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

she has never steered me wrong

I am not a turnip fan. My first winter with Eatwell, I dutifully gave them a shot by roasting them in the oven...but I just couldn't get past the funky, turnipy smell.

All winter long, I gave them away to the French babysitter, who couldn't understand what I didn't like about them, but gladly took them and fed them to my daughter and the other kids.

Last week, Ruth sent me an email about making a soup out of the turnips. Even though she said they were 'out of this world', I was still dubious. However, I had to try it because A/ it was an Alice recipe and B/ the turnips don't have a second home as I no longer use the babysitter on a regular basis and C/ Ruth has NEVER been wrong about food. EVER.

I made the soup last night and had two bowls. And the kids ate it. And I brought it for lunch today. I think one could say that I have been converted!

2 lbs of small, fresh turnips with leaves
1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp of fresh thyme, chopped
1 bay leaf (I had a fresh one from the farm! woohoo!)
1 piece of prosciutto or smoked bacon (I used pancetta)
8 cups stock...chicken, vegetable or even water (I used leftover turkey stock)

Thinly slice the onion and garlic and saute in a large, non-reactive pot with the oil and butter and a tablespoon of water. Cover and gently cook until the onions are transparent.

Meanwhile, thinly slice the turnips. Reserve the greens.

Add the turnips, cover and stew a little bit.
Add the herbs, pork product ;) and stock. Bring to a simmer and cook low for 1/2 hour.

Towards the end, add the reserved greens, that have been washed and cut into 1/2 slices. Cook until wilted. Season with salt and pepper. Add a few slices of shaved parmesan. The end ;)

-Miche

It's really catching on

Supermarket Chains Narrow Their Sights

By MARIAN BURROS

Published: August 6, 2008

Supermarkets are beginning to compete with farm stands and farmers’ markets for a wider variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Fruit!

We bit the bullet and signed up for a fruit CSA.  I say 'bit the bullet'...because it seems FAR from economical.  $20 for a 5 lb box!  So, why did we do it?

1. Our kids are like little gorillas at the rate they plow through fruit.  
   
2. It's mid-April, which means the fruit selection is only going to get better and better.
3. The fruit comes from Frog Hollow Farm - unbeatable quality.  
4. My husband finally finished reading The Omnivore's Dilemna (2 years late) and is really on board with the eat local movement!  
5. I'm sick of trying to decide between the organic grapes flown in from Chile or the pesticide-laden stuff from nearby.

I picked up our first box tonight, and inside was:

1 grapefruit

2 navel oranges

2 tangerines

3 clementines

2 avocados (oooh...tricky!)

1 tomato (in April!  and ripe!)

2 apples

2 kiwi

The variety was definitely there, but the quantity is just, well, quaint.  I'm pretty sure we'll keep it going through the summer, though.   I know that cherries will be coming in about 6 weeks...and then there are those peaches.....  

Artichokes Galore

It's artichoke season around here! I'm lucky enough to have a grocer in my neighborhood who sells local artichokes (from about 30 miles south in Half Moon Bay) for $1 a piece. Who could pass them up at that price? I bought a half dozen this weekend, steamed them up and even made some of my own mayonnaise for dipping.

Two mayonnaise tips I learned from Ruth:

1. Use champagne vinegar
2. Use a blender

I whisked and whisked but nothing was firming up. I realized that I needed to add more olive oil (I didn't exactly measure the lemon juice or vinegar...) and wasn't sure how much, so into the blender it went. The biggest downside to this method is that you lose a little bit when trying to pour/scrape it out.

There are plenty of places to find out how to prepare an artichoke online, so I'll spare repeating it here. It really is pretty easy if all you want to do is steam them. I used the mayonnaise recipe that Orangette wrote about in the most recent Bon Appetit.

Funny artichoke story:

I spent a summer in France when I was 16 with my best friend. Four weeks were spent on the sea in St. Malo, living (and eating with) with a family. This was the part I most looked forward to about that summer!

One evening for dinner we sat down, had a glass of wine ... some kind of small appetizer that is not memorable...and then our entree: an artichoke on a plate. One, steamed artichoke with a vinaigrette (I think) on the side. I had never seen a whole artichoke up close (I'm from upstate NY - artichokes only came in jars) and had no clue how to eat it. We politely followed their lead, finished the artichoke and then waited for DINNER, because the artichoke had to be another appetizer? Then the salad and yogurt came out and we knew that was it for the night. We were so peeved, we went out for Chinese food (oh, the blasphemy!).

Now you know why the French aren't fat :) I'm happy to report that I have come full circle and on Saturday night, I had a bowl of sorrel soup and an artichoke for dinner and I was completely satisfied.

PS: Artichokes are KID FRIENDLY! My 4 yr old had a blast peeling and dipping and scraping/sucking the leaves

Squeamish

We bought sardines for dinner tonight.  The current local salmon crisis has us rethinking our new source of omega-3 fatty acids :)   These babies come right out of the Monterey Bay.

So, guess who got to clean the @#$#% sardines?  Yeah. Me.  

Guess who was totally grossed out by it?

I thought the first one would be the worst part, but really, it didn't get better as I kept going.

I have a newfound respect for hunters and fishermen and butchers....

They sure were tasty!  It's a great weeknight meal - we just cooked them on the grill pan and finished with coarse salt and lemon juice.  

A Week's Groceries

I've been thinking about doing this for a while, but never manage to either keep complete track of or forget to post about the weekly tally for our groceries. We have been doing the CSA for a full year now. I am so proud of the positive changes we have made since then. It has been like a domino effect! One thing I had to get over, and a common theme I often hear from friends and family is COST. Yes, in general, it seems to cost more to eat local, organic and seasonal - especially when you include grass-fed beef or pastured eggs. However, we have cut down our eating-out habits to about once a week. We have also cut down on extraneous side dishes at dinner (like pre-seasoned rice/potatoes/couscous in a box).

Here is what we spent for groceries this week:

CSA box + 1 dozen eggs: $31.50
1 brisket (grass-fed): $16 (2 lbs)
1 sirloin steak (grass-fed): $14 (1.25 lbs)
Wild King Salmon: $12.50 for 1.8 lbs! (farmer's market! fresh from British Columbia...not local) - 2 dinners
1 Trout: $4.00
Milk: $6.00
Extra apples: $4.00 (6)
= $88.00

Between the meat, fish and eggs + the veg we get in our box - we are good for the week. I swear to you. Sure, we'll get some extras like mushrooms, extra broccoli and we need a loaf of bread. And, yeah, we've got a frozen chicken that we are going to roast if we don't have enough leftovers once all of this is done. But, for the most part, this is it.

I hope this was somewhat convincing!

I Don't Get It

Anyone know the answer to the following quiz?

Apples (organic. .69/ea) bought at an 'alternative grocery store' (for lack of a better term) in mid-September, in Northern California originated from:

a/ Washington State
b/ California
c/ the Southern freakin' Hemisphere
d/ New York

If you guessed C - you're a winner! And I'm the loser for having bought them and not realizing it until we were home and eating them.

This really, really irked me. Is there anyone out there that can explain the economics of this? How is shipping apples from New Zealand, in September (where apples are not even in season there!!!!!!) to California economically viable?! HOW? There are so many things that defy logic, here. How is it less expensive to ship and store them vs. sourcing them locally? They are in season here for goodness sake - apples are falling off all the trees in my urban neighborhood.

How do they justify the environmental cost?
How do they justify the loss in flavor during that long voyage across the whole Atlantic Ocean?

I feel compelled to write to aforementioned store, but they are notoriously secretive and private and sneaky? so I doubt I would get a response. Maybe if Michael Pollan or Alice Waters wrote to them, then they'd listen. Hmph.

The Line?

A few weeks ago, prompted by my blogmate and this article, I set out to make homemade butter. It's harder than he makes it sound, his notion probably being that of hours spent over a wooden churn. I've tasked my husband with building an appliance that could do this for you, but he's not interested yet. I'll wear him down.

The results, were indeed worthwhile. Yes, the taste of the butter was amazingly fresh, though I'm probably spoiled by European Style butter. But to me, the fresh buttermilk is what will motivate me to dirty several bowls - and you try to knead butter over a strainer. (A. It gets warm in your hands. B. It extrudes through the holes in the strainer and looks like riced-potatoes.)

I'm not sure when I'll do this again... after my machine is built? How hard could it be?  You'd need a chamber to do the whipping, above a chamber to receive the whey. You could then switch out the whisk for a kneading hook to finish the job.

We were out of town for a week and when we returned the remainder of the butter was rancid. I'm not sure what the trick would be to keep it fresh.

Oh, and while panicking that all my glass containers were in use and I'd have no where to store the butter it occurred to me - duh - that I could wrap it in parchment paper.  

Now we come to the portion of our programming where we ask: is this task sustainable? Can I take time out of my weekly schedule to make butter? And does it make a difference when I can buy pre-made, european-style butter from the same, local creamery? That stays fresh for several weeks at a time? Or is this something I hold off on doing all but occasionally until we get the cow? (I'm only half kidding.) I think I've answered my own questions.