we get!  Here's what I made with this first week's bounty (cabbage, more specifically):

This light, yet hearty, and way tasty dish, White Beans & Cabbage, is actually pictured on the cover of one of my new favorite cookbooks, Heidi Swanson's "Super Natural Every Day" (a recent gift from my sister).

Stay tuned for more meals inspired by Community Supported Agriculture!

Barley-Lentil Soup for the Soul

After giving birth to my daughter several years ago, my good friend Paula visited us in the hospital and came armed with delicious goodies.  After 30 hours of labor with no drugs, I was certainly ready for some nourishment, hospital iceberg salads and jello notwithstanding.  Indeed, Paula brought a healthy and insanely comforting meal--homemade soup, homemade multigrain bread, and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (to boost lactation!).  Paula passed along her soup recipe a while back, and I finally tried making a batch of my own.  The flavors are subtly tasty, the veggies cook down to the perfect softness, the lentils provide a punch of protein, and the barley brings a nice chewiness to round things out.  Of course, my favorite part in making this dish (and sharing it with my now two year old!) was the nice, warm feeling I got while having it again, which went far beyond the actual taste of the soup.       

Recipe from Epicurious: www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/231578

Dusty Summer Rolls

A recent meal was largely motivated by three key ingredients:

(1)   Spring roll sheets.  I don’t know what motivated me to buy these (gulp) several years ago at least.  They have been literally collecting dust and I finally got fed up with moving it around to reach other things on the shelf. 

(2)   Sprouts!  My sister gave me a sprouting kit a while back.  This sprouter is awesome!  Click on the link to see the detailed process involved.  Sprouts are like one of the healthiest foods ever and it’s easy and fun to see the nutrients well, sprout, before your very eyes.

(3)   Homemade plum sauce.  Said sister is an incredible gardener (and amazing cook) and has recently begun canning to take advantage of her seasonal bounty.  I have coveted her pepper jelly and am not ashamed to admit to hording it from my family and licking the jars clean.  This plum sauce needed to accompany just the right Asian-inspired dish…     

Additional ingredients: lettuce (chose a butter lettuce salad mix), red bell pepper, cucumber, Morningstar Farms “chicken” strips (one of my favorite faux meat products), basil.  I also had some shredded “crab” in the freezer.  This was something that my mother bought for me at an Asian food store.  I haven’t found anything similar around these here parts in the Southeastern US, but this could probably be easily found in most Asian stores in bigger cities.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any vermicelli rice noodles on hand. 

I also whipped up some peanut sauce—something that I’ve just recently learned is super easy to make: peanut butter, soy sauce, honey, rice vinegar, and maybe a splash of water.     

I decided to wing it, but I wish I had looked into the whole process of making summer rolls a little more because my first shot at making them was a bit of mess!  First, here's the process I used to make the sheets pliable.  I saw this on the Food Network's Chopped a while back and thought I'd just go for it! 



So far so good...

And here's where I realized that making summer rolls are a lot harder than it seems!  Practically all of my rolls fell apart, and they were not anything close to the tight bundles of goodness that I envisioned! 

Incredibly tasty though, especially with the sweet/tart plum sauce and creamy umami-y peanut sauce!

Since I only used 1/2 of the sheets, they are back to collecting dust in my cabinet.  When I give these another shot, I think I'll try immersing them for a shorter period of time, as described here by "Tangled Branches" in Wendy's Garden-to-Table Challenge described here. 

Poutine, je taime.

What’s better than going to a conference in beautiful Montreal?  Having my sister come along to explore post-conference sights and sumptuous eats!  One memorable meal during the trip was well-deserved having trudged through the cold rain and long wait to be seated amongst a young crowd that spilled onto the chilly sidewalk outside (granted, it was a charming walk in a cool, hipster neighborhood).  This was a local poutine joint, surprisingly, one of the few in Montreal that serves a vegetarian version. 

Admittedly, I love all things pomme frite.  I can eat them cold, ½ frozen, I’m usually not that picky.  But fries smothered in rich, savory gravy and adorned with yummy morsels of cheese?  It’s an instant infatuation. 

I recently made my own version of poutine, inspired by the Quebecoise.  The menu at La Banquise was extensive, with countless varieties of toppings.  My sister and I opted for the traditional version, and I suspect that many diehard poutine lovers out there would probably scoff at the “Starbucks-ian” options that are out there.  Hence, three simple ingredients for my version at home: fries, gravy, cheese.   

One could probably get pretty fancy with the fries, but we just happened to have the crinkle cut Ore Ida variety in the freezer.  I did seek special ingredients for the gravy, as this seems to really be the star of the show.  My mushroom gravy was made with onions, dried porcini mushrooms (saved the liquid used to reconstitute the shrooms for the gravy), and finely diced button mushrooms.  I sautéed these ingredients, added a dash of leftover white wine that I was tired of seeing in the fridge, and turned the heat up until the liquid was largely evaporated.  I added some butter and flour to make a roux.  The key ingredient that I added next for that deeply rich, je ne sais quoi, flavor was a few handfuls of nutritional yeast flakes, aka, golden flecks of tasty goodness (of which I only recently began using in my cooking due to a recipe from the Real Food Daily cookbook—the restaurant itself, alas, discovered just a few short weeks before we had to move from lovely Santa Monica, CA!).  Okay, so I added the porcini liquid and some vegetable stock to the mix, some garlic salt and pepper.  Drench the cooked fries in gravy and cheese and voila! 

The only thing that wasn’t quite right was the cheese.  I used a Mexican style mozzarella type cheese, cut in cubes, but it turned out to be way too gooey.  It seems like true poutine has a mild mozzarella-y cheese that should be “squeaky.”  C’est la vie.  This is a dish that I know I’ll enjoy experimenting with and perfecting!