Here Comes Week 2

Once again I picked up for two family's this week. One share of produce this week:

 Add the second family's in and I have quite a lot of work cut out for me:

So the take, Napa cabbage, zucchini, radishes, beets, onions, "zephir" yellow squash, head lettuce. I knew I was going to be doing a lot of washing, chopping, blanching and freezing so a pot of water went on to boil, sheet pans lined with kitchen towels and I got down to work.

I started my prep by removing the greens from the radishes (save for stock or add to compost) and beets. The radishes got covered in water and placed in the fridge for eating. My friend's share may find a quick pickle treatment for storage.

Beet greens get blanched and frozen just like the kale and chard. They are very good I hear prepared like mustard and collard greens. I tend to give them to my friends as my family won't eat them. The beets themselves are going to get roasted today. I've never had them before and this sounded simplest for prep and serving. And it appears you need to thoroughly cook beets before freezing.

As for the summer squash (both zucchini and the zephir), my friends share got diced, blanched and frozen. I have never blanched squash before freezing but according to The National Center for Home Food Preservation it's a must. Since I was blanching so many other things it wasn't a big deal to add to the rotation.






I shredded both heads of cabbage blanched and froze those as well. All and all it was about an hours worth of work, but totally worth it to have all those veggies prepped and ready.

Favorite thing to do with frozen diced squash? Veg. Enchiladas!

Black Bean and Squash Enchiladas: 

Ingredients:

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 tbsp. oil

1 onion, minced

1 bell pepper, any color

1 zucchini (about 8 oz.), diced

2 cloves of garlic, crushed or finely minced

2 1/2 cups of your favorite enchilada sauce

2 cups of your favorite cheese, divided and shredded or crumbled (cheddar, colby jack, feta, queso fresco all work well)

1/2 c. fresh cilantro, chopped (parsley or spinach can be subsituted)

1 small can of chopped green chilis

12 6-inch corn tortillas

Directions:

1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a 12 inch skillet set to med. high, heat 1 tbsp. oil and saute the onion pepper and zucchini. Once everything is soft and lightly browned remove from heat and add the garlic to the pan.
3. In a large bowl lightly mash the black beans, some should remain hole. Add 1/2 c. of the enchilada sauce, 1 c. cheese (a melting cheese is preferred here), the cilantro, chilis and the contents of the skillet. Gently fold together. Taste for salt and pepper.
4. Warm the tortillas in a microwave (about 1 - 2 min. on high works for me) then assemble the enchiladas. Place 1/2 cup of enchilada sauce in a 9x13" pan. Take a warm tortilla, place about 1/3 c. of the filling in the center and roll up. Place seem side down in the pan. Continue rolling and placing the tortillas until the pan is tightly packed. Cover the enchiladas with the remaining sauce and cheese and bake in the over for 45 mins. to 1 hour. Serve hot.

Radishes, radishes and more radishes

I should share that all this work happen on Friday after our Thurs. pick up. - I'm slow to getting around to writing :-)
As I mentioned in my last post I picked up both my family's and friend's as well. She's two weeks away from getting back into town and I wanted to make sure I could store as much of her food as possible for consumption later. With 2 large bunches of radishes I thought to myself, why not preserve them both? So I went on a search.... lots of recipes for pickled radishes. Now, I would have gone this route but I also had some small red onions to deal with and I knew I had a head of cauliflower sitting in my fridge. The Italian in me screamed "MAKE GIARDINIERA!" 

That oh so delicious antipasto that plain old pickles just can't touch. Yup, that's what I'm making. 

So I broke out my food processor and went to work slicing up those beautiful radishes, along with a few peeled carrots from the fridge.  I halved the red onions and cut the entire head of cauliflower up into florets  Added a couple of stalks of celery and a few cloves of garlic and then loosely followed this recipe from about.com to can it all properly. I left out the cloves and added a couple of flower heads from my garden dill.

The end result, 2 1/2 quarts of pink (thank you radishes) yet tart and scrumptious pickles that I will happily be eating on my salads for a good long time. 

I just hope MB and her family enjoy it :-)

Giardiniera adapted from Kyle Phillips recipe on About.com

Ingredients

1 medium head of cauliflower, cut into small florets

2 bunches of radishes, sliced

3-4 medium carrots, sliced

3-4 stalks of celery, large dice

3-4 small onions, peeled and halved

6-8 cloves of whole garlic, peeled 

1 qt white wine vinegar

3 dill flower clusters or dill seed clusters

4 bay leaves

1 tsp. of peppercorns

1 tbsp. salt

Directions

Bring the spices and vinegar to a boil. Add the vegetables and boil for 15 minutes. Place the vegetables in sanitized jars and fully cover with cooking liquid. Cover the jars and set to cool. Check for tight seals before storing in a cool dry place for up to a year. The flavor will mellow over the first couple of weeks and meld over the first couple of weeks. Should some of the jars not seal, they can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.

Please remember when canning anything to make sure to check jars periodically for bloating or sign of spoilage. Discard anything that does not look right to you. Stay safe!

First Bounty of the Season

I'm up to my ears in cooking today... it was an afterthought to take a few pictures of what I was doing to share. The first share contained kale, swiss chard, salad greens, lettuce, onions, turnips and radishes. One thing I know about our CSA from last year is that green stuff comes in large quantity. It's fairly important to me to store those greens ASAP if I know I'm not going to use them right away. As I picked up my share and one for a friend out of town, storing things was an even higher priority - and not a hard job.
First start a pot of water boiling - at least 4 quarts, more won't matter. Next, wash and remove the stalks from the kale or chard. 
Just hold the bottom of the stalk in one hand and pull up the stalk with the other. You can discard the stalks from the kale and chard in your compost bin though some people don't mind the taste of the chard stalks, they aren't very yummy to me.

Get an ice bath ready and chop up those greens (one kind at a time of course). Throw them in the boiling water for 30 seconds - they'll turn very bright green. Then scoop them out with a spider or slotted spoon and toss them in the ice bath. 








Transfer to a paper towel or cloth lined baking sheet and pat down to get the excess moisture off. 













Transfer to a plastic bag or other freezer safe container removing as much air as possible (air is BAD when freezing) and freeze.
I find veggies store frozen like this very well for up to a year (yes, I have lost a bag or two in the bottom of my chest freeze before).
Now, what do you do with these frozen greens? Cook with them of course. And one of my family's favorite dishes for greens is this lovely dish:




Kale and Sausage Rotini

Ingredients

13.5 oz. whole wheat rotini

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, sliced thin
• 2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
• 1 lb bulk Italian sausage, hot or sweet (I make my own)
• 8 oz. kale, chopped (thawed if frozen)
• 1 c. chicken broth or stock
• salt and pepper
• Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil. Add 1 tbsp salt to the water and then add the rotini and cook according to directions or until the pasta is al dente.
2. While the pasta is cooking, in a 12" skillet on medium add 2 tbsp oil and saute the onions until soft and golden brown (add a little of the chicken broth to keep them from getting to dark or drying out). Add the garlic and saute for 30 sec. Turn the skillet up to med-high and add the sausage, breaking up the pieces as it browns. Once it has completely browned add the kale, remaining oil and stock. Cook, uncovered until the kale has wilted. Add the pasta and toss. Add some of the pasta water if things start drying out in the pan. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired. Serve with Parmesan cheese

This recipe is also available from my personal recipes here.

Finally - The first drop off! Now what the hey do I do with turnips?

In January, Frank and I were looking to start our family and we wanted to start it right.  Our friends are all about eating "clean."  Some of it's due to allergies, some due to getting rid of processed foods.

And while I'm not going crazy about getting rid of boxed mixes, the idea appeals to me.  Why?  Probably because I almost always forget that those boxed mixes are in the cabinet.  Like the Rice-A-Roni.  I think that may be from before the move to my condo . . . in 2010.  I should trash that. We both, however, love fresh veggies and should I get pregnant, decided that would be a fabulous start for our little one.

A few of our friends joined the CSA last year and raved about how great it was.  Frank and I love to cook and to experiment so it seemed like a no-brainer.  We printed off the agreement and sent in our money and started waiting.

And waiting.  And waiting.  But, our delayed first drop off finally came last week.  We were so excited.

Our take home goodies: Radishes, Onions, Swiss Chard, Kale, Butterhead Lettuce and Turnips

Frank and I headed down to get our share and were pretty excited.  I was even still excited to get home and start prepping our food for the fridge.  So excited I popped a radish in my mouth.  A whole one.

Let me just say I won't be doing that again any time soon.  I didn't know radishes could be so spicy!  And there was a little worry about this whole CSA business.

Then I cut off a (little) bit of turnip.  Just as spicy.  We went through trying everything, a little at a time.  It wasn't till we got to the Kale that I thought, "Ok, I can do this!"

Thus began our first exciting meal from our CSA!

Can you guess?

We made salad.  Beautiful, colorful, super easy and non-scary salad. (picture beautiful salad here as I did not take a picture).

I kinda felt like a coward - this beautiful produce and I didn't know what to do.  But I cooked up some chicken in honey mustard in the crock pot and it turned into a pretty yummy salad!!

Enter Monday and a fresh start.  Tonight we are trying Caramelized Turnips from All Recipes ( my favorite place to find new favorite recipes).

When we went through the share last week, I cut off all the greens and washed the produce before refrigerating it.  Today, I started with the prep.

1) Peel and dice turnips (the recipe called for 3 cups.  We only had about 1 cup (4 turnips).  I also chopped up a little onion to throw in.

2) Add to skillet with a chicken bouillon cube and water, saute over medium heat until the water has evaporated and turnips are tender (about 15 minutes)
- I mashed up the bouillon cube with our brand new mortar and pestal and only used about half of it.
- I started with 1/4 cup of water and then added the same amount again because the turnips didn't look tender (but what do I know about tender turnips?)

I tasted them at this point - no more super spicy turnips!!

3) Stir in and melt butter.  Sprinkle in sugar.  Caramelize into a brown, sticky coating (about 10 minutes).  Serve hot.

 And they're carmelized!!

 

I took a beautiful picture of Frank's plate combined with steak and the rest of our salad from the other day.  My phone ate it . . . urgh!!!

Verdict?  Turnips are YUMMY! I'm hoping we get some more this week!