Posts tagged ‘eatwell’

On CSA Boxes and Employment

With a new job comes new time commitments. No longer do I have the luxury of sitting for a couple hours in the morning with my tea, fresh and bright eyed, to write whatever strikes my fancy. Cut to my current reality: it is nighttime and I’m editing photos, watching Men’s Short Program Figure Skating and scratching my head for inspiration. Ah, there it is! (It was in Johnny Weir’s hot pink lace-up.) And to think that I don’t even start work full blast until Monday. What ever shall I do?

butternut squash, green garlic, pomelo, oranges, red top turnips, arugula, spinach, broccoli, apples, onion, lemons, cabbage

Since I haven’t had a chance to make and photograph something for a recipe, I thought I’d share a collection. Behold: some ideas and inspiration.  I’ve made several of these recipes with delicious results but a few are new recipes I’ve had bookmarked for awhile. They all feature the heavy hitter items from last week’s Eatwell CSA box.

Tangy Shredded Cabbage Salad– This is the 2nd recipe I’ve tried from this Smitten Kitchen post and boy, it is GOOD. Two thumbs up. It’s like a nice crisp, clean cole slaw that doesn’t suck. Bonus! Other Eatwell produce appearance by: lemons.

Patricia Yeo’s Candied Pomelo– I tried to make this. It sucked. But I still harbor hope that I could correctly candy pomelo peel and it’d be delicious.

101 Cookbooks’ Spinach Rice Gratin or Simply Recipe’s Spinach Ricotta Gnocci? I’m torn. Which one would you make?

Israeli Couscous with Butternut Squash– This is a David Lebovitz recipe I’ve saved for a rainy day. Or a day with preserved lemons.
Winter Squash Risotto– A twofer! Butternut squash risotto is my FAVORITE way to eat that plentiful winter pesk.

Simplest Apple Tart– Should be named the Best Apple Tart. A complete home-run brunch recipe.

The Best Broccoli of Your Life– Adam of the Amateur Gourmet should’ve called this recipe Pretty Good Broccoli. I’m saving the Best of My Life title for whoever invents a method of cooking broccoli that doesn’t lead to farts.

Lemon-Poppy Seed Shortbread Cookies– I was a whisper away from making these Lottie + Doof cookies last night. Soon.

Roast Chicken with Turnips– Who doesn’t love a good roast chicken? Both residents of this Hipster Home do. I think even the Mr.’s Zuni Cafe couldn’t benefit from a little turnip roasting action.

Completely Elitist Orecchiette and Arugula Casserole– This recipe popped up tonight. Our grocery store has orecchiette featured in the bulk section and I’ve always bypassed it. No more.

If you’ve got any ideas for a FAST recipe featuring an item or two from this week’s box, TELL ME!

A Bountiful Showing + How to Eat an Orange

It’s been six weeks. SIX WEEKS. Does it feel that long? At some point during the CSA drought, someone (can’t remember who) said to me something (can’t remember what exactly) about me being a “girl obsessed with her CSA box.” I’m experiencing mixed feelings here, folks. Is that what you think I am? A women driven to obsessively chronicle the contents of her local farm’s gifts on a semi-weekly basis? Or perhaps I am a person attempting to improve my photography skills while sharing the delicious possibilities in a box of fruit and veggies. Either way, neither estimation is entirely off and I’ll happily continue this tradition with photos and the occasional recipe. Win all around! (Really? Obsessed? Don’t make me sound like a Beyonce movie!)

lemons, navel oranges, mandarin oranges, stir fry mix, dill, green onions, carrots, butternut squash, salad turnips, arugula

I’ll abstain from recipe sharing this week. Most of these items can be best enjoyed with a good scrub and chop. I WILL show you how to enjoy an orange without drips and minimum sticky fingers. My family calls it eating an orange “Florida Orange Style.” Thinking about it now, that name doesn’t even make sense. But the method does.

Winter inevitably evokes in me my favorite parts of growing up in the sunshine state. Everyone knew you didn’t buy oranges from the orchards until after a cold snap. That makes the oranges sweeter. And once that cold snap hits, I knew my after school snacks would show up in the form of an unlikely orange juice box (Sorta.)

How to eat an orange Florida Orange Style

What you’ll need:

  • 1 juicy orange, (I used navel from this week’s box)
  • a sharp knife
  • a sense of humor
  • if without, a child
  • if without a sense of humor or a child, someone else’s child

First give the orange a good scrub. You want clean skin.

Use the knife to cut around the stem. Angle your knife so that it cuts a cone and you have a little hat, removable from the fruit.

Carefully cut inside the orange without poking through the skin. You want to maximize juiciness.

You’ll want to enjoy it now so go ahead and grasp the orange with both hands, put it up to your face…

and SUCK! That’s right, I said SUCK. This is where the sense of humor comes in. Or the little kid. If you are too proud to suck on an orange, first of all you are missing out. Second of all, a little kid wins because that booger will get to enjoy a delicious treat. If I can do it, you can too. Just once. And if you figure the payoff isn’t worth sucking on an orange, fair enough.

Slurp, squeeze and suck until there is no juice left. At this point your lips are tingly from the acid in the peel. If you did it right, the orange skin has started to rip around the cut edges.

When you’re satisfied there is no more juice to be had, find the little rips around the hole and pull. Open that orange up, turn the skin inside out and chomp away.

When all is said and done, eating an orange Florida Orange Style leaves you with lightly sticky fingers, no drips and a full tummy. Ah, satisfaction.

How do you embarrassingly eat your favorite fruit or veggie?

Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Poopy Diaper?

I don’t know what it is about orange soup that is so damn unappetizing. Everyone loves a good pumpkin, orange or carrot. Why can’t you then cook, partly puree and deliciously present ANY of those thing?? Such seems to be my burden and orange soup curse. The good news is that the knock-your-beanie-off flavor of this soup totally makes up for the fact it looks like something that came out of a baby diaper.

Sweet potatoes
(Let’s take a moment to admire the deep pink-red color of freshly scrubbed sweet potatoes. How lovely!)

What’s the name of the soup that inspired this rant? What is so delicious and yet photographically grotesque?

Sweet Potato- Leek and Spicy Sausage Soup

adapted from Eatwell member Josiah Bragdon’s recipe

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed in 1” pieces
  • 2 leeks, thoroughly washed, tough green leaves removed, cut into 1/2” pieces
  • 4 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 6 cups+ chicken broth
  • 2 large spicy Italian sausage, remove casing and cut into medallions then quarter

In a stock pot over medium heat, add the olive oil, leeks and garlic. Saute until the leeks are soft. 7 minutes? More or less.

Add the sweet potato cubes to the cooked leeks and pour in the chicken broth.

Simmer for approximately 20 minutes until the sweet potatoes are soft. If at any point your broth is running low, feel free to add a dash more.

While the sweet potatoes stew, cook the sausage. In a skillet, brown the sausage nuggets in oil. When finished, let them drain on a paper towel.

Time to gross-ify your soup! Use a Cuisinart wand hand blender to puree parts of the soup. You can make it as smooth or chunky as you want. You could also remove parts of the soup and use a blender.

Add the sausage to the soup and salt/pepper to taste. Allow your soup to simmer, with a lid, for 10-15 minutes and then serve. Enjoy!


(eeeeeeeww)

I hereby decree yesterday’s CSA recipe iou NULL and VOID! This great recipe used not uno but dos items from last week’s box. Celebration! Now to find a way to eat two whole winter squashes.

Seriously San Francisco (internet?), I DARE YOU to try and take a tasty looking picture of this stuff. Can’t be done. I’ll definitely keep trying… just as long as I get to eat the completed soup attempts.

The Holiday CSA Box

‘Tis the season for irregular CSA deliveries!

We’ve got a box of fruit and vegetables ready for consumption here at The Hipster Home but after this, there won’t be anything to share until January 14th. Ho’boy, that’s a long time.  I originally planned to share a recipe for chicken pot pie or baked eggs with this post today but I just realized that neither one of those feature an ingredient from this box. You, fine readers, get an IOU for one recipe.

apples, butternut squash, carrots, leeks, watermelon daikon radishes, celery, lettuce, sweet potatoes, bok choy, mandarins, spinach

How did this box fare the weekend?  For starts, the Mr. included some of the watermelon daikon radishes in a curry he whipped up last night. Surprise! They were REALLY GOOD. They were soft without being overly starchy like their brethren, the potato. Besides that, we consumed half the mandarins (an incredible and easy snack) and the lettuce was prep washed and ready to go.

Where do we go from here? First up is the a Eatwell recipe I cannot wait to try: Sweet Potato- Leek soup with Spicy Sausage. And then I’m going to make my first batch of stock. (Hm, or maybe I should reverse that so I can use my stock IN the soup?) With the carrots, celery, (radishes?) and cooked chicken parts I have saved in the freezer, it’s time to double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn, and cauldron bubble. Have you ever made stock before? Any suggestions?

Last Week’s CSA Box

Let’s begin the self-flagellation process. BAD APRIL, BAD! You Haven’t Posted Since Last Tuesday!

Terrible, I know. But I am sorry for keeping you on the EDGE OF YOUR SEAT as to what I got in my box last Wednesday. It started well enough with good intentions. I took pictures right away and even tried a different format! (Let me know what you think.) The wait is over and hurray for fresh! Here’s the booty:

Beets and beet greens, granny smith apples, basil, rose geranium, butternut squash, eggplant, pomegranates, bell peppers, Poblano peppers, onions, red chilies

So what have we used in the last 5 days? We made 5-minute beets (which tasted a LOT like sauerkraut, nomidingdong) and made a wilted green bacon salad with the beet greens. Attempts are being made to sprout the rose geranium for potting and the Mr. took to roasting almost all of our gypsy and bell pepper supply to make a tapenade. He also roasted many of our Poblanos as well but they’re chillin in the fridge. Not sure what to do with those spicy things yet. A single pomegranate has been dissected and enjoyed. Below are the two recipes we used to prepare those massive beets: five-minute beets and wilted green salad.

I don’t know how you feel about beets but my relationship with them borders Intense Dislike. Their strong flavor doesn’t agree with me. I will, however, admit to adoring the strong beety pink color. This first recipe was STANDOUT. Despite the beet greens actually tasting a lot like beets, the ranch-fresh egg  and homemade bacon from our buddy, Ryan Freitas, meant there was NO way this recipe would suck. We were not disappointed!

Wilted Green Salad

Warm Spicy Greens with Bacon and Eggs

halved and adapted from How to Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman

1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/4 pound of bacon or pancetta, cut into 1/2 cubtes
1 small shallot, chopped
2 cups torn beet greens
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
salt and pepper
2 poached eggs

  1. Put the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. When hot, add the bacon and cook slowly until it’s crisp all over, 10 minutes or more. Add the shallot and cook until softened, another minute or two. Keep the bacon warm in the skillet.
  2. Warm a salad bowl by filling it with hot water and letting it sit for a minute. Dry it and toss in the greens. Add the vinegar and mustard to the skillet and bring just to a boil, stirring. Pour the liquid and the bacon over the greens, toss, and season to taste (it shouldn’t need much salt). Top each portion with an egg and serve immediately.
SNARF

This second recipe was good because when it was done, the beets didn’t taste much like beets. They tasted a lot like sauerkraut and because they’re white, LOOKED like sauerkraut. We used lemon juice and dill for the herb.

Five-Minute Beets

adapted from the Eatwell Farm newsletter and recipe files, origin unknown

4 beets
1 tablespoon butter
salt and pepper
1/4 cup water
lemon juice or vinegar to taste
2 tablespoons chopped parsley, tarragon , dill or other herb

Grate beets into coarse shreds. Melt butter in skillet, add beets and toss with salt and pepper. Add 1/4 cup water, then cover the skillet and cook over medium heat until beets are tender (about 5-10 minutes). Remove lid and raise heat to boil off any excess water. Taste for salt, season with lemon juice or vinegar and toss with herbs. A tablespoon yogurt or sour cream is also a good addition.

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