(C)SAlsa

Aside from clever titles for blog posts, one of the best things in life is fresh salsa, and the tomatillo in our final box just screamed salsa making time. It was actually a little unnerving.

Anyway, in addition to the tomatillo, the final box contained some garlic, a fantastic looking red onion and a nice little jalapeno. I supplemented that with some little sweet peppers, a couple poblano, and some other random peppers that I grabbed from our coop, the lovely Eastside. We had some cilantro hanging out in the crisper from the previous box, so that would find it's way in the salsa as well.

Tomatillo salsa

10 Tomatillo (or whatever you have)
Half an onion
5 cloves garlic
1 T olive oil
Salt to taste
2 T Tequila
2 poblano
2 jalapeno
1 very hot pepper
4-6 random other peppers
5 springs cilantro
1 T lemon juice

I began by broiling the tomatillo and all the peppers except the jalapeno and the other little spicy one, whose name I forgot (sorry). After the skin began to show back spots, about 10 minutes in our too cold oven, I removed them and set aside. I then grabbed five cloves of garlic and chopped those in the food processor. I then put the broiled tomatillo and peppers, onion, cilantro, fresh peppers and oil and processed until I liked the consistency. I then added the salt, tequila and some lemon juice (usually would add lime, but I used what I had on hand).

fin

Read more...

Squash-tastic

Beautiful and delicious, baked Driftless squash is the perfect way to stave off the cold fall morning. Simply slice in half, scoop out the seeds, and bake for about 30-45 minutes.



Accompanied by a delicious quiche, and good friends, it was more than easy to ignore the blustery hooplah that mother nature was brewing up outside.

Read more...

Is there anyone out there?

Well, I wish I had a really good excuse for abandoning this labor of love, but the sad fact is life just got the better of me for a while.

Anyway, even if I am just posting for my own well being, and no one ends up reading, it is still worth while. The Driftless vegetables have still been fantastic, even without our sharing their bounty for the last weeks, and we still appreciate the care that goes in to each box.

With that in mind, I present the last of the regular season boxes.



A fantastic assortment of fall goodness, including parsnips, carrots, squash (acorn and sweet dumpling), broccoli, onion, carrots, tomatillos (salsa here we come), jalapeno, sweet potatoes, beets, fennel, lettuce, garlic, and of course not forgetting the famous and fabulous Driftless potatoes.

We felt those potatoes deserved something special, and so we concocted a delicious potato soup of potato (duh), garlic, chives, bacon and cheddar cheese. To say it was delicious does not even begin to do it justice. It is with a heavy heart that I realize that we wont have any more weeks of these wonderful revelations (at least until the spring. Can't wait!)



Potato Soup

1/2 bag potatoes, diced
5 cloves garlic, chopped
6 strips bacon, cooked and chopped
bunch of chives, chopped
1 quart broth
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

We lightly sauteed the potato and garlic, then cooked everything but the cheese for a half hour. Sprinkle the cheese on when complete, and voila!

I hope to post some wrap ups of the weeks we have missed. Even though we stopped posting, we sure as heck did not stop eating (or snapping photos). I also hope to snag some of the storage boxes that Driftless provides, and if that works out, there will be more fall food love to spread about these here Internets.

P.S. It was super great to meet farmer Josh at the potluck that Marcos and Jamie graciously hosted. The food was fantastic, and the company even better. :-)

Read more...

Other blogs...

Having been up to our eyeballs in house buying related shenanigans for the past week, we have not posted a darn thing for far too long. This isn't much better, but I created a Related Blogs section and invite anyone to post a link to your food related blog in the comments, which I will duly add to our list. Share the wealth! I already posted a link to one of our fellow Driftless member's blog, who was kind enough to link to us first.

Read more...

Box #14: Keeping it simple

I love tomatoes, so I love this box. It's like half tomatoes, plus some quirky favorites.

Heirloom tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, red slicer tomatoes, Sungold tomatoes, cured garlic, zucchini, delicata squash, eggplant, red cabbage, red onion, red potatoes, cilantro, collard greens, a giant pimento, a chocolate sweet pepper, carrots, edamame and sage! What should we do with the sage?

Look at this beautiful onion:



Not only were tomatoes abundant in our share this week, but our boxmates Marcos and Jamie have some in their garden, so Jamie was pretty generous with them when we split up the share.

Pat likes to cook with tomatoes but won't really eat them raw.

We're moving this week, so food prep is at a minimum.

These factors add up to a huge bowl of tomatoes on our counter that I'm chipping away at by eating them raw like apples. This is awesome for me because I get a quick break between taping up cardboard boxes and dusting behind bookcases, and I get to judge the varieties of tomatoes. The oblong gold ones have a gorgous smooth, fleshy flesh and are somewhat sweet, tart and sunny tasting. The small green heirlooms are a little more earthy tasting, and if you pop a sweet, flavorful Sungold into your mouth after eating a green one, it tastes like a strawberry by comparison.

All geared up for BLTs, we had bacon on hand when we picked up this box. No lettuce? I think this is the first box that didn't have some kind of lettuce! So we made BCTs by peeling off a couple outer leaves of the red cabbage. It's a little chewy raw, so we cut it into long shreds. It sure added more flavor to our sandwiches than lettuce does.

Read more...

Just like in a restaurant

Patrick prepared the edamame by salting it, letting it sit for 15 minutes, boiling it and salting again. It tasted just like what you get at a sushi place, only the skins were a little fuzzier.



Here are the green beans I mentioned in my last post. I just sauteed them in olive oil with some minced garlic, salt and pepper. The garlic got all fried and crisp—that added a pleasant textural surprise. Here's what I mean about keeping beans and grains on hand: There's no excuse for not eating a square meal. Here the beans are over whole oat groats and a side of a black-eyed pea/mayo mashup inspired by egg salad.

Read more...

Box #13: Stress and veggies

First off, I have to offer a big bad-blogger apology for how sporadic our posts have been lately. I can't promise it will get a lot better just yet. Patrick and I are working on getting a new fridge to store all these great veggies in—and the kitchen, bedrooms and yard that go with it! The rest of our month will be filled with paperwork, boxes and hernias. We're so excited!

We are also stressed, and that has affected our CSA consumption in two ways:

• We've wasted some veggies and tested the shelf life of others. (Looking at the photo above, I just realized the green beans I ate for dinner were from the box before our latest one, making them 12 days old. They were delicious! Last week, we neglected a half-head of red-leaf lettuce for 7 days. To our surprise, only the core was starting to brown. We cut it out, crisped up the leaves in cold water and used them in a salad.) This is in some ways defeating the purpose of farm-fresh produce; on the other hand, I doubt grocery-store fare would be so hearty.
  
• We're opting for simple preparation as often as possible. The other day I ate a half cantaloupe for breakfast. Spoon, mellon, mouth. Over the sink. I brought the sungold tomatoes you see above to work for a snack. Boy, am I glad to have eaten those babies whole and unadulterated by dressing or heat. Amazing. My favorite thing since fennel. I shared exactly two with co-workers, mostly because I wanted someone to confirm what I was tasting. I hope these simple, raw, fresh snacks are counteracting the convenience food I've been eating otherwise.

But, I'm ahead of myself. Here's the spectacular meal we made right out of the box when we stopped at Don and Sarah's after picking up our share:



We all chopped and chopped, grabbing veggies from our CSA box and from Don and Sarah's kitchen. Sarah and I made a salad.



Don roasted the potatoes for a side dish and created dinner scramble from the veggies and some Schlangen Organic Farm eggs. Don says not to overcook your scramble—that way you get crunchy vegetables and softish eggs.



Then came the best part: These raspberries had such a great life growing up on an organic farm. Now, after a short road trip, here they are suspended in Don's dairy-free tapioca, which he made with coconut milk and agave nectar. I have to say, when our friends first went on their no-dairy, no-chocolate, no-gluten cleanse, I thought a good dessert would be impossible. Turns out, the challenge has made them into dessert magicians. This was a little bowl of heaven.

Read more...

Yes, another scramble

My BFF Tanya says we should either come up with something different to eat for breakfast or publish a scramble cookbook. In a perfect world, we'd greet the weekend with nothing to do besides roll out crust for a quiche or beat some just-laid eggs for a souffle, but our CSA reality has been this: lots of scrambles. We like them! It's a hot breakfast with protein, veggies and flavor. It's even better if you remember to put the coffee on before you go to work chopping garlic. If you're feeling ambitious, you can make some fresh biscuits or muffins to go with it--or just toast. This scramble was Pat's creation of sweet peppers, jalapeno, purple pepper, garlic and tomato with chipotle powder.

Late that night, we finished off the week's tomatoes in a stewed vegetable dish that looked a lot like our lamb stew. In a deep cast-iron skillet, I sauteed an onion, some chopped garlic and a handful of okra from Tanya's garden in olive oil, then added four chopped tomatoes and salt and pepper and let it stew for like a half hour. The okra thickened the whole affair and gave it a nice texture.

Read more...

You know, just two adults getting a stew on, man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75bDmEugcxk

Even though the lamb chops were to die for, we could not quite cram all that meat down our greedy gullets. Morgon Mae and Sarah had left a bit of mutton on a couple of bones, which as any discriminating connoisseur knows, means we had ourselves the makings of a stew.



We chopped up a ton of Driftless tomatoes, an onion, some Driftless garlic, and a little ginger, and added it to the leftover lamb in the multipot with coriander, cumin, chili powder, a bay leaf and about two cups of water, heated it to high and then turned it down to simmer for three hours with the lid on. Dang, the house smelled good!

Read more...

Box #12: Do not attempt to adjust your screen

I couldn't resist arranging these veggies into a nerdy color wheel. A variety of tomatoes including several heirlooms, carrots, sweet onion, cured garlic, yellow squash, broccoli, green beans, zucchini, cucumbers, jalepeno peppers, basil, a watermelon, red-leaf lettuce and mixed sweet peppers. Yay!



Ha, ha! I'm half a pepper!

Seriously, though, our good friends Don and Sarah are on a three-week cleanse. Sarah's doctor recommended the modified elimination diet, one version of which you can find here. No sugar, no dairy, no gluten, no alcohol, no peanuts, no fatty meats, no over-processed junk. When Patrick and I made dinner for them, we found out that what Don and Sarah have been saying is true: There's nothing like dietary restrictions to make you a more creative cook. Let's be positive: Fresh veggies and fruits are in! Lamb chops are in!

So we had them over the night of our CSA pickup. Adapting this recipe from Epicurious, Patrick roasted some eggplant and red peppers, then chopped them up with Italian parsley for the relish, adding a little brown rice syrup. The relish alone was great—I'd like to think of other things to use it on. Sandwiches?

To make the dinner decadent without gluten or dairy, we went a little bonkers on the meat. Pat prepared four huge, rare lamb chops from Hutchinson, Minn.'s The Lamb Shoppe via The Wedge. While that was happening, I washed, chopped and divided most of the CSA haul into veggies for salad and veggies to roast.



The salad group got a pureed dressing made from cashew butter, ginger, garlic, olive oil and curry powder, thinned with water. That was tasty and spicy. The roasted group got olive oil, dried rosemary and about 30 minutes at 375.

Sarah's original dessert didn't contain any CSA items, but I have to mention it because it was a wonder of ingenuity that could only come from a long-denied craving for ice cream: coconut milk, agave nectar and egg whites, frozen, with chopped nuts and baked apples on top. Delicious.

Read more...

Curry and pickles?

But not together, not this time.



We had a bunch of veggies hogging up our fridge, and decided to show them who was boss. A can of coconut milk was lurking in the back of the cupboard, and some red curry paste was hanging about, so some kind of Thai style curry would be the end for this loafing produce. CSA Yellow squash, zucchini, onion and red bell pepper all joined in to make things simple and delicious. Good job, if I do say so myself. And I do.



Next on the agenda was more pickles. Dill and pickling cukes were in the CSA, and I wanted to see what kind of pickle those would make on short notice. After deciding to do this without any cooking, I again went the simple salt pickle route. Along with the salt, dill and cucumbers, I threw in some dried chili peppers, mustard seed, sliced garlic and peppercorns.



I let that stand in the pickle press for 24 hours, and then switched it to the refrigerator for another 24. They had a nice mild flavor, and were excellent with a little japanese soy sauce (Koikuchi) and rice.



One last thing. Check out how awesome that CSA heirloom tomato is.



And it was even better to eat.

Read more...

Box #11: OK, OK, we're a little stressed

You know how some weeks you don't make time to go grocery shopping and instead just live off of Chinese takeout? Yeah. No matter how busy you are, you just can't do that with a CSA. The veggies come each week, and if you don't want to be the irresponsible schlubb who forfeits a box, you squeeze in time to hit the pickup site. Now you have ten pounds of fresh vegetables to wash, prep, drag to work or wherever you're running to and eat. The up side is, it forces you to stop and smell the watermelon and to get your RDA of five fruits and vegetables. The down side is, sometimes you just want to eat ramen by the glow of a DVD.

Some produce you can forget about in the crisper, but this week's box was another amazing haul. Because we had to split up the share before we brought it home, this picture is of a HALF SHARE:



Dill, red-leaf lettuce, basil, green kale, sungold tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, red and gypsy frying peppers, corn, zucchini, green beans, cucumber, yellow squash, onion, garlic, pickling cucumbers, watermelon (!) and cilantro. This is a little more than a half share, actually, because Marcos and Jamie are up to their ears in garden tomatoes and gave us their part, plus I nabbed some extra pickling cukes and dill from the bonus box at the pickup site.

Take another look at that gorgeous melon:



Friday afternoon we headed up to the North Shore of Lake Superior for a glorious weekend at a friend's cabin. The first thing I did when we got there was combine the green kale with the garlic, last week's lacinato kale and two small heads of radiccio for a delicious batch of my favorite meal: roasted brassica. Yes, as Tanya pointed out, I'm a total nerd for pushing burnt cabbage while everyone else is enjoying wine and pizza. But one or two others enjoyed it.

The watermelon also ended up at the cabin, as did the cilantro, which we used in a sixfold batch of urad dal from "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian."

My breakfast monday morning was a huge, gold heirloom, sliced and mixed with basil, olive oil, salt and pepper. This unfocused photo of my half-eaten breakfast is a pretty good representation of a Monday morning after a weekend at the cabin:



It was tastier than it looks.

Read more...

Sweet Pickles!

No, not those sweet pickles, the delicious kind you use to stuff your face!

Anyway, with the arrival of those cute pickling cucumbers in last week's box, pickles of some sort were in order. I have been experimenting with tsukemono recipes lately, and decided to try out a recipe for sweet pickles from a tsukemono cookbook I picked up.



The recipe called for normal salt pickles to start. Basically, you slice the cucumbers in half, mix them up with 5% of their weight worth of salt, and put pressure on them for about 24 hours. The salt should draw out the water, thereby picking. I also added a little salted water because I had so few cucumbers, and was concerned that there would not be enough liquid to immerse the vegetables. I have a cool little press for the pressure duty, called a tsukemonoki (similar to this one; mine was from United Noodles) but a bowl, plate and weight of some sort should work as well.



After 24 hours, I washed the pickles off, and set them aside to dry.



I then set out to make the marinade to sweeten them up. I mixed

1 1/2 cups rice vinegar
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 bay leaf
1 dried chili pod
1/2 cinnamon stick
6 pepper corns

and then brought the whole mess to a boil. I set it aside to cool down to room temperature. After it was all set, I put the pickles in a jar and dumped the marinade over the top and shoved them in the fridge. After another 24 hours (all this waiting was making me really want these pickles) they were all nice smelling, and pretty nice tasting to boot.

Read more...

Take me to the river

Jamie and I were able to take a long weekend and went down to her parents place in Buffalo City Wisconsin. Buffalo City is a little place on the Mississippi halfway between Wabasha and Winona on the Wisconsin side of the river. We enjoyed a couple days of relaxing and pontooning down the river.











Since we left on Wednesday we knew we would not have our part of box 10 (which was amazing by the way) until we got back on Saturday. Luckily the last few boxes have contained some good storage veggies, and we've put off eating them for just this weekend.
First we chopped up the beets, carrots and potatoes, and then tossed them with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper.











Then we wrapped them up in tinfoil and put them in the fire.












All this was supplemented with Thousand Hills Hot dogs purchased at the Bluff Country Co-op. A nice store in the middle of Winona, Minnesota. Go Co-op!
This fireside feast was washed down with a couple of Wisconsin brews, Leinenkugel and New Glarus. It was great to be able to leave home and still have a local fireside feast.
Speaking of local eating, in case you don't have the fortune of having a lively co-op community where you live, the four week span from August 15- September 15 has been designated as the "Eat Local America!" month. It's rather fun to look at what is on your plate, and realize that one could actually trace everything you are consuming to it's source. And not just a virtual understanding either, but actually get in a vehicle and go see these places today.

Read more...

Box #10: Wow!

Here we go: mixed heirloom, red and Roma tomatoes; cured white onions; a chocolate pepper; a gypsy pepper; Yukon gold potatoes; a pint of mini colored peppers; grape tomatoes; lacinato kale; sweet corn; zucchini; summer squash; cucumbers; carrots; and cured garlic!



Look at this beautiful little tomato:



And these peppers like a string of Christmas lights:



Moon Salad
I was craving a cold salad Friday and wanted to include as many fresh veggies as possible into a massive bowl of goodness that we could just graze from over the hot weekend to come. I put a pot of black beans on to cook.

While the beans did their thing, I microwaved our two corn cobs, husks and all, for six minutes, turning once. (This is my favorite quick, low-energy way to cook corn.) Then I set them out to cool a bit.

I washed and sliced the summer squash, zucchini, tomatoes and peppers. Since the beans would take a while to cook, I got ambitious with presentation and decided to preserve the round shape of the cute little peppers by cutting them into rings. To seed them, I cut off their tops and dug in with a little spoon. Slicing those hollow little peppers takes a sharp knife and I almost ended up with fingertip salad.



I shucked the warm corn and shaved the kernels off of the cob. I added half a head of garlic, minced, and the onion, sliced into half-moons. I rinsed and drained the beans and added them to the mix, then created a dressing of about two tablespoons each olive oil and hot sauce. I squeezed the juice of one lime over everything, added salt and pepper and tossed it. Then I chilled it for a couple hours.

I call it moon salad, because everything is a circle or half-circle. Zowie! It has kick.



Saturday night, a treat from my childhood: fried zucchini! Slice it, dip it in egg, dredge it in cornmeal and fry it in hot oil, turning once to brown both sides.



I must admit, I wasn't really looking forward to another round of roasted carrots. So I used butter and olive oil this time. This combined with the flavorful Yukon golds and a few halved garlic cloves, roasted in a cast-iron skillet in a hot oven for 45 min, was enough of a change to make the carrots crustier, creamier and tastier than I expected. Dang, those potatoes were good. I ate the leftover veggies for breakfast the next morning.

Read more...

Friends share food

David Sedaris tells this great story about being a drug addict, and how when your life revolves around drugs, you start to realize that all your friends are addicts and dealers.

I'm glad to say that our best friends have been around since before we became hard-core foodies. But seeing how much food permeates every conversation and event, you'd think it was the glue. This is true on both sides of the family—that is, with groups of friends I met through Patrick as well as those he met through me.

So when our close friends Don and Sarah hosted a potluck picnic to celebrate their return as newlyweds from three years in Boston, Pat and I had to make something special. Food as a gift, you know? What better gift than the food we value most: our CSA stash. We knew our boxmates, Marcos and Jamie, were thinking the same thing and starting with exactly the same resources. Our two households' results could not have been more different.

Pat and I were inspired by Marcos and Jamie's summer slaw, a slaw without mayo that's perfect for warm days at the park. We transfered that concept to a potato salad, expanded to include all the delicious, colorful roots we recieved in last week's box. I cut the roots into chunks, barely boiled them and added a big fistfull of fresh herbs from Marcos and Jamie's garden, Driftless garlic and onions, plus balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. I couldn't resist the local theme and added great northern beans as a little food pun, even though they were canned beans from who-knows-where. I call it welcome home salad, and it needs more dressing. (If you make about a six-serving bowl, make like half a cup of dressing.)



Marcos and Jamie went a completely different direction with this gem from the Joy of Cooking: zucchini-carrot cupcakes with ginger-cream cheese frosting.



Check out the fluffy centers. If it were a contest, they cupcakes would have won.

Read more...

Box #9: Impromptu pizza party!

Marcos picked up the box this time—he usually works Thursday evenings, so he'd never been to our awesome pickup site and was itchin' to go. Here's box nine in all its August glory:



Green-top and purple-top beets, yellow onions, red-leaf lettuce, blackberries, mixed tomatoes, huge zucchinis, cucumbers, new red potatoes, carrots, green beans and mint. Marcos had prepped and refrigerated an herb-y pizza crust that morning (that's just the kind of food hero he is), so we decided to have an impromptu pizza party. Here's Marcos rolling out the dough and explaining what makes it good:



He's not messing around. Here's the salad Pat and I made in the meantime:



Marcos sauteed the zucchini and put it on the pizza along with sausage, Jamie's homemade tomato sauce and cheese.



That's what I call veggies.

Read more...