kitchen scribble

This week in the CSA: a riot of greens and reds. We have spring onions, romaine lettuce, a bunch of radishes, red chard, strawberries, apples, baby bok choy, and cucumbers. Also bread (Great Harvest challah) and Breezy Willow’s own eggs.

I love getting Breezy Willow’s eggs because their heritage hens lay speckled and colored eggs. I can’t really taste any difference, but they sure are pretty to look at.

They are terrible for boiled eggs, though; since they’re so fresh, they are very hard to peel.

Anyway, back to this week’s pickup. I love this recipe for butter-braised radishes; it takes away the harsh bite and leaves them nutty and sweet. Halfway through the simmer I throw the radish greens in to cook as well; they retain some of the bite but get softened by the butter and the long braising time.

It’s not pretty but it’s incredibly good. Tastes like spring.

It feels kind of silly making an update because I’m actually going to pick up week 10′s produce later today. But I figured I’d go ahead and get this post out, so as not to crowd the next post. Week 9:

Green leaf lettuce, green beans, oranges, eggs, bread, spring onions, beets, strawberries (from North Carolina), red potatoes, and mushrooms. I was really excited about the spring onions, but then I just ended up using them like giant scallions.

Whenever you see beets, it means you’ll also see beets on the trade table. I would roll my eyes at the non-beet-users among my fellow CSA members, but I have to admit I have the same impulse regarding kohlrabi.

Now that we have the kid at home, weeknight hours are much more precious. I’ve started cooking the vegetables in batches, for easy reheating later. So far it’s been pretty easy; I just mince a lot of garlic (my sister points out that an even bigger time-saver would be to get one of those big jars of pre-minced garlic) and spend a couple of hours at the beginning of the week prepping and cooking.

Here we have green beans, beet greens, and diced eggplant, all ready to finish chilling in the fridge. The process for cooking all of them was the same: heat oil in a wok, add minced garlic and a bit of chili flake, and let it sizzle a little bit so that the oil gets flavored. Add sliced spring onion, and let it cook just a tad longer. Then add in the vegetable and toss to coat, stirring occasionally, until it’s cooked. Salt and pepper to taste.

(I remember asking my mother how she knew when something was cooked. “You’ll just know,” she said. The voice of experience. Now I know to keep tasting the food, to recognize a good color, and to pull it immediately from the heat when it’s done.)

Last week: chard, romaine lettuce, kale, eggplant, radishes, strawberries, cucumber, and apples. This week was a bonus item so we got almond granola in place of eggs.

I cooked down the chard and kale with some olive oil and garlic, and stashed it in the fridge for quick weekday meals. We had the lettuce as salad (my preferred salad topping is soy sauce and an over-easy egg, whereas K prefers a quick vinaigrette of balsamic vinegar and blood orange olive oil*). The eggplant and some of the radishes are still hanging out in the fridge, and K turned the cucumber into a garlicky Hungarian cucumber salad to go with his grandmother’s recipe for chicken paprikash. It’s incredibly good. Maybe I’ll share the recipe here, if he allows it.

There was also supposed to be a loaf of bread, but I forgot to pick up the bread because it was right next to the strawberries. In-season strawberries! I was so excited that I bought an extra quart.

They’re not Maryland strawberries, I think, because the ones at Larriland Farm aren’t ready yet. These are probably from somewhere down south where it’s been warmer. But there’s nothing like the intense flavor of an in-season, fresh-picked, almost-too-ripe strawberry. When I bought the extra quart, I was entertaining the idea of making strawberry shortcake, or maybe cooking them down into a coulis to top ice cream.

Who was I kidding? We ate them all just as they were, licking the juice from our fingers. Man, I can’t wait until strawberry harvest hits Maryland. I intend to do some serious damage to the stocks at Larriland and at the farmer’s markets.

…Just a reminder, because Jessie made a comment last week: unlike Breezy Willow’s summer CSA, their spring CSA is not local and a lot of the produce is from farms up and down the East Coast. Anything out of cold storage is from Maryland, but the citrus is from Florida, and then as warmer weather moves up the coast, we get greens from Georgia and North Carolina; we don’t start getting freshly harvested stuff from Maryland until May. It’s all from organic, natural, or IPM farms, so I’m still happy to support it, but just in case anyone was thinking they could find this stuff in Maryland farmer’s markets… you’ll have to wait just a little longer.

(I’m bursting with impatience, myself. I can’t wait for the berry harvest!)

* We got the blood orange olive oil from LOVE in Frederick. It’s worth a visit if you find yourself out there; they sell flavored oils and vinegars, and they let you taste and sniff as much as you want. We got a mushroom scented oil as well, and had to stop ourselves from buying more.

These past couple weeks flew by for me, as we were traveling a lot. Fortunately our kid was very well-behaved in airplanes and slept almost the entire time we were in the air. As for me, I was less than thrilled with the culinary delights available at Newark airport: overpriced sandwiches and sad-looking shrinkwrapped fruit were my only alternatives to chips and candy. Unfortunately, it’s hard to sneak a decent meal past the TSA (no liquids over 3oz) or the border police (no fruits or vegetables). I’m so relieved to be back home.

Week 6 of the CSA brought us green leaf lettuce, apples, cucumbers, beets, carrots, grapefruit, kale, eggplant, bread (Great Harvest White) and eggs:

The good thing about cold storage items (the apples, beets, and carrots) is that they stayed perfectly fresh in the refrigerator while we were out of town. The bread, eggs, eggplant, cucumbers, and kale also held up fairly well in our absence. The lettuce was the only unfortunate casualty.

Week 7 of the CSA: green beans, spinach, green leaf lettuce, mushrooms, oranges, Vidalia onions, red potatoes, yellow squash, bread (Great Harvest Herb de Breezy Willow) and eggs:

We ate the lettuce with a quick dressing of mayonnaise, anchovy, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, and Parmesan cheese. I had been aiming in the general direction of a Caesar salad, but I must have gotten the proportions wrong; it didn’t taste at all similar. Still, it turned out pretty tasty.

Another pleasant surprise was the pasta bake that we made with whole wheat rotini, ground beef, tomato sauce, sauteed mushrooms and onions, and mozzarella, feta, and cheddar cheeses; the flavors combined beautifully and masked the taste of the whole wheat pasta (which I personally find rather unpleasant). I like pasta bakes; they come together quickly and reheat easily on busy weeknights.

Finally, the yellow squash became sublime when sliced and tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder, then roasted briefly at 400 degrees. I generally prefer green zucchini to yellow squash but this treatment was frankly delightful. I’ll be making it again in our toaster oven as the summer goes on.

This week’s CSA pickup is the usual mix of fresh vegetables combined with last year’s harvest out of cold storage. We got Brussels sprouts, zucchini, sweet potatoes, grapefruit, oranges, assorted apples, spinach, mushrooms, and the usual eggs and bread (Great Harvest honey bunny).

The honey bunny bread is particularly adorable. It’s their normal honey wheat bread recipe, but shaped into a bunny.

They also had hot cross buns available as an option. I love it when bakeries get into the holidays.

Sometimes I want to detail what we do with our CSA vegetables, but when I think about it, it seems so pedestrian. Brussels sprouts: bisected and roasted, with lots of minced garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. Potatoes: treated much the same as the sprouts. Carrots: roasted with cumin, ginger, and honey. Spinach: cooked down and seasoned. Green beans: blanched and seasoned. Parsnips: boiled, then pureed with butter and milk. Apples, oranges, and grapefruit: eaten just as they are. It’s not even like I can provide recipes.

Anyway, week 3 of the CSA brought us spring mix, oranges, grapefruit, parsnips, beets, Brussels sprouts, apples, garlic, fingerling potatoes, eggs, and bread (Great Harvest sourdough).

The spring mix was wonderfully peppery, and I served it with sweet orange segments. I used Spilled Milk’s recipe for the pureed parsnips, except I didn’t bother straining it. Fortunately, the texture worked just fine; maybe my parsnips were just extra-tender. Anyway, the parsnip puree was excellent, lovely and nutty, and rich with cream.

Week 4 of the CSA gave us Swiss chard, green beans, apples, oranges, onions, carrots, red potatoes, a beautiful Savoy cabbage, bread (Great Harvest honey whole wheat) and a bonus item. We could choose between eggs, applesauce, and an apricot butter with ginger. I chose the apricot butter. I had some for breakfast this morning, spread on the wheat bread; it was sweet and tangy.

One good thing about visiting the farm is that you get to see the animals all the time. The llamas were out when I got there, stretching their long necks and batting their thick eyelashes. The farm dogs were out too, and the spotted puppy they’d gotten last year was now a tall, leggy creature. And of course it’s nice to see the farmers and the working shares too.

It’s already technically week 2 of the Breezy Willow spring CSA, and here I am just posting week 1. The time just got away from me, I guess.

But I know where all the time went! Look what we baked (neatly slotting his arrival between the end of the summer/fall CSA and the beginning of the spring/summer one):

He has a very good appetite for someone so tiny, though he won’t be able to partake of the CSA goodness for some months yet. I foresee purees in my future. Maybe he’ll be able to enjoy the fall apples and winter squash. I’ll keep you posted.

Also, I should mention that Howard County General Hospital’s menu choices are not precisely haute cuisine, but the kitchen is generous with the portions, and the delivery is prompt and courteous. I ate very well there.

Anyway, I don’t make the CSA pickup until Thursday, so technically I’m still on week 1. Week 1 of the spring CSA brought us 3 lb potatoes, 2 lb carrots, 2 lb beets (each of those giant beets weighed a pound!), 1 lb kale, 1/2 lb mushrooms, four grapefruit, six oranges, and eight apples (Granny Smith and Red Delicious). Also the usual eggs and bread (Great Harvest challah, which sadly developed mold spots about a week in; I need to remember to keep it in the fridge).

I didn’t ask after the origin of the items, but from what I remember of last year, I’d assume that the citrus is from Florida, the kale likely from Georgia, the mushrooms from Pennsylvania, and the apples and root vegetables from last fall’s harvest, kept in cold storage.

Seeing the potatoes and kale made me immediately long for colcannon, and with St Patrick’s Day around the corner, an Irish dish is particularly appropriate. Colcannon is essentially mashed potatoes, with kale and green onions mixed in. The potatoes are fantastic with heavy cream and butter, and you can fool yourself into thinking you’re eating healthy because of the kale. The green onions add a really lovely tang. It’s a simple, undemanding recipe, easy to put on hold at almost any step if you need to attend to an infant.

I use Elise’s recipe for colcannon, except that when I melt the butter, I throw in some minced garlic. Why not.

Week 2 pickup: tomorrow!