the coldest winter ....

you know how it goes.

it's been in the 50s and misty all week here. my muscles are even too cold to use capital letters, apparently. cold, fog & summer vegetables - they seemingly don't mix. thankfully the french have a solution for this!

Soupe au Pistou

1. Make yourself a batch of pesto, without the parmesan cheese (what makes it french).
2. Do you have some chicken stock made from your last roast chicken or butterflied chicken's back? Great. You'll need that.
3. Have a bunch of lovely vegetables from your CSA? Grab 1-2 each of those. Chop them small - about 1/2 inch dice.
4. Saute some onion and garlic, slowly.
5. Add the rest of your vegetables.
6. Add the warmed stock. Bring to a tiny simmer. Let it cook for a while - until the hardest veg in your soup is cooked.
7. Don't forget salt & pepper! (I never season my stock when I make it. I wait until I use it in a recipe.)
8. Serve in bowls, with the pistou on the side. Let people add as much/little as they wish.
9. Always better with parmesan, crusty bread and olive oil.

Veg I had around: red potatoes, green beans, carrots, zucchini, tomato.

-Michelle

Sneaking it in

I never thought I would find myself relying on a celebrity wife as a cooking guide. But, when I saw Jessica Seinfeld touting her book on Oprah - I couldn't resist. What part of adding extra vegetables to food isn't smart? All Moms do this in some way at some point! I liked the idea of having a guide as far as which vegetables to add in what. This wasn't just for my kids sake, but for their parents as well. Who couldn't use an extra hit of veg? I also thought it would be helpful to have a use for pureed butternut squash or sweet potatoes when we have a glut of them from the farm.

Last night I made a turkey chili that included pureed carrots and red pepper. Today's snack was applesauce muffins, which also included a hit of butternut squash. The chili was good and sweet - but a little bland as far as spice (not even cumin was listed in the ingredients). The muffins are delicious and you definitely cannot detect the 1/2 cup of squash. I think next time I would put even more squash in.

I like the idea of this book. And, the design is totally cute! I plan on using it as a guide, and not a hardcore cookbook. The recipes often lack salt or spice, and I don't like that she uses margarine instead of butter. Hmph.

Turkey Chili w/ pureed Carrot & Red Pepper
-my version of the one that appears in Deceptively Delicious

1 lb ground turkey
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
14 oz. can of chopped tomato (ideally you would have some canned from the summer!)
1/2 cup pureed carrot
1/2 cup pureed red pepper
2 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup of flaxseed meal
spices: salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder
beans: cannelini, kidney, or whatever you like
garnish: scallion, shredded cheese

In a saute pan or small dutch oven, saute diced onion in a bit of olive oil. Once it has softened, add the minced garlic and allow to cook for about 30-60 seconds. At this point - add the spices and allow them to cook for about 30 seconds to bring out their aroma. Add the turkey and cook until no longer pink. Throw in tomato, carrot, red pepper and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, add flaxseed meal - then simmer for 20-30 minutes. Towards the end of cooking, add the beans to warm them.

I ate this over quinoa. Not local or organic, but it is darn healthy ;)

i heart kale

I am in love with kale.

Sure, I've bought it in the store before - but it was usually turned into pureed baby food. Maybe once or twice a year I would seek it out and make it. But now....now I get it a few times a month from the farm and I am forced to eat it and I am swooning!!!

Kale with whole wheat pasta and some walnut pesto. MMM.
Kale and potato soup. Better than you think it'd be.
Throw it in stirfry!
Frittata!

It pairs so nicely with earthy or nutty things like mushrooms, as well as all starches (potatoes, polenta, pasta), and all pork products ;)

Disappearing Zucchini

Following up on my last post about zucchini bread, which I am still enjoying, I must admit that I have found a few other uses for the zucchini that has been showing up in my weekly box. Let me insert here that the zucchini coming from Eatwell Farm is incredibly creamy! This is a pretty exciting discovery to me, who always found zucchini so borrrrring.


I finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle a month ago. Sigh. What a lovely read that was. I love the way it was educational without being preachy. If you don't know already, the 'year in food' chronicles the family's move from Tucson, AZ to a family farm in the Virginia's Appalachian mountains. Their aim was to live as sustainably as possible for one year, growing as much as possible and getting the rest from neighbors. Go out and read this if you haven't, yet!


You can visit their website for recipes that are printed in the book. One recipe that stuck with me is the Disappearing Zucchini Orzo. I have used this method to great success in various ways. It comes in handy when trying to feed a 2 and 4 yr old who are both opposed to most things green. Grated zucchini seems to disappear in just about anything. I've used it to make pasta sauce, bulgur salad, risotto and fried rice. The zucchini is totally camouflaged in the last two dishes as it is the same size and shape as rice. As for the pasta sauce - I sauteed some garlic and diced onion, then added the shredded zuccchini until softened. I then added some chopped tomato (I actually had some leftover heirlooms!) and basil and let them simmer. The sauce almost had a creamy consistency and was delicious AND nutritious :)

On cleaning up

One of my favorite ways to use up the remnants of a week's vegetables is by making fried rice. We always seem to have leftover rice in the fridge, which is the ideal state the rice should be in for a stirfry (each grain needs to be separated to avoid clumping). The great thing about fried rice is that you can really throw in almost anything and it will always taste great.

Last night I used onion, garlic, zucchini, cabbage and the previous night's leftover scallops and lobster from the birthday feast we had thanks to a local Chinese restaurant ;) I'm realizing as I write this that I had one shabby ear of corn whose kernels I should have thrown in there. Oh well, there is always next week!

I now have a LOT of green beans in my refrigerator and need a creative way to use them up.

This week's contents included the aforementioned green beans, zucchini, basil, onions, garlic, 2 pints of cherry tomatoes, 2 heirloom tomatoes, and strawberries!! My perishable leftovers from the last week or two include cabbage, zucchini and green beans. I don't foresee those three ingredients being thrown together in anything (except maybe a curry?) - so stay tuned for what we come up with...

Suffering Succotash

We get our box on Wednesdays, which means Tuesday night is generally clean-up night. Last week we did more eating out than usual, so I had to forego the shiny new vegetables (eggplant!) from our box and use what was left. I committed a crime, maybe even a mortal sin: we didn't eat the corn right away last week. Or even soon. It was still in the fridge after a week. Partly because we only received 2 ears and we have 3 uh, mouths that eat corn. This is how I handled it:

Some chicken stock
handful of barley
cut off corn from 2 ears
grated zucchini
paprika just because

Cooked the barley first, then added corn, then for the last 5 minutes zucchini. WHIZZED (thanks Miche, I love that word) it in a blender to chunky and voila.