I'm a Carrot!

Check it out! I'm a carrot!

I insisted on being the carrot since it was the only vegetable with a hat. Everyone was saying that my sister-in-law is supposed to be lettuce, but those people obviously aren't members of a CSA. Clearly, Alicia is a bok choy.

I've got to say, the vegetable that has (surprisingly) proven to be the most challenging this summer, is cabbage:

We seem to get cabbage every week. I'm not sure how to preserve it, and other than salads and cole slaw, I'm not even sure how to eat it. But this week, I made a giant pot of Cabbage and Beef Soup, and it totally hit the spot:

I added some CSA celery to the mix, and used stew meat instead of ground beef, but other than that, I followed the recipe to the letter.

I made of loaf of Gorgonzola Bread with Kale to go with it:

If that looks good to you, check out the recipes tab, follow the directions for Spinach and Feta Bread, and switch it out for kale and gorgonzola. Yumm-o.

Seriously. So good.

Last night it was unseasonable summerish, so we ate outside on the deck:

We had a grilled chicken, a CSA salad, CSA sweet potato fries, and the rest of the bread:

Those are baked sweet potato fries and they're way good.

...especially as leftovers with breakfast.

Some Hits and a Miss

July 27, 2010

Has this blog been neglected, or what? I absolutely hate it when work gets in the way of my internet time. I work part-time for a reason, and it's not because of my kids if you know what I mean.

In spite of my work projects, we've had some good stuff popping up in the kitchen at my joint. In case you haven't yet noticed, I'm knee deep in Adult ADD and couldn't follow a recipe if the life of my dog depended on it, so I just make sh!t up. And sometimes, it really does taste like sh!t.

But this was okay:

CSA kale and summer squash sauteed in olive oil, drizzled with red wine vinegar and topped with a big ass slab of mozzarella. I love cheese, especially fresh mozzarella. And I'll tell you what, if it didn't make me all kinds of constipated, I'd eat it every day.

This was good, too:

I put three potatoes in the microwave and mashed 'em up with CSA green onion, CSA garlic, CSA dill, some olive oil, and half a stick of butter.

And this? Well this was good enough to serve up at The Olive Garden--my mark of true culinary greatness:

Pasta tossed with sauteed with CSA squash and kale. I added four million pounds of salt and a bucket of olive oil. What can I say? It gave it a good flavor.

These are refrigerator pickles. Perfect for those of us who are too lazy to can things:

All you do is soak your CSA cucumbers in vinegar, salt, peppercorns, and whatever else you feel like putting in. Sometimes I like to add Ring Dings, or those soft carmel candies with the white dot in the middle.

And finally we had this tonight. It's Cabbage Au Gratin and I actually used a real life recipe:

It was just okay. I think it would work best served at a nursing home, or a work camp for refugees. I still have a whole mess of cabbage au gratin to finish up, so I plan to make the best of it by smothering it in bacon.

For those of you who really love old people food, here's the recipe:

Saute 1 sliced cabbage and 1 chopped onion in 1 TBSP of butter for 20 minutes over medium heat.
Add 1.5 cups of milk and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and let simmer on low for 5 minutes.
Add 4 well beaten eggs and stir continuously.
Add .75 cup of bread crumbs and keep on stirring.
Top with bread crumbs and bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

It's best served on a TV tray while wearing a house dress.

Foods that Should Hump

July 22, 2010

We've already established that chocolate and zucchini should get together on a more regular basis. But you know what else should get to humping? Butter and soy sauce:

This is cabbage, sauteed in butter with almonds and sesame seeds, and sprinkled with soy sauce. The creamy butter and salty soy sauce? You could have bent me over and spanked me and I swear I wouldn't have noticed. It took me to another place.

And this? This was freaking good, too:

CSA green beans, rice, and pan fried scallops marinated in lime juice, olive oil, and CSA mint. The lime/mint combination never occurred to me until I did a little internet searching, but I've got to say, those two might think about getting a room tonight, too.

Cake Love

July 20, 2010

This past week, a fellow CSA member gave me a life changing tip. She told me, that when zucchini and chocolate cake 'have intimate  realations', really great things happen. I followed her recipe to the very last detail, and this was the result:

Um, oh my word.

Even my nephew, who literally wretches at the sight of green vegetables, ate three pieces. The poor kid never suspected a thing. If at all possible, peel the zucchini before you grate it. This completely eliminates all signs of green vegetablishness and will sufficiently fool boys and men alike.

This next recipe, on the other hand, wouldn't fool a 90-year-old blind man with dull taste buds:

Those are homemade veggie burgers, and I swear up and down that they taste really great. I used a few different recipes to adapt my own. Here's how it works:

Empty 1 can of drained chick peas, 1/2 cup of oats, 1/4 cup of sesame seeds, 3 or 4 chopped kale leaves, and a few chunks of fresh garlic to the food processor. Mix it up until it's smooth and add 1-2 tablespoons of melted coconut oil to the mix. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes on each side. Put one burger on your child's plate and watch him run away--usually not a bad thing.

And finally, a quick Asian stir-fry I made last night for friends:

Yellow squash, purple cabbage, chopped kale, onion and garlic sauteed in olive oil. Add soy sauce to taste. Dump some red quinoa to the mix, and you have yourself a meal! Especially if you top it off with some of that cake.

Cabbage and Squash

July 10, 2010

This week, we got a whole mess of squash in our CSA basket. I love squash, James and Maggie love squash, but my husband? The man who will eat lightly breaded cow testicles? He plain old can't handle squash.

But this time around, he's been trying really, really hard.

On Thursday night, I made this:

It's nothing super special--just pasta with sauce from a jar, sliced up squash, and some fresh basil torn and tossed on top (okay, I guess that last part is pretty special). It was really easy to make--all I did was slice the squash super thin and put in the sauce to cook.

And guess what? My husband successfully swallowed two paper thin squash slices! Next thing you know, he'll be pooping in the potty! Yay!

Yesterday afternoon, I made cole slaw for lunch, and as far as cole slaw goes, this batch was particularly awesome--totally not the stuff you push off the side of your plate when you go out to eat at Friendly's:

It was really, really easy. Just toss all of this stuff in a bowl:

1 or 2 heads of chopped CSA cabbage
7 or 8 chopped CSA carrots
3 diced CSA green onions
1 bunch of CSA radhises sliced super thin
1 jar of store bought cole slaw dressing (becase I'm a cheater)
and a few sprinkles of poppy seeds

Happy eating!