Holiday Treats

I made these S'Mores Kits for my staff this year as a sweet treat for the season. I found both the recipes for the Marshmallows and the Graham Crackers at Smitten Kitchen and packaged them up with some dark and milk chocolate (relabeled to look cute - I do love a cute little basket like that).

The Marshmallows are great fun to make, so long as you are comfortable with both your kitchen and yourself begin completely covered in confectioner's sugar. The process is full of those magical cooking moments when liquid transforms to solid and abstract ingredients become food stuffs, and you find yourself perched over the mixer oohing and aahing at the contents within. The resulting texture is wonderful, and I found myself repeatedly exclaiming "They taste just like the real thing!", when of course they are the real thing. In fact, more so.

The Graham Crackers weren't quite as exciting, but that's mostly because I haven't the patience to roll out dough properly. They were very tasty though if a bit sweeter than I expected. I probably wouldn't sprinkle on the additional cinnamon-sugar topping next time, and I would probably also make my husband roll them out or hire someone in or something because really, rolling dough is so tedious.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

This (And Last) Week in Our CSA

I have a whole weather post I want to write, but I need to think about that a bit more first. In the meantime, here's an update on our CSA share so far this season. I forgot to post last week, so this is two weeks work of veggies:

2 bunches of radishes
2 heads of romaine lettuce
2 heads of concept lettuce
2 heads of green leaf lettuce
1 head of red leaf lettuce
1 bunch of salad turnips
1 bunch of kohlrabi

We're keeping up with the lettuce and greens, but the kohrabi is still haunting the crisper. I may have to make some slaw, but I'm stil looking for a killer app for it. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Cook Your Lettuce

I've been able to make a big dent in our CSA share by cooking our lettuce (thanks to this recommendation).

As a side dish to some Field Roast Grain Sausages I sauteed a whole head of Cabbage-Lettuce in butter with caraway seed. It reduced so much that I was left with barely a cup of greens to share between the two of us. To bulk up, I threw in some turnip greens as well, and the results were very tasty.

Butter does make everything better, so I turned to it again to dispose of some Bok Choy, Turnip and Radish Greens:

Shrimp and Greens

1 tbls. butter
1 bunch of scallions, both green and white parts thinly sliced
2 1/2 lbs. of mixed greens, washed and chopped
1 lb. shrimp
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes (or to taste)
2 tbls. soy sauce

In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Saute the scallions until beginning to soften (1-2 minutes) then add the chopped greens. Toss in butter until slightly wilted and bright green. Add shrimp, soy sauce and red pepper flakes. Continue tossing around the hot pan until the shrimp are opaque. Serve over rice or noodles.

The butter isn't exactly authentically Asian, but just the little bit in this recipe added a lot of flavor. One caution, I used frozen shrimp and because I was in a hurry I failed to defrost. While that's usually not an issue with a lot of my "stir-fry" style recipes, the added moisture of the greens and the shrimp together resulted in too much liquid. Next time, I will fully defrost the shrimp and drain before adding them to the recipe.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It's CSA time again, and on Wednesday I joyfully made my way to the Root Connection Farm to pick up the first crops of the season. It's spring, and the pickings are slim, but its so nice to be back. This week we started things off with:

1 bunch of salad turnips
1 head of red leaf lettuce
1 head of green leaf lettuce
1 head of cabbage lettuce

Doesn't sound like much, but it's a good strategy to ease yourself into the season. Otherwise you end up with a lot of rotten produce in the crisper. I did find this article which offers up some fantastic approaches to managing the CSA abundance. I'll be taking advantage of some of these ideas, especially the idea of cooking lettuce.

So far we've just had cold salad - not terribly original, but tasty - and we've been racing to use up last year's freezer hoard including pesto, shredded zucchini and gold tomatoes, to make room for what's ahead. We also used up the beet puree in a very useful application - stirring the frozen puree mixture into boiling vegetable broth (we prefer mushroom) to make a very rich and yummy soup. Add some crusty bread and a CSA salad and you have dinner.

Moving Meal

When we planned for the move we assumed that we would be going out to eat for most of our meals this weekend. This was something of a disappointment as we've been budgeting for the move by limiting our restaurant meals in the first place. But to my surprise and pleasure, I actually had time to cook today despite having to navigate through boxes just to get to the kitchen.

Dinner was cooked in our 2-quart dutch over which turns out to be ideal for a moving meal. All you need is a knife for prep, a 1/2 cup measure, and some kind of serving dishes (we hadn't yet packed our bowls and spoons so we had plenty to work with) so you can pack up most of the kitchen and still be successful. The following recipe made almost too much food for the two of us, and could easily feed three or even four.

Moving Meal (Polenta with Faux Sausage, Peppers and Tomatos)

olive oil spray
1/2 cup polenta
1 1/2 cup water
4 Field Roast Mexican Chipotle Sausages, sliced 1/2 inch thick
1 red bell pepper, sliced
2 medium tomatoes, sliced

Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees. Spray the inside of a two-quart dutch oven with olive oil. Pour the polenta and water into the bottom of the dutch oven and stir to form an even layer. Add a layer of faux sausage on top of the polenta and water, then the peppers and then the tomatoes. These particular sausages are very flavorful so no further seasoning is required, however if you are using a different variety or brand you could use any seasoning you like such as garlic, onion, herbs and spices. Cover with the dutch oven lid, creating a tight seal, and bake for 40 minutes.

NaBloPoMo and the Art of Backing Out Gracefully

At the beginning of November I decided to participate in National Blog Posting Month as a personal challenge and an excuse to kick-start my long neglected blog. NaBloPoMo is a take off of NaNoWriMo but rather than writing a novel, you simply have to post to your blog every day for 30 days. So far I've been keeping the commitment and enjoying the process. So far that is...

What I didn't know when I opted in to this project was that we would end up moving half-way through the month. This is proving an obstacle on my NaBloPoMo path particularly since it seems we will be sans internets for at least a week at our new place. Also, apparently I neglected to read all the fine print when I registered for NaBloPoMo, and I'm not really signed up after all - hooray for loopholes!

I'm not tapping out quite yet. I might be able to pull this off after all and finish out my month as intended. I'm certainly going to try. I have decided not to kill myself trying though, and to accept a setback if necessary. There's always next month after all. I just thought it best to put this explanation in writing before I wandered off the web page... I prefer my defeats to be well documented.

Carrot Top Soup

Do you know what these are?



These are carrot tops, the leafy greenage that comes along with your carrot bottoms when you are fortunate to have fresh carrots rather than the usual bagged. Not only are they edible but they are quite tasty with a lovely pepperiness to them. This was a new discovery for me despite all of my years of carrot enjoyment and I can't help but feel a pang of regret when I think of all the tops I've wasted out of ignorance.

Specifically you want to get to the little leaves towards the ends of your carrot greens. The stems get tough rather quickly, so you have to do a bit of trimming. I was inspired to use them by Deborah Madison, a favorite cookbook author of mine. So far my favorite application is the Carrot Top Soup from Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmer's Markets, but I've also seen her use them in salads and a pasta sauce, which I'll have to try next. I certainly won't be letting them go to waste in the future.