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

gourd city

I counted 3 squash sitting on my counter by Friday.  One kabocha from two weeks ago, a butternut from last week and a fresh one from this week.

Supposedly, squash gets sweeter as it's left to mature...so, you know...that was all in the plan... ;)

I saw a recipe in Sunset magazine that seemed like a good way to use the squash somewhat in disguise.  My kids love a lot of fruits and vegetables, but squash unfortunately isn't one of them.  Having some time this Sunday afternoon, I made a batch of squash gnocchi.  Some for tonight and the rest for the freezer.  

The basic recipe is like this:

• Cook a butternut squash.  You can roast it, steam it or microwave it.  I did the latter - poke holes all over and put it in the microwave on high for 10 minutes.  (Mine needed a bit more cooking afterwards).
  
• Scoop out the flesh and mash.  You need 2 cups.
  
• Season: salt, pepper, nutmeg, sage/marjoram/thyme.  You could have fun and add Indian spices - that would be yum.
• Add flour, 1 cup at a time.  Now, I used King Arthur's white whole wheat flour.  The recipe calls for 3.5 cups + dusting.  My squash took at least all of that...maybe even a bit more!
• Roll out into 'snakes', cut into 1/2" pieces.  
• Boil in salted water just until they float - no longer.

That's it!  I tossed ours with melted butter, parsley and lemon juice and topped with parmesan.

Beware: the dough remains a bit sticky.  I tried to do the Italian nonna thing by rolling each little gnoccho down a fork to get the grooves.  It didn't work so well...I do not recommend.  Just leave them in their little pillow form and enjoy.

Whassup, hyssop?

When we received our newsletter from the farm last week notifying us what they expected to put in the next week's box, I saw hyssop and went right away to a new screen and googled it.  

I guess it is most famous for being mentioned in the New Testament during the crucifixion - they say that a sponge soaked in vinegar was placed on a branch of hyssop and given to Christ before he died.  

A/ that's gross - couldn't they give him some water?  and 

B/ it must have been a different species of hyssop because what I received is only about 8-10" long.

I prefer to remember it as a crucial ingredient of Chartreuse and Absinthe :)  

Suggestions from the farm were to use it in a homemade blend of herbes de provence, or to use sparingly in a meat marinade or as stew.  I guess it has a kind of anise-y, minty, bitter flavor.  

Here you see it drying beneath some heads of garlic - it feels so witchy doing this - I love it.  

Organizing the loot

Organization is a large part of being a CSA member, and part of the reason why Ruth and I wanted to start this blog.  It might seem really daunting to have to 'deal with' fresh-with-dirt veg and de-stemming and chopping and drying, etc.  I remember when I was thinking about signing up - I would grill Ruth about how much washing and salad spinning was involved and whether there was dirt caked on to every little thing.  It's not bad.  Trust me.  We both have kids, we both work a lot - but we can still make this work.  

Here we go - box contents and what I did with them and what I plan to do with them for the week:

1. Beets.  They come with their tops on which are not only incredibly tasty and healthy - they turn to slime in like 36 hours.  I separated the tops from the root.  Roots went into a ziploc and the greens (snipped off with kitchen scissors - $2 at Ikea) went into a plastic bag and into the crisper.  We'll make them tomorrow and either eat them right away or I'll use them in a lentil salad (awesome combo - lentils & beet greens).  The next time I have the oven on, I'll roast the beets and we'll use them in salads.

2. Stir-fry mix.  A mix of chard, kale, collard greens.  I'll wash it right before eating.  That entails putting in the salad spinner.  Soaking.  Removing from water w/o spinning - the water helps the saute/steam process.  We will probably cook this with the beet greens.

3. Spinach.  To eat sauteed one night with loads of fresh garlic (see below).  Will wash right before eating.  The spinach takes about 3 water changes.  It's really not a big deal as I'm in the kitchen doing other stuff, I swish it, dump the water, repeat.

4. Swiss Chard.  See stir-fry mix.

5. Asparagus.  Nothing to do until I'm about to cook them.  My favorite way is roasting.  Snap off the bottoms, peel the stalks (these are thick) and throw into a hot oven after tossing with salt, pepper and olive oil. 

6. Radishes.  The bunch we got this week is BIG.  The leaves are no good - they get composted right away and the radishes go into a bowl in the fridge.  I basically eat these on my own, with bread, butter and salt as an appetizer almost every night.  I really look forward to this simple pleasure!

7. Garlic.  Nothing to do except eat them. :)

8. Cherries.  See garlic.

9. Strawberries.  See cherries.

10. Mint.  Place in jar with a little water.  Covered with a plastic bag.  Put in fridge.  Will use for tea, fava bean spread, in dessert, mojitos, ...

11.  Lettuce.  I keep it in the bag until I'm ready to use it - then I wash and spin it.  It takes about 2 rinses.

Tonight I spent about 30 minutes total disassembling the box and putting things away.  All while dinner was getting made.  Pretty painless!

Fava Bean City

Part of the deal with our CSA, and maybe with others, is that there is a 'trade' area where you can leave stuff you don't want and ideally trade it for something else.  This week's deposit was a whole bag of fava beans, which I promptly snatched up.  I'll leave something another day...

I got home and realized I had like 3 lbs of fava beans.  I didn't think it would be so many since the yield is so low after the shucking and peeling.  Ha - the joke was on me!  I had a HUGE bowl of fava beans!  

What I've done with them:

1. Shucked, blanched, peeled.  Required for anything else I'd want to do, anyway.

2. Made a 'ragout' using instructions from Alice Water's 'Vegetables' book (just cover with half water/half olive oil, salt/pepper, garlic, rosemary - cook for 5-8 minutes).  Eh - they were good. Not mind blowing.

3.  Whizzed remaining ragout-ed favas with some pecorino and voila - a spread for toast.

4. Mixed in with a lentil salad.

5.  Tossed with pasta.

I think I'm almost sick of fava beans.  The season is just about over, anyway.  

Spring Goodies

I feel like I haven't updated you re: our box contents recently.  I think my new favorite food season might be spring.   For years and years, it was fall.  Fall meant applesauce and roast vegetables and roast beasts and cozy family dinners.  All that is still true, but the produce in the fall just can't rival that of the spring and summer.  Each week is so exciting as there is always a new little surprise in there.  It started with green garlic, then snow peas, and now fava beans.  This past week we received:

Leeks, carrots, green garlic, sugar snap peas, fava beans, kiwi, apples, spinach, red lettuce, asparagus, a grapefruit and...lemon balm!

Per the farm's suggestion, I made a tea with the lemon balm (and some mint I had) and MAN is it delicious late in the evening.  Very soothing.

The first week with fava beans, they were small enough to only have to shell once.  I tossed them with some pasta and green garlic and pecorino.  This week, I made a spread with them (per a fellow farm member's suggestion) by throwing them in the food processor with some (green) garlic, parsley, lemon juice and olive oil.  That combination, spread on multigrain bread with a glass of white wine is what I'm having right now and I'm in heaven.

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

Sorrel: Help me

Our (French) nanny has a lovely garden where she grows loads of herbs, and more recently, SORREL.   

She asked me if I wanted some, and of course I said yes!  It has probably been grown from seeds illegally imported from France, so it has to be good ;)  I came home yesterday to a huge bag that she had given my husband.  I seriously have about 3 lbs of sorrel!  HELP!  She told me to make a sauce with it (bechamel + wilted sorrel = good on fish).  But, I don't need/want that much sauce. (Which makes me realize, we Americans aren't so into sauce, like the French)  I tried making a sauce with it once before, unsuccessfully.  Sorrel behaves very weirdly once it hits the heat. Not only did it start to melt, it turned brown.  

  

The only other things I can come up with are soup and to throw in salad.  Maybe that's the extent of it?  Making a soup makes me a tad bit nervous...see the part in the wikipedia entry about it being a laxative.....!

Suggestions would be appreciated - thank you!  

What to do with: Swiss Chard

Swiss chard is one of those items in a CSA box that you are not always excited to see. The ratio of 'appearances in CSA box' to 'recipes for swiss chard' is kind of skewed to one side...

Normally - we just chop up some onion, chop up the stems, saute with some garlic and olive oil, then add the chopped leaves and a wee bit of acid (pomegranate vinegar is good, here!) or pine nuts & raisins. That gets old fast. And the chard often still ends up being too bitter for my tastes.

Last night I felt very French, because I literally whipped up a gratin in about a half hour. It is easy - I swear! Here's the recipe:

One bunch of chard
One medium onion
1 cup chicken broth
1/3 cup cream

Preheat oven to 400

Cut chard leaves from stems.
Roughly chop leaves, dice stems.
Dice onion.
Saute onion and stems in olive oil until soft - about 8 min.
Add s&p
Then add leaves until wilted (don't overdo it, since they are going in the oven).

While that is happening, make your bechamel and bread crumbs.

Bechamel:
Melt 2-3 tbsp butter on the stove.
While butter is melting - warm broth in microwave for 1.5 minutes.
Remove broth from micro, and add the cream - do not reheat - just let it sit.
Add 2-3 tbsp flour to melted butter.
Whisk.
Let cook a little bit, but don't let it get too brown.
Add broth/cream to butter/flour and whisk.
Let simmer a little until thick.
Add salt, pepper, and fresh grating of nutmeg

In a gratin dish, put the cooked chard, then pour the bechamel over it.
(You can top the chard with shredded cheese if you like! A Swiss-type is good, as is parmesan)

Bread crumbs:
In a bowl combine bread crumbs (I keep bread crumbs made from leftover bread ends in the freezer for times like this. Nigella trick ;)), chopped parsley & thyme, 1 clove of minced garlic, swirl of olive oil to combine

Put the bread crumbs on top and throw the gratin in the oven for 15-20 minutes.

Ok - writing this all down makes it seem more labor intensive than it was. But I assure you it wasn't!

What to do with: Cabbage

We have been getting cabbage every now and then - another thing that we would almost never buy in the store. Why? No really good reason other than it just wasn't one of those regular veg on our menu like broccoli was. This week we got a cute little wakefield cabbage, a change from the napa cabbage we usually get.

We usually put the cabbage into a stirfry or thinly sliced into a soup. For Thanksgiving, I was charged with bringing a salad, and I used a recipe that came in our weekly CSA box. It called for arugula, mandarin oranges, pomegranate seeds, goat cheese, and a lemon vinaigrette. It went over really well - but I had way too much vinaigrette. On a whim, I tossed it with some cabbage to make a slaw. And, voila - a fresh, wintry citrus slaw was born.

Citrus Slaw
1 small head of cabbage
2 scallions
1 lemon
2 clementines or mandarins
olive oil - about 1/3 of a cup or less
salt and pepper
pomegranate seeds (optional)

There is no real technique for the salad. I slice the cabbage and scallion. Peel one orange and tear it into two lobes, then slice each lobe in 4. Toss together with pomegranate seeds.

In a separate bowl, combine salt and pepper, juice of one lemon, juice of one clementine and olive oil. Shake or whisk to combine, and toss with cabbage, etc. I like to keep it in a ziploc bag - makes the marinating easy. The slaw should be made a few hours before eating. It's really good the next day.

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 ;)