Just the three of us

Last week we shared our CSA box, minus Patrick who was away on a retreat. The box as usual was full of tasty goodies as you can see below. Morgon Mae brought over some garbanzo beans and we sauted some garlic and wilted the arugula in with the beans for a protein main course. There were six ears of sweet corn that we cooked, and were very buttery sweet. The cherry tomatoes were an orange variety and we popped them in our mouths greedily. We enjoyed some raw beans from our garden too. The small bag of edamame (soy beans) we got in the CSA box was put into boiling water for a few minutes and just a touch of salt was added to them when served.

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The Manchurian Candidate (for best use of cauliflower)

We made this Manchurian-Style Cauliflower the other night from our Driftless cauliflower, and it was really delicious. We used the roasted variation for the sake of time/mess, but deep fried would probably win out. The whole recipe is in the preview for Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" cookbook at Google books, so there is no reason to not try it out.



Plus the book rules, so you should really just buy it when you are done stuffing your face with the cauliflower.

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Pickles==good

After eight long days of waiting, I pulled out the Drifltless pickling cucumbers from the crock today. This is the first cucumber pickling run for my new crock, and I was curious to see how they would turn out.



Delicious is how I would say they turned out. I put in mustard seed, black peppercorns, bay leaves, dried red pepper, cloves, cinnamon stick, and some fresh dill from the back yard. I totally winged the spice amounts, and went a little heavy on the cloves, but all around a good flavor.

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The fruits of box seven (and our labors)

While I don't have a picture of box seven, here are some photos of our creations.

For dinner on Friday I made a grilled dill potato salad. I grilled some Driftless potatoes (plus some extra ones we had lying around, which might have also been Driftless), and then mixed them with the CSA dill and a mustard, olive oil and red wine vinegar dressing. I let it cool for a while before serving.

We also made roasted brassica with last week's red cabbage, and a salad with the Driftless carrots, sunflower oil, and some lettuce from our own garden.



Saturday's CSA inspired dinner was mainly Sichuan in style. Out of the great Land of Plenty cookbook, we made Sichuan fried green beans and a Sichuan cucumber salad. They both heavily featured dried chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorns. Along with those two dishes, we made some yellow lentils and grilled shishito peppers with salt and sunflower oil. I had purchased the peppers at Mitsuwa Marketplace while in Chicago last weekend for the Pitchfork music festival. If you are ever in Chicago, I highly recommend paying them a visit.

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Boxes four and five

Late to post, but beautiful to behold, what follows was boxes four and five.





The picture of our sixth is MIA. Perhaps some other kind soul will post a photo of their's.

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Beyond Produce

One sweltering night last week, Patrick and I took a monstrous kohlrabi bulb from our garden, and some asparagus and golden beets from our co-op, and made some delicious grilled vegetables. (Grilling is the best thing that ever happened to kohlrabi, if you ask me. It softened and charred.) So, what does that have to do with our Driftless CSA?

Ta-da! Our farm makes sunflower oil! Although grilling might not be the best way to highlight this delicate oil—Farmer Josh, I promise to use it in a salad next time—I was too pumped about adding something Driftless to our meal to save it for later. So often, when we talk about eating local, staples like dry beans, grains and oils just don't seem to count. I feel we've gone a little further toward regional self-sufficiency when we have local products outside the crisper drawer.

What about you? Do you get something besides produce from local farmers? Has anyone had any luck with meat or egg shares?

Back to this week's veggies: I find the more time I have, the more I fuss with perfectly good food. What better way to turn nutritious broccoli and green garlic into something sinful than a bleu cheese quiche with a butter-black pepper crust? This was Sunday's breakfast. I love how that little garlic slice landed right in the middle.

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It's All True

There's box three: broccoli, spinach, cilantro, peas, red-leaf lettuce, garlic scapes, green onions, green garlic, strawberries, radishes and fennel. The potatoes we had with dinner had been stored from the previous week, as were some of the kohlrabi greens (they stored well in plastic in the fridge), to which we added kohlrabi greens from our garden.



I think the box three meal that Jason just described was the single healthiest meal I've ever eaten. Vegan, high in protein and iron, and abundantly local and fresh. The only components that weren't grown either at Driftless (which I've taken to calling "our farm") or in our home gardens were the garbanzo beans, the olive oil and the pineapple we had for dessert.



Jason's too modest to mention it, but he kicked our asses at Catan.

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Dinner is served, compliments of box number three

Last night, Patrick and Morgon Mae invited us to their house for dinner using some of the produce from the third box from Driftless Organics. The box was nearly overflowing this week, with garlic scapes, strawberries, spinach, potatoes, peas, greens, radishes, broccoli, mint, asparagus and arugula. JB and I brought some bok choy and snow peas from our garden to compliment the meal

Patrick and Morgon Mae fired up the outdoor grill and cooked some of the potatoes. The bok choy was also grilled. Morgon Mae made up a fresh salad with the greens, radishes, broccoli and peas. Additionally she prepared a very tasty garbanzo bean and kolrabi leaf salad.

Together the four of us enjoyed the bountiful meal. The meal was served with chilled white and rose wine. Within a half-hour we were full and content. We talked about our gardens, some politics and recent world events... even a bit of conversation about Michael Jackson.

A bit later the table was cleared and I set up the board game Catan. We played the 'fog island' version described in the Seafarers version of Catan. The game lasted nearly two hours and we all had a pleasant game. During the game a sweet dessert of freshly sliced pineapple and the CSA strawberries were presented to us by Morgon Mae. It was very yummy.

I thank Driftless Organics and our hosts Patrick and Morgon Mae for a very enjoyable evening. I can't wait for next week and box number four.

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The second box arrives

Greetings readers, this is Jason. This year my partner, JB and I split a CSA share from Driftless Organic Farms with our friends and neighbors Patrick and Morgon Mae. Today we obtained our second box of produce. I am processing some of the goods to make up a stir fry right now. I just snapped this photo on my phone.


I neglected to comment last week. The first box as SAMA also wrote, was full of good stuff, including greens, potatoes, kolrabi, green onions and garlic.

This week I am on top of things. Once we returned home from Eastside Co-op, I pulled open the box and spread out some of the goods to take the picture above.


The dish above is the result of stir frying the radishes, green onions, green garlic from the CSA along with the bok choy and snow peas from our own garden. I used Chinese 5 spice, ginger, hot Hungarian paprika with ginger and sunflower seed oil. JB and I are now full and content with this healthy and tasty meal.

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First Box 2009!

As I set down our CSA box on the kitchen table, I heard the rumble of excited footsteps on the stairs. Don appeared in the doorway looking like it might be Christmas. We pulled the arugula out, oohing and ahhing at the fragrance of rosemary, and--oh the purple kohlrabi! Blue potatoes! Green garlic! Not to mention three shades of radishes. A feast for our eyes, even as our tummies rumbled. It was already late for dinner making, so we didn't bother taking a photo. Becky attacked the green leaf lettuce and radishes for a salad, and I prepped kohlrabi leaves and radish tops for a batch of southern greens, referring to the recipe on the newsletter. I didn't even know you could eat these leaves! Don got the rest into green bags and into the fridge. Leftover potroast was sorely upstaged by the delightful produce. We can't wait to roast those potatoes with green garlic and rosemary for brunch on Sunday.

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