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A Feast of Vegetables, or How Not To Waste Your CSA

csa_top
July 8, 2012 By In csa & vegetables, eat me, sides

Here in Wonderland Kitchen, some weekends are all about the big projects–sourdough bread baking or cheese making or pickled vegetable canning. Other weekends consist of 105-degree-shellacked days in which the majority of the “cooking” is devoted to sitting in the direct blast of the window air conditioner and contemplating the meal plan that requires the least amount of time out of its cool company. As you have probably already guessed, today I’m going to tell you about the latter.

I wasn’t going to post about any of these “recipes.” In fact, I was thinking of taking a couple weeks off–a little summer vacation–during which I would consider what this blog might best become as it cruises into its one-year anniversary. But then I started reading. The publication of The Locavore’s Dilemma seems to have sparked an entire series of forehead-slapping columns mirroring the same basic argument: namely, that people like me–a woman who finds a weekly trip to the farmers market both gratifying and the best way to feed myself and my family–well, we’re all just deluded, bougie romantics.

Now, that may be so, but it might also be that my compatriots are reading labels and health reports and making some decisions about what goes in their mouth. I’m not sure what big box grocery store the authors of The Locavore’s Dilemma shop at, but it must not be the ones I have access to in which the “real food” section is but a small slice of the proceedings and much of what’s on view is so waxed it’s sticky or so wilted that it’s yellow before I even get it home. I’ll take some grit and bugs and seasonal selection over all that, thanks. I don’t deny that I buy citrus year round, and I don’t feel the need to hide my avocados under my toilet paper, either, but I do directly trace the high percentage of plant consumption in my diet to the fresh and varied and delicious produce provided by the local farmers who sell to me here in Maryland.

The even stranger criticism I’ve read in these anti-CSA articles this week (I have not read the book itself) is that the system is “wasteful” because homemakers can’t manage the volume of food received, either when they travel and need less, or when they have guests and need more. This leads me to believe that the authors neither cook efficiently nor share with their friends and neighbors.

CSA Feast

Still, I’ll admit that I was feeling kind of down about the whole thing when I read this inspiring article about cooking to eat rather than following a recipe in order to cook. It both encouraged me (this is how I’m trying to teach myself to work more creatively off-script in the kitchen, even without any formal training) and reminded me why the CSA system works for me. It challenges me to use what I have while allowing me to keep it simple, because fresh quality produce usually doesn’t need much help.

Anyway, at the end of last season, I ran my own numbers and found that the CSA and farmers market supply chain worked for my health (mental and physical), my social life, and my pocket book, so we’re still committed. The measures of good economics and fair trade may vary, I suppose. Yesterday, I pulled our “harvest” out onto the counter and came up with a Saturday night feast that proceeded from planned to plated in well under an hour. I don’t claim any of these are actual recipes as much as they represent one set of solution-instructions to the problem that was dinner. How are you solving these equations lately?

Cold Tomato and Cucumber Salad

Cold Tomato and Cucumber Salad

1 small tomato, cored, seeded, and diced
1 small cucumber, from a friend’s garden, must be eaten already
1/2 cup leftover chick peas
4 basil leaves from the garden, shredded
Several generous drizzles of that fancy herbed olive oil we got for Christmas last year
salt to taste

Place all in a bowl, toss.

Creamed Kohlrabi

1 large bulb kohlrabi, peeled and cubed
1 large garlic clove
2 T buttermilk
1 tsp pesto from our friends a few blocks over
salt

Boil kohlrabi until fork tender. Drain and place vegetable and garlic in the bowl of a food processor and process until broken down. Add remaining ingredients and pulse a few more times to combine. Taste and add salt as needed. Serve hot.

Beets in a Thyme Balsamic Glaze

Beets in a Sweet Thyme Balsamic Glaze

5 small beets, various colors, boiled, peeled, and cubed
4 T balsamic vinegar
4 thyme springs from the garden
1 tsp. honey

Place vinegar, thyme, and honey in a small sauce pan. Simmer until honey is dissolved, thyme is fragrant, and vinegar is somewhat reduced. Remove thyme sprigs and drizzle sauce over beets. Sprinkle dish with salt and pepper and toss to coat.

Five-Minute Broccoli

1 bunch broccoli, rinsed and cut into florets
1 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 T vegetable broth
Drizzle of tamari

Heat olive oil in a skillet and saute garlic and broccoli just until vegetable is bright green. Add broth and cover pan, steaming until vegetable reaches desired level of crispness. Drizzle with tamari to finish.

Backyard Garden String Beans

Backyard Garden String Beans + Party

12 green beans that are worth cooking because you grew them yourself, cleaned
sprinkle of lime juice from that lime you zested yesterday
Last of the sliced almonds still hanging out in the pantry

In the pan you just cooked the broccoli in, still coated with broth and oil and garlic bits, saute the beans. Wash remaining dishes and wipe counter off while they cook. When ready, sprinkle beans with almonds and lime juice.

Open some wine. Invite the neighbors over. Enjoy your feast.

Epic Feast: Giving Thanks in Advance

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November 21, 2011 By In breads & breakfast, eat me, mains, sides, soups

I’d like to slip in an early “I’m thankful for…” acknowledgement to say that I’m thankful for cozy weekends at home with family and friends. It probably seems like a ridiculously simple thing, but a concentrated stretch of “closed laptop/turned off work life” and some steady human interaction provides powerful recalibration in life. My own priorities realigned, I was back at my desk this morning with fresh focus and a smile on my face.

That in our house the embrace of these warm and comforting times usually centered around the kitchen is probably not a shocker, and Brian and I decided to throw a little pre-Thanksgiving feast on Sunday evening to cap it all off. There was food and food and more food, plus three wines to pair it up with. We may just have to make a habit of this: Sunday Suppers in Wonderland, anyone? I think I smell a 2012 project coming on…

So anyway, a plan was hatched.

The Menu

The food:

Spinach Salad with Bosch Pears, Cranberries, Red Onion, and Toasted Pecans w/goat cheese rounds rolled in pepitas (a riff off of this)

Kaddo Bowrani (Baked Pumpkin) from The Helmand Restaurant (secret recipe revealed to the world thanks to this)

Roasted Parsnip and Pear Soup (a decadent, non-vegan variation on this)

Cheddar and Dill Biscuits (pretty much these, but sans bacon)

Roast Chicken Provençal (Brian made this as outlined, while I subscribed to the blog that provided the recipe, because it’s amazingly lovely.)

Simmered Root Vegetables with Swiss Chard (more or less this, though we only used kale, carrots, and potatoes. It was fairly plain, so next time I think I’ll do a version of the the pot pie gravy and filling instead)

The wines:

2011 Georges Deboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau
2009 Perrin & Fils Cotes de Rhone Villages
2008 Domaine de Ferrand Chateauneuf-du-Pape

Not a dud in the bunch. We enjoyed them all and they complimented the food (right down to the Lake Champlain truffles we ended the night on) perfectly.

 

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And now, a sampling of the recipes. The rest were so close to the linked originals above that they don’t seem to bear repeating.

Roasted Parsnip and Pear Soup
adapted from Vegan Workshop

3 large parsnips, peeled and cubed
2 medium pears, cored and cubed
1 small onion or a few shallots, peeled and quartered
2 T hazelnut oil
1/2 cup whole milk
2 T maple syrup
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Place parsnip, pear, and onion chunks on a large baking sheet (I line mine with foil first for easy clean up). Drizzle with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss to evenly coat.

Roast the fruit and vegetables for about 40 minutes, stirring halfway through for even browning.

About 15 minutes before roasting is complete, bring 5 cups of vegetable broth and 1 bay leaf to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Add roasted fruit and vegetables and leave to simmer 10 minutes more. Remove bay leaf and puree the soup. Stir in milk and maple syrup. Add additional vegetable broth or milk to thin to desired consistency, and adjust seasoning to taste.

Kaddo Bowrani (Baked Pumpkin)
from The Helmand Restaurant in Baltimore (via the Baltimore Sun)

1 small pumpkin
3/4 cup sugar (Overwhelmed by this amount, I used a lot less sugar–a 1/4 cup, if that–but then found the dish lacking. Still, that’s a lot of sugar, so more experiments will be needed. I think I’ll give brown sugar a try next.)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
cinnamon
1 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
Dash salt

Remove seeds and peel pumpkin. Slice remaining flesh top to bottom into 2-inch crescents. In a large, oven-safe sautée pan with a lid, heat oil and add pumpkin. Cook on medium covered for 10 minutes, flipping slices over with tongs halfway through. Remove from heat and sprinkle the pumpkin with the sugar and cinnamon. Replace lid and bake at 350°F for 20 minutes or until soft.

Stir yogurt, garlic, and salt together until smooth. Plate warm pumpkin, drizzle with yogurt sauce, and serve immediately.

Cheddar and Dill Biscuits
adapted from Bon Appétit

3 3/4 cups bread flour
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup chilled unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups coarsely grated sharp cheddar cheese (about 12 ounces)
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
1 3/4 cups chilled buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to the bowl of a food processor and pulse several times to mix. Cube up the butter and add to the flour mixture, pulsing again until butter is reduced to small bits. Place this mixture in a large bowl, along with cheese and dill. Toss with fork to evenly incorporate. Pour in buttermilk while stirring and mix just enough to wet all ingredients and produce a sticky dough.

Pull off small handfuls (approx. 1/4 cup) of the shaggy dough with your fingers and drop onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake biscuits until golden, about 18 to 20 minutes.

A feast shared and well enjoyed.

A feast shared and well enjoyed.

Slow and Steady Wins The Race

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December 14, 2010 By In eat me, three points kitchen

Candy, despite its hyperactive reputation, seems to like the slow lane when it comes to production. Rebecca and I learned this the hard way (even if the company made the spoiled batches less annoying on balance) so you won’t have to.

We were both having a little personal nostalgia trip with homemade candy recipes passed down from family. For my part, I pulled out my Aunt Helen’s Caramel recipe: small bites of soft-ish caramel sprinkled with pecans and individually wrapped in squares of waxed paper.


Prior to this year, my role had historically been limited to assistant candy wrapper. The launch of the holiday season to my younger self was always marked by the evening I ran next door to sit at Aunt Helen’s kitchen table and watch as she cut up the sheets of partially cool candies into single-serving size. Papa and I would wrap up the pieces and try to keep pace, all the while shouting out evidence of any misbehavior on the production line: “Molly ate one!,” he would tease, as I shouted back, “Papa put one in his pocket!”

Patience had not been the name of that wrapping game (though there surely must be a special place in heaven for any holiday baker who would allow a distractable six-year-old kid to be involved in candy making). At the stove, however, this proved to be the motto of the day. With the burner set solidly to medium, it was the slow rise in temperature, the careful stirring over the course of 40 minutes, and the removal of the molten sugar from the heat before it passed into the “hard as a rock” zone that won the day. It’s been a while since our family had the chance to open these familiar little packets of waxed paper as  a signal of the holiday, and I’m looking forward to once again sharing these special treats.

***

Rebecca adds: In his later years, my dad became a holiday candy maker and his patient nature was surely a factor in the success of his smooth fudge and  Joe’s Chocolate-Almond Burnt Toffee. He wouldn’t let anyone into the kitchen during his experiments and kept his recipes closely guarded, but my mother testified to his long evenings spent slowly stirring and monitoring the temperature of batches that would make their way into gift boxes.

After trying out his toffee recipe, and making our way through two batches (one disastrous),  I’m glad I inherited his patience. This recipe is something of a study in chemistry, as the simple mixture of butter, sugar and almonds (topped later with chocolate and crushed pecans) makes its way from granular to melty, then moves into a panic-inducing phase where the butter separates into liquid and a clumpy mass, before finally coming together again in a thick, rich liquid gold as it hits the right temperature. This toffee has the somewhat grainy texture of a Butterfinger candy bar, rather than the hard crack of brittle.  It brings out the buttery richness and the ultra toasty note of almonds. Perfect for those who aren’t into toothache-inducing holiday sweets.

But the trick, as we learned with both candy recipes, is to find the experienced insider’s knowledge behind those simply written family recipes. Unfortunately, those are the very secrets candymakers keep to themselves.

Fried Doughnuts Are Totally Good For You (Psychologically Speaking)

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September 25, 2010 By In eat me, three points kitchen

Rebecca risked a frying injury to once again make us the kind of home-made treats you almost forget can be made at home. We stayed out of the line of oil and kept our attention on the melting chocolate.

Rebecca adds: These were too good to not try again, with chocolate. Also presented an opportunity for the culinary anthropologist in me to compare recipes old and new: one from the classic 1950 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook handed down to our host Dayna, and one from a recent Better Homes and Gardens, based on a 1953 recipe. Each offers clues to shifting tastes and lifestyles. The 1950 Betty Crocker version calls only for shortening, no mention of butter at all, and has half the cinnamon and nutmeg of the 2010 recipe, real indicators of how we’ve become accustomed to spicier foods and have rejected everyday use of “miracle” space-age foods like hydrogenated shortening for good, old-fashioned butter. Although interesting to see branding at work even in the 1950 cookbook, which specifies Gold Medal flour.

Sorry, Betty. We went with the 2010 BH&G version that had worked so well before, replacing the cinnamon and nutmeg with Penzeys Baking Spice (a mix of nutmeg, two kinds of cinnamon, anise, mace and cardamom—if you don’t know this great mail-order spice company, check it out now!), which added a nice depth of flavor. Double-dipped them with a simple chocolate glaze and celebrated the harvest moon with fall-themed sprinkles from Dayna’s Maryland cupboard.

The results, as pronounced by recently turned two-year-old god-daughter Zora: “Dee-li-shush.” We agreed.

One more time: Best Doughnuts

Let Us Eat Cake

Birthday Cake
August 29, 2010 By In eat me, three points kitchen

We raised a glass and feted Rebecca, the birthday girl, here in Charm City this past weekend.

I am slightly ashamed to say that the birthday girl basically baked her own celebratory cake, but after a quick comparison of culinary track records and  kitchen disasters of recent memory, it was pretty obvious that the only way it was going to be awesome was if one of us (ahem) stayed out of the way, so we rolled with it. I did minimal damage by annoying the pastry chef with my camera and adding a few festive sprinkles to the finished product.

Now here is RW with the inside scoop on the baking process and how it ended up so tasty. . .

Well, Molly’s finishing touches did make the difference. . .  After pondering more elaborate recipes–various coconut cakes, multi-layer extravaganzas–couldn’t resist the Best Birthday Cake. (Guess I’m swayed by “Best” recipes lately.) And how. This recipe is a beauty, turning out a lovely textured, buttery-tasting cake with a simple and not overly sweet frosting that spreads like silk.  This calls for cake flour and it’s worth making the effort to pick up some; it helps create moist layers that cut into perfect slices without lots of crumbs. Many thanks to Smitten Kitchen for the great recipe, and to my superb Three Points Baltimore prep cook.

P.S. The cake also travels well, surviving a long-slog, traffic-jammed bus ride back to NYC without a dent. My seatmate did look on a bit longingly as I dug into one slice en route, but sorry, too precious to share.