Tag Archives: CSA

Salad Bars

Posted on March 23, 2013 by AnnieRie

I remember when salad bars first became popular. For example, the amazing selection at the restaurant in the Columbia Mall Woodies. For whatever reason, I stopped going to places with salad bars. Probably because of getting Norwalk at a salad bar and buffet in Canada, ten years ago.

It doesn’t mean I stopped enjoying that mix and match of salads, but these days I can do it at home. Thanks to having a CSA, a freezer and the time to make the salads.

Today’s lunch was brought to us mainly due to the lovely greens from Breezy Willow CSA this week. Spinach and mixed greens, sitting in the fridge in their salad spinners. Mushrooms from the CSA too. And, a dozen hard boiled eggs this morning. Some for lunch today, some destined for egg salad, and a couple to grab and go before tomorrow’s hike at the Conservancy.

I hardboiled the first week’s dozen, now eighteen days old, and finally getting a little void that makes them easier to peel. We only have a dozen left now, and next week no eggs in the CSA delivery. We get them three weeks out of four.

The salads were simple. One made with a handful of greens, some Larriland blackberries defrosted from the freezer, goat cheese feta picked up at England Acres, a few Marcona almonds and a pomegranate vinaigrette. The other, spinach, eggs, mushrooms and a creamy Caesar dressing.

Lunch was finished with a tiny treat of yogurt, berries and granola. A favorite way to use frozen berries from last year’s picking. Mix with a little lemon yogurt. Berries from my freezer, granola and yogurt picked up at Breezy Willow on CSA day.

A mostly locally sourced lunch. Variety and taste. Reminiscent of salad bars, without the treated/sprayed veggies, and without all those nasty germs.

hocofood@@@

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Early Bird CSA Week Three

Posted on March 20, 2013 by AnnieRie

Spring is here, officially, by calendar. But, it was a bit breezy up at Breezy Willow today for CSA pick up. Warmer than the first week. We were there fairly early, and needed to stop over at Rhine, across the road from the farm. I should remember not to buy ice cream if I have other errands but couldn’t resist the salted caramel.

As for our items this week, here is what we got. Lovely looking, isn’t it?

1 pound spinach
1/2 pound mushrooms
3 Valencia oranges
3 grapefruit
1/2 pound bean sprouts
1/2 pound spring mix
2 humongous carrots
1 Napa cabbage

Plus, the dozen eggs and this week we picked Old Fashioned White Loaf, from Great Harvest.

Looks to me like this week there will be spinach salad with oranges and mushrooms, maybe spinach salad with hard boiled eggs, some sort of stir fry to use some bean sprouts and Napa cabbage, maybe a slaw with the last two apples in the fridge and the Napa cabbage and carrot. Who knows? Lots of inspiration in this basket.

I finally did get the second salad spinner at Costco a while back. Comes in handy when you have two different greens to wash. It also keeps them fresher for longer.

As for using up most of last week’s veggies, tonight for dinner I baked some kielbasa from Orchard Breeze farm, picked up at Olney a while back. This is real PA style kielbo, garlicky and spicy. Served with my turnip, Brussels sprouts, white potato concoction I roasted yesterday. Not pretty, but very tasty.

After smashing the veggies, I added a little milk, two pats of butter, some nutmeg, paprika and heated it up in the oven. Not quite colcannon, but a good green and white mix. Roasted turnips have the best flavor.

hocofood@@@

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No Room in the Fridge

Posted on March 19, 2013 by AnnieRie

Seemed to be that way today, so I had to get cooking and empty those produce containers and bins to get ready for tomorrow’s CSA pick up. We are doing fine with the fruit, the bread, almost OK with the eggs, but have too many veggies in there at the moment.

Time to cook it down to a manageable level. Soup and stews and stocks are my biggest veggie consuming recipes, so today I am working in that realm. First off, I decided to make Tuscan bean soup, and include the lacinato kale left from two weeks ago.

Start out with bacon. Boarman’s thick cut bacon. I buy it by the pound and freeze it. Take it out. Cut off the end, or two whacks. Put it in the pot with scallions and olive oil. Let it get all nice and curled up before adding some liquid. Today I am using an organic mushroom broth for the soup base. Here is what it looks like before adding the rest of the box of broth, and then adding the kale and beans.

I used two cans of beans, Great Northern and Butter beans. All the kale from the CSA. With the quart of mushroom broth, some seasonings like garlic powder, salt and cayenne flakes, that is all I put in the pot to make this soup.

The kale is still lovely, crispy, fresh and green even after two weeks. Really fresh veggies from the Breezy Willow CSA will last two weeks if you store them in a crisper, or a salad spinner. After cooking, I divided the soup into two containers. It is really thick so when I heat it up I will be adding a splash of chicken broth to thin it out.

As for the rest of the fridge, I did roast some other veggies to use in two recipes. The acorn squash, a sweet potato and two carrots to make hummus tomorrow. Plus, two turnips, two white potatoes and a handful of Brussels sprouts to use to make colcannon tomorrow night for dinner. The before and after pics will be used in tomorrow night’s post.

I got quite a bit out of the fridge today, leaving only a few turnips, carrots and potatoes around. Tomorrow the new veggies will go well with these for some interesting recipes. I will have to hard boil some eggs this week for egg salad, but the week before Easter we don’t get eggs, so I should come out OK in the egg department.

Still loving these early spring and leftover winter veggies from the CSA.

hocofood@@@

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Local Food Challenge Theme Week

Posted on March 18, 2013 by AnnieRie

I seemed to miss the memo, or left the email get too far down the list of saved. We were supposed to cook vegan in our weekly Cook Locally challenge, the one that my small group of online locavore friends agreed to take.

I cooked lots of vegan the past two weeks. We eat less meat than we used to eat, but most of the recipes weren’t completely local.

In the spirit of the challenge, here are the things I made that qualify as vegan, even though I used all sorts of ingredients in them.

Posole
Pumpkin hummus
Fennel and orange salad
Guacamole — no pictures, just a simple mix of avocado, jalapeno, onion, lime, salt and pepper

The posole, was the largest recipe. We ate that soup for at least four meals finishing up today at lunch with the last of it. I really like using the chayote.

My husband’s comment today again was how this soup had that tanginess of sauerkraut.

As for that pumpkin hummus, it has been to the potluck luncheon and has shown up at lunches this weekend. We got an acorn squash last week from the CSA, and I still have sweet potatoes, as well as a quarter jar of tahini. Maybe more hummus will be made and consumed.

We eat mostly food made from scratch these days. Lots of vegetarian, and even quite a few vegan choices. Making us feel better, and using up those lovely fresh veggies from Breezy Willow. At least a fair amount of them.

As for how well we are doing, the fruit is almost gone. Half the onions. Still have the squash, the eggs, the Brussels sprouts and the turnips. And, half the potatoes. Can’t wait to see what we get this week. The advance email just came in, and there are some really good additions that will lend themselves to some stir fries. Plus, no repeats of what we have left so meal planning can combine items from both weeks.

Wednesday will give us new inspiration for our challenge. Now, at the moment, we are officially drowning in eggs, so vegan doesn’t seem to be on the menu much in the next few weeks. I am saving some eggs to get old enough to do Easter eggs.

Oh, and I still have quite a bit of venison left to use, so giving up meat entirely isn’t something we will be doing. I just have converted to using this as my mantra.

Everything in Moderation.

hocofood@@@

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Spring Clean Up

Posted on March 16, 2013 by AnnieRie

Last year was the first year we didn’t do it all ourselves. Mainly because of my surgery. This year, though, no excuses. It is wonderful to have the yard cleaned up, edged and mulched without killing ourselves in the process. Again, we chose a local family owned West County business, Rhine, to come out for two days and ready the property for spring.

Yes, they filled the truck with old mulch, top soil and clipped materials before they finished today. Included this year was the burying of our downspouts that would direct water to areas we wanted to irrigate. Like the area around some young evergreens and a pin oak.

The trenching was done today. Tomorrow they bury all the pipe and clean it up. They also extended all our drip lines on our trees, created a new transition area, created a drainage area by the shed, and lots more, including pruning of huge shrubs.

What you can see here is my new transition from the deck and new edging. You can also see, if you look carefully, that they were very careful in not disturbing the dozen garlic plants I put in last October. They, along with the dozen in the pots on the stairs, will provide me with ample garlic scapes for pesto, as well as two dozen heads of garlic to cure.

Tomorrow, they will mulch, finish the drainage out front and around the shed, and clean out my garden. Two days to do what used to take us weeks, including trips to buy mulch, haul it and drag it all over the yard.

When you are in your sixties, it is good to have people half your age doing heavy lifting, at least my back thanks me for not stressing it.

The finished pics and results will go up tomorrow night. Now, for a related subject, the indoor seed starting has produced some great greens so far, and I just planted Thelma Sanders squash seeds, dried and saved after I received this heirloom winter squash from last year’s CSA.

The squash seeds were planted in the seed starting boxes. The greens have been in a few weeks. Waiting to take them outside soon. Here is the squash from last year’s haul. It is a cooking squash, somewhat reminiscent of a pumpkin. Great for my hummus recipe, and for “pumpkin” pie. Saving heirloom seeds is a first for me. I dried and stored these seeds. Hopefully, this is a successful way to carry my garden to a new level.

Besides these heirlooms, the garlic in the pots and the yard all are heirlooms from my CSA last year. I saved four heads of red and of white garlic to plant for my second foray into garlic growing. Last year I was too late planting and only harvested spring garlic, not mature heads of garlic.

Here’s to lots of homemade pestos and hummus, and of course, my tomatoes and cucumbers, plans for the summer garden. Don’t you just love springtime?

hocoblogs@@@

Early Bird Spring CSA Week Two

Posted on March 13, 2013 by AnnieRie

While all the guys were raising a tower, I headed out to Breezy Willow to get our second CSA delivery. Cold day, after starting out warm. No real lines this week. People are settling into the rhythm.

What did we get?

Five oranges
Five tangerines
Four red delicious apples
Four Jonah Gold apples
Brussels sprouts
White potatoes
Lots of onions
Acorn squash
Turnips

The dozen eggs, and this week I picked a Toasted Sesame Seed whole wheat sandwich bread from Great Harvest.

Great looking stuff. Already into the oranges and an apple.

We did pretty well last week using up most of what we got. I still have the kale from last week, and most of the carrots. This week we are home quite a bit and the only thing I haven’t figured out how to cook, i.e., what recipe to use, are the turnips.

As for extras I bought this week, I had to have some of the lemon yogurt from Pequea Valley Farms. Plus, love these egg noodles with chicken and in my soups. A closeup of the bread with the yogurt and noodles. This bread will be perfect for toast and for egg salad sandwiches. I saved last week’s eggs so they could age a bit for hard boiled eggs.

hocofood@@@

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Improv

Posted on March 11, 2013 by AnnieRie

You know what they say about the best laid plans. Sometimes you find less than perfect execution after all your planning. Today is one of those days. Thankfully after all these years of reading recipes and learning to trust my taste (plus a little help from the internet) I recovered from what could have been a cooking failure.

I signed up to take pumpkin hummus to the volunteer pot luck luncheon at the Howard County Conservancy this week. Something new I learned to make using CSA veggies. I had a butternut squash from the market two weeks ago sitting on the counter, some garlic still in the coldest area where I store root veggies, half a jar of tahini and I had just stocked up on chickpeas, as I use them in couscous salad and lots of other recipes. The squash was from the Olney market.

Should have been easy. But no, the squash was pretty hollow down the middle. Skin still looked good. It was firm, not mushy, but was obviously dried out, or somewhat hollow down the center, at least the top half of it was. It smelled OK, so I did a little triage and salvaged the parts that weren’t drying out. It only gave me half what I needed.

Enter the internet and the CSA to the rescue. I got sweet potatoes last week from my Breezy Willow CSA.

I found a recipe that called for half “pumpkin pie filling” aka butternut squash for those of us who know that fact, and half sweet potato. Thank you, small bites blog. I did not use cumin and paprika, but used garam masala in their place.

My next problem came from my garlic. Yep, the last two heads of garlic in the storage area had gone moldy. I am now officially out of all that lovely organic garlic from Love Dove and the CSA. Thankfully, I had granulated garlic powder picked up at Costco. I had to do this by taste instead of measuring and I do like garlicky hummus.

The hummus came out really creamy, tasty and it is aging in the fridge now, ready to take Thursday to the luncheon. I am hoping to get an interesting bread this week from the CSA to use for dunking the hummus. Another improv, why go get pita for dipping when you can make your own toasty dippers from thinly sliced breads, toasted.

hocofood@@@

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CSA Inspiration

Posted on March 10, 2013 by AnnieRie

It’s always fun to get inspiration from something in the CSA delivery and make it a highlight of a meal. This week the inspiration so far is from the citrus. I love really fresh citrus. This week we got oranges and ruby red grapefruit. We scarfed down a grapefruit while I was attempting to segment one of them. It never made it to the salad bowl. Eventually one grapefruit and two oranges, supremed, became the base for this salad.

Well, let’s say most of the fruit made it into the bowl. When I didn’t cut it well, I ate it. What can I say? I really do love fresh juicy sweet citrus, and these do not disappoint.

The recipe:
two or three citrus fruits, navel oranges, juice oranges, sweet red grapefruit, what you have
about two or three ounces of fennel, pulled from the bulb
an ounce or so of red onion
salt, pepper
really good olive oil

Supreme the citrus, by cuting off the peel, save it, cut out wedges avoiding the pith and membrane. You will use the peel to make the vinaigrette. Julienne the fennel and the red onion. I make both really thin and usually an inch to two inches long. Mix it all together. Just before serving, drizzle extra virgin olive oil and squeeze as much juice as you can from the fruit left attached to the peels you reserved. I also squeeze all the juice out of that center of the fruit after you have cut out the wedges. Salt and pepper to taste. Refreshing and for us, the way to end the meal.

If we have a rich dish for dinner, this citrus salad really is a light finish to the meal.

The rest of our mostly local meal last night was a simple pasta with pesto, and steamed Brussels sprouts with butter. The pesto is my garlic scape pesto defrosted from the freezer.

The recipe for the pesto is here. What is really funny about looking for that post, I saw I made strawberry cubes. They must be in the very bottom of the freezer, so I need to go “freezer diving” and find them.

I boiled up some egg noodles, picked up at the market a while back. You can find these many places. Egg noodles with pesto.

Served with a 2007 Linden Hardscrabble Chardonnay. Big, rich, buttery. Cuts through the richness of the pesto. I took this picture while I was cooling it in the freezer. I didn’t have any chardonnay in the back fridge, so pulled this one up from the cellar.

Before this light dinner, we shared some spring rolls picked up at Roots, alongside one of our favorites, that Meyer lemon basil fizz, made with Aranciata, also from Roots. Lovely evening, sitting on the porch and watching the sunset before dinner.

Today I considered grilling something, but had nothing defrosted and a crock pot full of tomato, basil and Boarman’s sausage sauce. Tonight there will be pasta with sauce, some bread and greens with goat cheese. I made that sauce to serve a few times this week, once it will be served over steamed kale from the CSA. Looking forward to what we will get Wednesday, and eating mostly locally sourced items. Loving the coming of spring. In other words, running out of garlic scapes and wanting to make more pesto.

hocofood@@@

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Early Bird CSA Week One

Posted on March 7, 2013 by AnnieRie

Our first trip out to Breezy Willow for the spring CSA pick up. Definitely different than our other two forays into CSAs. Last year the winter one delivered to your house and you picked what you wanted online. We took a break from winter CSA this year.

Our summer one is the box type. What’s in the box is what you get. This is the first one where you go inside and pick your veggies and count out or weigh them. It also includes value added items like Florida citrus, bread and eggs. A nice haul. Mostly organic, except for the fruit from Florida, I think. I did forget to ask about the farm practices for the grapefruit and oranges.

Here is what we got.

Four ruby red grapefruit, five oranges, four york apples and four red delicious apples, eight carrots, three pounds of sweet potatoes, one pound of beets, 1/2 pound button mushrooms, one pound of Tuscan kale. We chose a cinnamon raisin bread, and we got our first dozen eggs.

Those breads are very large. This could become interesting, depending on what is there. I may be freezing bread to use later in the summer. I do know French toast will be on the menu because the bread tastes wonderful. Give it a few days as older bread makes good French toast. I am making a dish using the kale, a new one for me (the dish, not the kale). I need to find a few more ingredients before I decide if I make it.

I may try grapefruit granita, since there may be a number of weeks with grapefruit, and we aren’t huge citrus for breakfast people.

The other thing I picked up today was a bag of Michele’s granola. I heard about it, but never tried it. We had it for dessert tonight with some of the blueberry yogurt left from my last visit to England Acres. I see Breezy Willow also carries it. This yogurt is really rich. The granola is great.

This CSA costs $38.50 a week. The free range eggs would be $4.50 to buy. Great Harvest breads $5 or $6 each. Grapefruit, $1.75 each in the store the other day. Oranges $1 each. $21.50 before counting the veggies and apples. Getting these really fresh organic veggies, fruit, eggs and bread is a bargain.

A good base for a week’s cooking. Lots of people there today when they opened. I need to time it so we aren’t there in the first rush. It did get to be a little crazy trying to maneuver the driveway with over a dozen cars coming and going. Nice to see that they are successful. Convenient, too. A good beginning.

hocofood@@@

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Inspiration for Eating Locally

Posted on March 3, 2013 by AnnieRie

We are coming into the end of the winter, and our Eat Local Challenge will be winding down in a few weeks. Eight of the ten group members from our cyber circle in the South and East have been posting fairly regularly about their meals. A couple of recent posts have inspired me for future meals.

I always turn to Backyard Grocery to find inspiration for using the venison in the freezer. Susan is a master of cooking with venison, and I found something on her website to use the venison neck roast. Pulled venison with blueberry barbecue sauce.

Other than the strange coloring, the recipe looks to be pretty interesting. Look for it to show up around here in a week or two. I have used her recipes when I made things like black bean chili with pulled venison. The venison was a shoulder roast slow cooked for a day, shredded, then slow cooked again to make the chili.

It showed up on the table for two dinners and a lunch last week. Basic chili recipe with tomatoes, onions, green peppers, black beans, spices and the venison. Much of it was local. My tomatoes. Farmstand onions. The venison. Yes, the beans, green pepper and spices weren’t, but still in the spirit of eating locally.

As for a new inspiring menu, just in time to take advantage of the kale we are supposed to be getting this week in our early bird CSA, I turn to Jes, at Eating Appalachia. Love her blog for new recipes. I picked up a butternut squash to try out her fritters. Her recipe for kale winter slaw will be on the menu soon as well. Breezy Willow Early Bird begins Wednesday. I will be posting pictures of what we get, and next week the Eat Local Meal will feature many of the goodies.

The Early Bird CSA is an added value CSA, getting us through those last weeks until markets open, and helping us plow down through the bottom of our freezers. Besides cold storage and high tunnel veggies, we will be getting some citrus from down South. It is a welcome addition to the pantry. Can’t wait.

My freezer in the basement is down about a third, with almost half the tomatoes gone, a good dent in all that pesto, and interestingly enough, lots of fruit left. Remember all that basil last summer? Still jars and bags of pesto cubes in there.

As for fruit, it seems I didn’t really use it the way I envisioned. I am now defrosting bags every week to use in salad dressings and making fruit drinks from them. Lots of peaches left though. I do also have quite a bit of greens, jars of broth and stew starter, and will be set until I get that huge influx of veggies in the summer CSA.

The other major cooking day this last week was Thursday when I slow cooked a brisket from TLV Farms. With dry rub and cooked in beef broth defrosted from the freezer. A few onions and carrots from England Acres. A small jar of my oven dried tomatoes. Plopped in the crock pot for ten hours. Here is the container with the leftovers.

I didn’t take pictures of dinner. We had some of it again last night, and I saved the last of the brisket for sandwiches this week. As for what I did with all that extra broth? Yesterday it became the basis to cook couscous for a salad. We will get three or four lunches from that salad.

Eating locally most of the time these days. At least the main ingredients are local. Whenever someone asks me how we use a CSA share with just two people, these are the types of things that make it worth the money. But, you do need the time to do this cooking. Thankfully, time is something we have lots of, as retirees.

hocofood@@@

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