CSA Week 5: Jap Chae, Galettes

So, how is your weekend? My Sunday is winding down (waaaaaaah) and it is H-O-T out there! So I'm hiding in my air conditioned apartment, eating watermelon, drinking iced green tea, and generally trying to stretch out my last few hours before the week starts again. This week was apparently the week of abundant fruit at the CSA; a whole load of peaches, plums, and apples (Macintosh, I think). I'm not even kidding, the fruit weighed a whole lot more than the veggies this week, and the peaches and plums have almost displaced watermelon on my "most eaten" list. ALMOST.


And here are the veggies: beets, zucchini, yellow squash, collard greens, carrots, cucumber, radishes, turnips, basil, a huge bunch of parsley, and lettuce mix. I roasted the beets and have been eating them tossed with olive oil, a bit of lemon juice, and some goat cheese--delicious! And I used up the beet greens, too, in a big batch of jap chae.


Jap chae is a Korean dish of sweet potato noodles mixed with veggies and beef and flavored with sesame oil. I dispensed with the beef and used a mix of beet greens, carrots, zucchini, and yellow squash (and a few slices of fish cake). Quick, easy, tasty, and it used up a whole lot of veggies (yay!).


I turned one of the peaches and a couple of the plums into some galettes (or tarts, or whatever you want to call them). And actually it turned out to be two peaches that got used in the end, because I must admit, I couldn't resist, er, snacking as I was slicing.


I wanted to see how a cornmeal crust would go with the fruits, and while they are not the prettiest looking things ever, I think they match quite well. The plums are especially juicy! Next time, I've got to tweak the filling a bit, and add some flavoring (maybe nutmeg? A little bit of almond? Hm.).

So I've still got collard greens and a huge bunch of parsley. I think I may make chimichurri with the parsley (and freeze it), but I'm really not sure what to do with the collard greens....and egads, it's almost pick-up day again! Better get a move on!

P.S. Bonus picture from a dinner I had with my brother and a friend earlier this week at The Spotted Pig, super yummy ricotta gnudi.

CSA Week 4 (and hello, I'm back)

I know, it's been a while--well, I just got back earlier this week from vacation (a fab week in Vancouver, filled with lots of great food, and quality time with Pyota--will be writing about our adventures later) and I've been busy with work since! Do you know how many emails I got while I was gone?? 279!!!!!!!!! Sheesh, don't these people know I'm out of the office?

Anyhow, I arrived back on a CSA pickup day (my brother picked up week 3 for me, but I forgot to ask him to take a photo), which helped ease the pain of not being on vacation anymore. You can see from my fancy collage that this week's share consisted of beets, radishes, fresh garlic, basil, lemon balm, peas, komatsuna, rainbow chard, mixed lettuces (not pictured), and the fruit share was sour cherries.


I still had a bunch of radishes left from a previous pickup; I have to admit, I am not a big fan of radishes. They're too peppery for me! So I thought cooking them would help and I found this recipe for braised radishes over at The Kitchn. Oh boy! They don't look as pretty, but gosh are they delicious. I substituted some waxed Chinese bacon for the salt pork, which was a stroke of genius on my part, if I do say so myself. I hope I get more radishes next week.


The basil and garlic scapes (from previous week) were turned into pesto. Can you believe this was my first time making pesto? I can't believe I waited so long, and I can't believe how dead easy it is to make (once I got around to buying a food processor). This pesto also contains almonds, olive oil, and parmigiano. I couldn't resist eating some of it with a spoon right after I made it. (Don't you like my little storage bowl? I picked up a set at Fishs Eddy, one of my favorite stores in NY, and a place I can spend HOURS in.)


Then I boiled up some fettuccine and tossed it with more pesto--oh gosh. SO GOOD. So good that I actually ate this for breakfast this morning, too (I know, I'm crazy. I eat dinner leftovers for breakfast all the time.)

So far, I have also cooked the komatsuna (stir-fry) and plan to make some kind of pasta with the peas (and probably some shrimp). I am a bit at a loss for what to do with the chard though, so if you have a favored chard recipe, please do share!

The beets are also presenting a bit of a problem. It's so freaking hot right now that to turn on the oven would be unthinkable, so I can't roast them. I'm starting to wonder if maybe I could just steam them in my rice cooker...of course, this does not solve the problem of my sour cherries, which I am dying to make into a pie, but again, sigh, the oven! Maybe I just need to buy an additional air conditioner unit.

CSA Week One!

A couple of years ago we joined a CSA for the first time and loved the experience--so much awesome produce! (Too much in some cases--there is only so much corn you can eat, and I probably still have an ear in my freezer somewhere.) Anyway, after skipping last summer, I decided to join a CSA again, and this was the share from week one. (For those who aren't familiar, CSA stands for community supported agriculture and is a program where you basically purchase a share of a farm's output. It's great because you're directly supporting a farm and in return, you get many, many weeks of extremely fresh produce. It is not great if you don't like or are picky about your vegetables!)


Week one spoils: scallions, garlic scapes, cilantro, radishes (extremely peppery!), spinach, dandelion greens, mixed salad greens, and arugula. Plus two quarts of strawberries and an apple, from the fruit share. (As a bonus, you get to see my extremely cluttered windowsill where I take most of my photos. Unfortunately, that is also where most of my plants are now living...)


I am determined to make use of everything! The scapes have already gone into a stir-fry with some pork.


The dandelion greens, spinach, and some of the cilantro got turned into saag paneer (thanks for the suggestion, Jack); making paneer at home is the easiest thing in the world! The scallions will become scallion pancakes. And as you might have guessed, I will be eating a LOT of salad this week.

There are lots of CSA programs out there now; this is a good site if you want to find one near you. For those who are in NYC, Just Food is a good resource. And if you're interested in Chubby Bunny specifically (which is the one I've joined!), you can visit their blog. I'm looking forward to a summer (and fall) of vegetable goodness!

Another CSA Post

Boy, this has been the week from hell--I can't even believe I finally made it to Friday. Yesterday was the third to last CSA pickup of the season and it was one of the heaviest! I should have brought stronger bags--every available bag I had was crammed with potatoes, sweet potatoes (so good), cauliflower, celeriac (I've never even seen celeriac before!), onions, butternut squash (yay!), and a giant bag of these carrots. Look at how crazy this one is!


Siamese carrot! I have plans for most of the vegetables already (and definitely going to be using some of these for Thanksgiving next week) but I have no idea what to do with the celeriac. I'm guessing Google or the Joy of Cooking will come to the rescue, though.


And speaking of the CSA, a short while ago I came across this very interesting blog,Grapes and Greens, and specifically this post, all about Deborah's experience with the CSA. I was pretty tickled to recognize the site where I also pick up my veggies (although by the time I make it there, it's dark!). I was even MORE tickled to see the recipe for kale and butternut squash gratin that she had posted--I think at that point, I had two or three weeks worth of kale to use up, and this was an easy, delicious way to use up about a week and a half.

Sorry that this is not the greatest photo--I baked it in a really old, banged up dish which is, um, terribly ugly. So you get a closeup of the squash instead! The sweetness of the squash plays off really nicely against the savoriness of the kale and this is a winner in my book. Please visit Grapes and Greens for this recipe (and other ones that look just as good).

Tonight I am going to go watch Kevin Geeks Out About Dummy Deaths with the lovely Tenebrous Kate & Co.--I've been promised mannequins in peril and death dummy themed cupcakes, so, you know, watch this space. Because who doesn't need more cupcakes in their lives? (Oh, right, me.)

HAVE AN EXCELLENT FRIDAY!

Yup, it's summer

Well, summer is definitely here, if the awful humidity today is any indication. I'm not crazy about hot weather and mugginess makes it that much worse, especially on the subway platforms! So you sweat through the commute and then freeze in the office. Fun times!

Anyway, it's not all complaints. For one thing, all the local summer fruits are starting to appear in the markets. And for another, we got 6 ears of delicious, juicy, fresh corn in this week's CSA pickup and I ate one for dinner tonight, simply boiled quickly with a little salt/pepper/butter. So good. I went through a phase where I refused to eat corn on the cob (which I blame on Children of the Corn) and I'm making up for lost time now. There are 5 more ears waiting and I'll do my best to restrain myself from eating all of them and not sharing....

Still kicking

No, I haven't forgotten about this blog--I've just been busy with getting back into the swing of work after (our awesome) vacation to Vancouver and the Olympic Peninsula! Not to mention sorting through the hundreds of photos I took (surprisingly few of them involved food, I am sad to report). I know this is a ostensibly a food blog but I'll be making a couple of vacation related posts in the near future (in addition to some back-dated baking posts).

In the meantime our wonderful CSA program is in full swing and we are overwhelmed with lovely, organic vegetables, like the carrots above. Sir Didymus* is currently making them into soup along with some spring onions and some cabbage and it smells amazing. I think we're going to be eating pretty well (and healthily!) this summer!