Oh how I love me some summer produce!



This week we have the first summer corn, eggplant, more summer squash, cabbage, green beans, potatoes and peaches.

I'm trying to plan out a use for most of this in salads/dips/side dishes for this weekend's trip. We plan to have a big cookout with lots of meaty goodness, so I think some grilled veg, cole slaw, etc might work very well. Though the peaches will probably be devoured well before the weekend arrives. mmmn!

Eggplant, basil, carrots, summer squash, garlic, green beans, potatoes, and parsley.

In the past month or so that I haven't been posting, we've been getting lots of delicious produce. But there were no lovely pictures or fun recipes for you, sorry about that. :/

Trying to get back into the swing of posting.. here is what I'm expecting in tomorrow's box. Hopefully I'll be energized enough to arrange it for a photo by caramida.

Green Beans, (the never-ending)Carrots, Globe Eggplant, Garlic, Basil, Parsley, Potatoes, and Summer Squash

We've been getting a lot of summer squash lately and it has been used in variety of ways. My favorite, of course, is the quick bread that caramida made with it, mmmm.

I'm a little behind on the potatoes we've been getting as well. I'll have to roast up that garlic and smash some potatoes with it.

Last week we got purslane, which I will probably put into something for dinner tonight. I'll let you know how that goes. I've never used it before. :)

1. Is the Jersey Girl in California to stay, or will she eventually move back east?
That's hard to say. Mostly it depends on caramida's educational/career aspirations. I'd prefer to stay in the bay area, but if my partner gets into grad school or a teaching job somewhere else, the east coast is definitely on the list of places I'd be willing to move.

2. Tell me about your most recent crafting project?
I'm still working on a beaded crocheted scarf that I've had in my crafting bag for quite some time. I picked it back up at teawiththecheat's crafting circle a couple of months back and have made some good progress on it since. I'm hoping to wear it to the wedding we're attending back east in late July.

3. Why don't you post more often?
This recent lack of posting started out with being sick.. then depressed.. then super busy at work... then it's hard to overcome the not-posting inertia.. then more work.. etc.

4. How is work?
Work is good. And busy, very very busy. Sometimes it's stressful and/or full of drama. But mostly I work hard, and I'm recognized for that. The people I work for/with really like me and think I'm good at my job. Recently I got passed over for a sort of promotion, which I was disappointed but also relieved to hear. It was a bit of a circus, and a whole lot of huhu for more work/stress/drama and no extra money. Most of my disappointment is that the coworker who got the position seems rather standoffish and kind of on a power-trip since then, and before we were friendly. Other than that, though, I'm pretty happy with it. There is a lot of room for growth and I'm being very encouraged to move around and up, once I choose a direction. :)

5. Have any of your recent cooking experiments resulted in something you didn't quite expect?
I was making a quick tomato sauce the other night for dinner, and I wanted it to be spicy, so I'd added a bunch of hot ingredients. On tasting it, I thought it was a little too acidic between the tomato and spices, so I decided to add a little baking soda. I shook the box over the sauce, and of course instead of a little sprinkle, a huge chunk of baking soda falls into the pan. I doctored it enough afterwards to make a tasty dinner, but it was completely unlike tomato sauce in taste. Very strange disconnect to see the tomato sauce going into my mouth, but not taste at all like tomato sauce.



Rules:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me" or something of an equally pithy nature.
2. I will respond by asking you 5 questions.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions, or there will be trouble.
4. You will include this and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them 5 questions.

Edited to Add: Thanks to knaveofhearts for the meme, the questions, and the little push to get me posting again.

I forget what clicky-clicky internet browsing tangent led me to find it, but the other day I stumbled across a recipe for a flourless cake-like product.

It basically consisted of garbanzo beans, milk, eggs, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, orange juice & zest. I decided it would either be delicious or horrible, and that either way, I should try it. I have a few friends that are non-wheat eaters, including our neighbor miriammiriam and I would like to have a wider range of delicious things to share with them.

Last night, I was poking around the kitchen, trying to use up some store bought eggs so that I would feel less guilty about eating all the fresh ones caramida had brought back from his grandfolk's with him. And after throwing together a fritatta, I decided to test out this cake. I went with fresh ginger and lemon, since I had those on hand, instead of cinnamon and orange. I was pleasantly surprised. I was concerned it would be heavy and leaden, but it was actually pretty light and fluffy. It was really good, and I think if I hadn't sent caramida to bring half of it upstairs, that we would've eaten the whole thing last night. I will probably experiment with the recipe a little more, perhaps using honey instead of sugar, and perhaps making it a bit larger for more servings. I've also read similar recipes for a chocolate version.

The recipe I used is behind the cut.
( Read more... )

Sorry for the late update this week, I've been rather busy. I know you all hold your breath waiting to hear about my vegscapades. =P


Here we have: Chard, Asparagus, Lettuce (red & green), Carrots, Green Garlic, Spinach, Radishes, and Dill

I'm thinking about using the dill in a bread this weekend, but if not, I'll make an herb butter out of it, which will keep nicely in the freezer. Or possibly a yogurt-dill dip for the carrots and radishes in a three birds, one stone sort of thing. Bread or butter may be the fate of the green garlic as well, if it doesn't get used soon.

And our new cast iron dutch oven is just sitting there begging to be used for the infamous no-knead bread of intarweb fame, so adding those to homemade bread or herbed butter is pretty likely. Yum!

Last week, that large bunch of oregano became a simulacrum of pesto, which was weird and a little bitter, though still strangely tasty when fresh, and mellowed out some when leftover. Lettuce and carrots went to lunch-time salads. Chard, spinach and aspargus were cooked lightly with olive oil and garlic for various dinners. Leeks are still in the fridge awaiting their fate, which is as yet undecided.

Battlestar Galactica season 4 starts soon, and as caramida & I are hated by the cabe company, we are looking for some kind people to let us watch with them.

We'd be happy to bring over dinner or dessert or something in exchange for our BSG fix. :)

What happens when you brew whole cacao beans almost like you would coffee?
Cabaret Foods (of Oakland) produces Cabaret Brewed Chocolate which is brewed cacao bean mixed with sugar and reduced to a syrup.

I'm fascinated.

Posted to one of the lj-communities I try to read, Uterus T-shirts! A portion of proceeds go to Medical Students For Choice.

My friend, canis28, sent an email this morning with the subject line: why coffee is good. In it he linked to a BBC News Article about the results of a study on the effects of caffeine on the blood brain barrier in rabbits.

The title of the article? Daily caffeine 'protects brain'
"Coffee may cut the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body, research suggests."

I <3 Coffee. In fact, I think it is time to go get my daily dosage.

This week there is: Chard, Asparagus, Lettuce, Oregano, Spinach, Carrots & Leeks.

If anyone has suggestions on how best to use all that oregano, I'd love to hear them. Otherwise, I will probably end up drying most of it for future use. :)

I like this picture because it shows the cute FullBelly logo, AND our very clean and empty (free of the usual pile of dirty dishes) counter in the background. Thanks to caramida for all his work on those during spring break.

Happily, I succeeded in using all the lettuce from last week in salads for lunches. It's so nice to not waste lettuce. I need to try to have other salad ingredients on hand more often. We ate the asparagus with dinner the other night, sauteed in garlic and served with mustardy dipping sauce. I love asparagus. caramida had his gaming group over on Sunday, so they at up the carrots in stick form with hummus for dipping. Leeks have been cooked down for tart filling. Sauteed kale went in lunches. Spinach was eaten at home for lunch by caramida. Only the celery remains despondent in the fridge. But I think I'm going to make some vegetable stock/broth this week, so I'll probably use it in that.

Leeks, Red Russian Kale, Celery, Lettuce, Spinach, Asparagus, more Lettuce, and Carrots.

I'm looking forward to the asparagus, it's the first of the season and I'm guessing it's going to be fabulous.

I think I need to cook up some of the greens in advance so they'll be ready to throw in lunches, scrambles, quiche, etc. Also, a leek tart is probably in our future, we still have the two from last week. We actually have quite a few things from last week, we ate out too much and then went away for the weekend. It really puts a dent in our cooking.

Spring time makes me want to plan big projects. I start to feel less hibernatey and want to get moving and doing and growing. Mostly they're ideas that I've been bouncing around for months, but somehow in spring, I suddenly want to do something about them. And it might actually happen!

I'm thinking a three-tiered plan for this year:

• worm-compost - Oakland has a composting program, but every now and then I find plastic, foil or other random trash in our "green bin" which just serves to piss me off and I'm sure it doesn't make the compost people very happy either. My solution? Start worm-composting.



• grow more basil and tomatoes - two things I would like to have more of in off months, and seemed to grow alright on our front stoop.



• start preserving - by either canning in mason jars or freezing, etc. We get an abundance of some things in our seasonal produce that I can't always use in a time manner. Or things we grow or get from the farmer's market.


Next year, I plan/hope to join a grain csa. Annual sign-ups are in January, so we were sadly too late for this year. They grow over 30 different varieties of grains and beans including, barley, wheat, rye, Teff, Amaranth, oats, whole corn, Kamut and others. I think it would be awesome to get regionally grown and milled grain. Not quite local, since they are located in VERY northern California, practically Oregon. But still, it's all grown, milled and packaged in one place, just 300 or so miles from here. It might take some finagling to get our monthly share, but I'm told there's a member from Berkeley who picks up their share in Davis and may be able to help us with that, if/when we join. Though it may be an excuse to visit Davis monthly, or something along those lines. =)

clockwise from top left: leeks (laurel & hardy), spinach, rutabagas, lettuce, carrots, chard, potatoes, and cilantro.

For pi day last week I made a savory pie. I used the spring onions as well as some leeks from the week before. I cooked them with a little oil over low heat until they were all soft and delicious, then I tossed into a frozen pastry dough and topped them with some parmesan. Mmmnn it was so delicious.

The next night I made carrot ginger soup. Though caramida says it was too thick to really be called "soup", I'm not sure what it should be called instead. It was sort of an applesauce consistancy, not chunky, but thick. I had used the food processor before cooking, and he tried the immersion blender during cooking. I'm thinking that maybe I need to cook the carrots first and then try putting it in the cuisinart to get it more liquified. Or maybe add more liquid to it. Not sure.

I'm thinking the potatoes, rutabas and/or last week's celeriac will end up in some sort of cheesey au gratin/scalloped form. This time I will use a mandolin to get the slices nice and thin and uniform. That was the problem with the rutabags last time.

What to do with the lettuce and carrots? oy.

A lovely new userpic made by the wonderous boy, caramida, especially for me. He took a very beautiful picture of the sprigs of oregano we received in our box this week.

I'm a lucky girl.
**bounce!**

We didn't get a chance to take a photo of the produce this week. Though I still might try to get caramida to photograph the adorable sprigs of oregano for a usericon or something. :)

But here are the contents for those of you following along:
Broccoli, Carrots, Celery Root, Red Russian Kale, Fennel, Salad Mix, Onions, and Oregano

I could've used that fresh oregano last weekend when I made my "CSA Salad" for the DAHLie awards. Oh well, I had some nice dried oregano on hand to use instead. The salad idea was based on a beet & feta salad I had made last April with some FullBelly beets.
( more on the salad )

Clockwise from back left:
Beets, Stir-fry Mix, Red Cabbage, Celery, Broccoli, Leeks, and Carrots

- Pondering whether to roast the beets, or attempt another chocolate-beet cake.
- I think the carrots will get shredded and turned into carrot-raisin salad.
- Not sure about the celery, caramida doesn't really like it, and it's a lot for me to eat just raw filled with peanut butter or cream cheese. Perhaps I'll make cream of celery soup again. Anyone interested in some celery or some celery soup? Let me know.

The CSA is having a potluck in Berkeley and I was so excited to hear about it, until I found out it's this Saturday. Because I'm not already triple-booked for Saturday or anything. GRRR. Though caramida did have a point when he pointed out that everyone would be using the same produce, so the dishes contributed might not be that diverse. But it could be fun to try to come up with something different that would stand out. A good challenge.

I've had a yearning for beef stew lately. Last night I went to Trader Joe's and saw some lovely looking lamb, so I decided it will be lamb stew instead. :)

I threw these in the crockpot this morning:
lamb
potatoes
carrots
mushrooms
leeks
garlic cloves
Fat Tire (mmn, beer)
veggie broth

Probably it will need some seasoning later, but I was in a bit of a rush after cutting everything up. It shall be stew!

Also, another use for carrots == yay!

Went shopping on Saturday in Japantown for bento-type purchasing. Didn't have as much time to spend as I'd hoped, since I ended up working until 3:30pm. Bleh. And I didn't find an actual bento lunch box. I did, however, pick up some red bean paste, among other goodies.

Recipe for trying out soon with red bean paste:

recipe for those little sesame balls

recipe for steamed buns