Tag Archives: cooking

Which Exit?

Cranberries from Jersey. Who knew, the third largest producing state in the USA.

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The treat in our Friends and Farms delivery. Along with this.

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Chocolate pumpkin bread.

But, let’s get back to those Jersey berries. I did a bit of internet digging and found some fun facts about New Jersey’s berry production. And some more about the Pine Barrens, a lovely part of Jersey, right up there in our list of great sites in Jersey, along with Cape May.

Right now, while quickly writing this post, I am making cranberry sauce for my Thanksgiving dinner. And contemplating how to use the rest of the basket this week.

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Looks good, doesn’t it? My other favorite, though, was the Atwater’s chicken broth. A new partner that will provide us with goodies like this one.

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Along with my Boarman’s sausage and Whole Foods bread cubes, the basis for this year’s dressing. Local, small business contributers to my holiday meals.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Pasta Anyone?

Solving the regular what’s for dinner without having to head to the store for things. Friends and Farms basket this week again had a theme and just about everything you needed to execute it.

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Full of ingredients to make Italian cuisine. This is the individual size basket, with just enough for the two of us, but a large basket would provide quite a few choices for the week before Thanksgiving.

I can make us three meals using this much linguine.

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And, that huge lovely living basil.

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Besides the basil, I love the inclusion in my “D week”, which is plain yogurt and eggs. The rotation where I substitute for milk by getting extra eggs.

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I found a recipe that makes a mushroom spinach carbonara, using the baby bellas, some of that spinach, a couple of egg yolks. Finish with some grated cheese. The recipe called for half and half, but I have been using plain yogurt to make a lighter creamy sauce.

In fact, I am contemplating a simple mix of some yogurt, chopped tomatoes, green pepper, onion and garlic. All of it right there in the basket. Maybe some sausage meatballs. I like “repurposing” the Italian sausage. I also considered saving two to make a simple dinner. Sausage, peppers, onion. Sautéed and served with a salad.

The possibilities here are endless. As for the chicken breasts hidden in the left of the picture above, they could be poached and used instead of sausage in a few of my favorite Italian recipes. Or, stuffed with basil pesto. There is always cheese in our fridge. Almonds in the freezer. Easy pesto.

That leaves the butternut squash and the apples for some other night. Roasted sounds good. Or maybe a soup.

Yep, Italian sounds good before all that turkey and stuffing and casseroles next week.

When He’s 64!

So yesterday was my husband’s 64th birthday. As for that needing or feeding part of the Paul McCartney reference, I at least fed him well.

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Part of it was even local! We tend to stay home for birthday dinners, and break out the good wine, and make something fairly simple but matching the wines. Last night it was a simple lamb chop dinner. I should have gotten the lamb from Mt Airy, but the Whole Foods lamb looked good. It did end up having a little too much connective tissue and fat, but had a good flavor. Simply sautéed with a red wine reduction. Marinated earlier in some rosemary and my roasted garlic. We split a baked potato. And, I made some of those Baugher’s Brussels sprouts. Not that difficult to make, and just the right amount. The dinner rolls were also from Baugher’s bakery.

As for wine, we didn’t do local. We did old.

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A special Chateauneuf du Pape, from the year we went to Provence. 2003.

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Memories of those caves, and the time spent eating and drinking locally produced market fresh foods. It is what created our appreciation of good food and wine from local farms.

We did go out yesterday, on the spur of the moment for lunch at Ananda. In Maple Lawn. An Indian luncheon. A treat my husband loves. Which is Indian food. Thanks to HowChow and his followers for letting us know about this new addition to Howard County. It certainly is a lovely restaurant with very good food. We will be going back for dinner, that’s for sure.

I think my husband had a pretty nice birthday. I certainly fed him well.

CSA’d Out

I can understand it. Our first year we were overwhelmed at the end of the CSA season. But, we hung in there and learned from it, and drastically changed how we approached the weekly deluge of veggies.

I say this because at our first pick up last Thursday for our fall CSA, we heard that about 5 of our summer CSA members never picked up their last week of veggies, or fruit, or meat, or eggs. The food bank did well, as did our site host’s friends, who benefited from things the food bank doesn’t want. Like all that chicken and meat.

We are down to 30 members, from close to 50 in the summer. Enough to keep us going. Those fortunate enough to join us got new and exciting things, like these.

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Watermelon radishes. I roasted mine.

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Salanova lettuce. A red multileaf variety. So sweet. So flavorful. Devoured in a lunch mix with some poached chicken breast on top.

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Baby Hakurei turnips. Thanks to Elizabeth at Three Beans on a String these will be honey glazed with Larriland apples and served for dinner in a few days.

The whole haul.

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Napa cabbage. Will be a slaw soon, with apples. The beets. Already roasted and eaten. The potatoes. Made their way into a potato leek soup today, thanks to Friends and Farms having extra leeks for me to pick up this morning. Sweet peppers. Sliced in salad. Put into a frittata for tonight’s dinner. A couple of them are left.

As for that glorious cheese share.

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Biweekly in the fall. That stinky funky six year aged cheddar. The “Lanchego”, which is simply awesome. A Colby. New to us, from this supplier. Creamy and delicate.

I can honestly say I am not CSA’d out. I am really enjoying the variety, and of course, the freshness. You don’t have to rush and eat it all in one week. With food this fresh, in two weeks, I swear it is still better than grocery store produce.

Tomorrow is my husband’s 64th birthday. Stand by to see what I put together to celebrate. Will I still need him? Will I still feed him?

Surf and Turf

Friends and Farms style. When you get an individual basket, sometimes your protein is a bit small. So, you improvise.

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Like with a small New York strip steak. And a couple of strips of cod. The cod isn’t pictured above. I had already put it away to guarantee freshness. I baked the cod with mustard and breadcrumbs. Sautéed the steak with garlic powder and pepper. Made a couple of potatoes. And, got rid of the spinach from two weeks ago.

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The spinach was from October 30th, and yes, it still looked like what I put away then. The great thing about really fresh produce is the fact that it keeps much longer than store bought stuff.

I did a simple creamed spinach. Using sour cream, spinach, grapeseed oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder.

No, I didn’t take pictures tonight. It wasn’t particularly picture worthy, but it was tasty.

As for the rest of the Friends and Farms basket this week, here it is.

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A couple carrots, turnips, apples, some rosemary, a cabbage, spring mix, a leek, and pea shoots. I love these pea shoots. Put them on top a frittata. On a salad. Just munched on them after I got them. A good mix this week.

One Pot Wonders

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It’s that time of year. When thoughts turn to soups, stews and one pot comfort foods.

Fairly easy to accommodate with a little advance planning. How about revved up pork and beans.

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Or maybe chicken chili.

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And, from leftovers, a Sunday luncheon of stuffed peppers.

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All because of this in the pantry.

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A few cans of beans, all sorts of flavors, can make meal planning and execution easy.

The pork and beans. Compliments of those beans, the pork butt from Friends and Farms. All those green peppers which I steamed in the oven last Friday. A little onion, and a little of the butternut squash, also baked while the peppers were steaming.

The leftovers from that dish were spooned into a couple of nice looking peppers and heated up Sunday for a late luncheon.

As for that chicken chili, this was the inspiration.

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That pound of additive free ground chicken from our CSA delivery. Browned, than added some crushed tomatoes, some peppers and onions from the freezer, a can of beans, some spice (I used cumin, cinnamon, salt, guajillo chili powder, cilantro and garlic powder). Left to simmer for an hour on the stove.

With the CSA deliveries, the well stocked pantry and freezer, I can heat up meals by dumping ingredients and “kicking it up” with spice.

Perfect meals now that the weather is blustery.

Mama Needs a Brand New Wok

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Courtesy of the modern day equivalent of the Sears catalog. It’s greens season and my wok started chipping. Not good for a non stick surface.

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Out here Amazon seems to be the new Sears or Spiegel. When I can’t easily get something locally or from a small business, Amazon is the simplest. Better than that 35 mile round trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond. Especially if I can cobble together enough to get free shipping.

A simple stainless steel wok. To deal with all the greens coming from the CSA. This week and last week.

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Today I picked up eight items in our next to last week of our summer CSA. Looking quite a bit like fall in that basket. Greens galore. Broccoli. Spinach. Tatsoi. Arugula. Add to that some large Beauregard sweet potatoes. A red butterhead lettuce. Butternut squash. Green and yellow peppers.

Last week’s basket was pretty fall like also. I never got around to posting about it. Here is what we got then.

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Red bok choy. Spinach. Radishes with greens (I did a swap to get two of them). Eggplant. Green beans. Celery root. Tuscan kale and broccoli.

So many of these items make perfect stir fry ingredients, so I am glad my wok arrived this morning.

Customer Appreciation

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How many of us have our food suppliers throw us a party. With craft beers, burgers, hot dogs, chicken wings, and bratwurst. All served using The Breadery’s rolls. And, give us pumpkins to carve while socializing.

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Friends and Farms did that Monday night. With grilling. Corn hole. Pumpkin carving. A chance to meet new people who love regional foods. A chance to see what is behind that warehouse door. And, to break bread with the owners. Phil and Tim.

Phil manned the grill. Tim made sure everything else was running smoothly.

How many of you can say you know the owners of your food sources? You know, those Royal Ahold people who run Giant Food.

We met lots of friendly Howard Countians. Had a good time. Took a salad as the pot luck side dish. Using my arugula. Larriland beets. Firefly farms chevre.

It’s times like these that make me happy I live here. Where there are committed people who provide us with awesome baskets of food every week.

Like last week’s basket.

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That individual basket. Perfect for an active retired couple. Acorn squash. Carrots. Kale. Sweet potatoes. Garlic. Bay leaves. Jalapenos. Asian pears.

Plus,the perishables.

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Yogurt and eggs this week for us. With an extra request. Those amazing ravioli, from La Pasta.

Proteins were pork butt and chicken wings. Want a picture of a perfect dinner?

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Chicken legs. Ravioli. My garlic scape pesto. Fresh. Tasty. Easy.

Change who supplies your food. To one of the best local suppliers.

Soup People

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Some are. Some aren’t. We obviously are. Considering the number of times I have blogged about soup.

Particularly, a good quick soup.

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Like bean soup, without all the preparations I used for the one above.

This one was simple. Because. It is cold and rainy. I didn’t feel like roasting a chicken today as I was out of the house too much.

But, I have my trusty pantry.

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You know. You can pull a couple of cans of beans. Today I used the cannellini beans. Two cans. I had chicken breasts cooked.

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I always have chicken in the freezer, from my two sources. Every week I find a day to bake or poach chicken breasts. To have them ready for lunches or dinners. They get eaten quickly.

Then, a little flavor. Today it came from a box of Pacific condensed cream of mushroom soup. And, a couple of cubes of my latest pesto. Right out of the freezer.

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Dump it all in a crockpot. With a little bit of water. Dinner in a few hours, with no stirring or pot watching. I did tonight’s batch on a high setting. It was perfect after two hours in the pot. Served with some naan. And a salad. And, of course, a glass of Linden chardonnay.

Arctic Char

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Before, during and after.

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We got arctic char today in our Friends and Farms basket. It is one of my favorite fish. A cross in taste between salmon and trout.

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It even reminds me of trout with its spotted skin.

I did a simple marinade, and a simple preparation today. To celebrate the freshness of this fish.

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Citrusy in base. With that hint of licorice from the fennel fronds. I used a tablespoon of lemon olive oil. A teaspoon of Ponzu. A tablespoon of Triple Sec. Lemon jest and juice. Salt and pepper.

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Before putting it in to bake, at 400 degrees, I added a drizzle of Asiago peppercorn dressing.

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Served with steamed green beans and goat cheese stuffed sweet peppers.

And a dynamite Chardonnay. Easily a $100 a couple at a restaurant. A fraction of that in my dining room. Easy. Quick. Absolutely satisfying in flavor.

The rest of the CSA tomorrow. But, this is a great start.