I am now the proud owner of a computer box full of grapefruit. One of Mike's co-workers has an overachieving grapefruit tree and he volunteered to take some of them off her hands, so after eating dinner last night (I will admit, I bought dinner out and brought it home, I was working until after 7) Mike announced he had a gift for me in the car. A moment later he came back in the house huffing and grunting as he carried in this big box and set it down on the table to show me what he had found. He was so proud! While he thinks he can eat them all, I'm not so sure. Thankfully, my mom will be here in 2 weeks so I'm going to enlist her help in teaching me how to can so I can preserve all the great citrus we are getting for free and really cheap right now to eat later in the year when all the citrus trees are back to just being green. Speaking of green . . . .
I had a big bunch of what I believe to be chard, but a variety I've never had before from this week's farm share. It had larger, smoother leaves than what I'm used to but had that same distinct flavor. I also had some leftover broccoli from a veggie tray I had made last weekend, so I decided to do a pasta with greens dish. I don't have a name for it other than "green pasta", but here's the recipe:
1 large bunch of chard
1 head broccoli
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 t red pepper flakes
1 T olive oil
Begin by trimming the stems out of the chard and chopping them rather fine. Then roll the leaves like long logs and cut in slices to make ribbons. Trim the broccoli into medium sized florets (you can also peel and chop the stems and use them as well, they are very tasty). Once the veggies are prepped, add the olive oil, garlic, and pepper flakes to a very large fry pan over medium heat until fragrant. Add the chard stems and cook for about 5 minutes until just starting to get tender. Add the chard leaves and allow to cook down. Meanwhile, if you like your broccoli well cooked, give them a quick steam for about 3 minutes in the microwave.
Pot of water for cooking pasta
3 - 4 servings of whole wheat pasta
olive oil and salt for the pasta pot
While the chard cooks down start the water boiling with the olive oil and salt. Cook the pasta according to package directions.
1 egg
1/2 cup chopped fresh herbs (I suggest basil and oregano)
Break the egg into the bottom of a large serving bowl. Strain the pasta once it is al dente, reserving 1 C of the cooking liquid. Place the hot pasta over the egg and mix well so the heat of the pasta softly cooks the egg. Toss the fresh herbs into the hot pasta, season with salt & pepper to taste.
Once the chard is getting tender (it will take 10 - 15 minutes) add the broccoli to the pan and continue to stir adding some of the pasta water as needed to help tenderize the greens (don't let them get wet, add it just a splash at a time). It actually helps the flavor if you don't stir too much so you get some "singed" edges on the chard. Once the veggies are cooked, add just a bit of butter and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the veggies to the serving bowl on top of the pasta, drizzle with some good quality olive oil and top with some fresh grated Parmesan or Romano cheese. Serve.
The closer you can time the veggies and the pasta, the better; pasta always tastes best within minutes of coming out of the water.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Week 2 - Sunday
We had lots of stuff to get done around the house today and I had a ton of school work, so this morning started with coffee and toast. For lunch I picked clean what was left of a roast chicken I had made last week (from the same place I got the bison - it was a heritage breed) and made some chicken salad, just chicken, some fresh herbs, celery (okay, that came from the grocery store), and mayo. After getting most of our work done, we sat down to chicken salad on a bed of salad greens with some roasted pumpkins seeds (left over from fall). We had one of our grapefruit for dessert. I got the chicken carcass going in some water for stock for later.
I needed to figure out how to use all the lemons we've been accumulating from friend's trees and the CSA; so I decided to try my hand at preserved lemons. It was actually pretty easy, other than almost burning myself sterilizing the jar. After the jar was sterilized, I just sliced the lemons in quarters, ending just before reaching the bottom so they'd stay together, coated them well with coarse salt, and smashed them into the jar. You have to really shove them in and let the juices come out, then I topped it with more salt, sealed it up; and according to the web site I found, if I shake the jar every once in a while, in about a month, my preserved lemons will be ready to use.
We haven't decided on dinner yet, I'm leaning toward just breaking out leftovers from last week and calling it a day. I still have tons of lemons and some really beautiful blood oranges I need to decide what to do with.
I needed to figure out how to use all the lemons we've been accumulating from friend's trees and the CSA; so I decided to try my hand at preserved lemons. It was actually pretty easy, other than almost burning myself sterilizing the jar. After the jar was sterilized, I just sliced the lemons in quarters, ending just before reaching the bottom so they'd stay together, coated them well with coarse salt, and smashed them into the jar. You have to really shove them in and let the juices come out, then I topped it with more salt, sealed it up; and according to the web site I found, if I shake the jar every once in a while, in about a month, my preserved lemons will be ready to use.
We haven't decided on dinner yet, I'm leaning toward just breaking out leftovers from last week and calling it a day. I still have tons of lemons and some really beautiful blood oranges I need to decide what to do with.
Week 2 of my CSA
I was too chicken to start posting with week one - afraid I'd get stuff I wouldn't know what it was or how to use. So let's just start with this week.
My share: lots of carrots (tops included), turnips with greens, chard, basil, mixed salad greens, beets, onions, and lots of citrus. Along with one very pretty bouquet of flowers. I also picked up a fresh loaf of roast garlic bread (there is a gentleman who sets up a table at the farm every Saturday selling homemade baked goods).
Leftover from last week: onion, eggs, turnip greens, salad greens, variety of herbs.
I picked up a bison roast from a local farmer's market this week, so yesterday morning before heading to the farm for my pickup (and breakfast at the farm), I put the roast in the crockpot on low with lots of red onion, some garlic, a little red wine, and 1/2 cup of water. When we got home from the farm and I was able to check out my share and decided to use last week's turnip greens combined with this weeks and some of my carrot tops to add some veggies to the roast, so I threw those in along with 3 chopped up carrots. This cooked all day while we ran errands, got haircuts, and weeded the yard. By dinner time, the house smelled awesome! I sliced some of the garlic bread and threw it under the broiler to toast it, served that along side all the goodies from the crockpot on a big platter, and set up the whole thing on the outside table (we've had some gorgeous evenings this week, so we've been making a habit of eating outside). Dinner was deemed a great success and I enjoyed the first red meat I've had in over 6 months!
My share: lots of carrots (tops included), turnips with greens, chard, basil, mixed salad greens, beets, onions, and lots of citrus. Along with one very pretty bouquet of flowers. I also picked up a fresh loaf of roast garlic bread (there is a gentleman who sets up a table at the farm every Saturday selling homemade baked goods).
Leftover from last week: onion, eggs, turnip greens, salad greens, variety of herbs.
I picked up a bison roast from a local farmer's market this week, so yesterday morning before heading to the farm for my pickup (and breakfast at the farm), I put the roast in the crockpot on low with lots of red onion, some garlic, a little red wine, and 1/2 cup of water. When we got home from the farm and I was able to check out my share and decided to use last week's turnip greens combined with this weeks and some of my carrot tops to add some veggies to the roast, so I threw those in along with 3 chopped up carrots. This cooked all day while we ran errands, got haircuts, and weeded the yard. By dinner time, the house smelled awesome! I sliced some of the garlic bread and threw it under the broiler to toast it, served that along side all the goodies from the crockpot on a big platter, and set up the whole thing on the outside table (we've had some gorgeous evenings this week, so we've been making a habit of eating outside). Dinner was deemed a great success and I enjoyed the first red meat I've had in over 6 months!
Let me tell you why I'm doing this . . . .
Over the last year I've been making a lot of changes in the way I view food. It started with a move away from processed foods for my whole family (the dog included) and we began examining ingredients more carefully and shopping the outside edge of the grocery store. Then, this past summer I found some lumps in my throat that the specialist I was referred to described as nodules in my thyroid; they were unable to get a good samples so I was told what my chances were that this was cancer. Being really stubborn, I refuse to admit that my body could turn on me like that without me having any symptoms, so after talking to the doctor, I was given 6 months to try to eliminate these things on my own. I want to an accupuncturist and Chinese herbologist who recommended I follow an anti-inflamatory diet, including cutting out all sources of animal protein but fish. Without going into a long explaination, this made me start doing a lot more reading about healthy eating and the effects of what we eat on long-term health, particularly related to cancer. I've now passed the 6 months and the "nodules" still aren't gone, but the doctor has said I can continue on this path as long as I get regular checkups to make sure nothing has changed. However, I am making a move away from the pescatarian diet and beginning to again eat animal proteins but instead being very careful about the sources.
The reading I've done talks so much about how the chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, etc. . . leach into our food system and into our bodies and our bodies don't know what to do with all these things. So, in going natural, the best way I found to do that was to go local, so I know where the food came from, can see where it was raised or grown and come into contact with it before it heads for my dinner table; so I joined a CSA. If you don't know what that it, it stand for "Community Supported Agriculture," it basically means for the next 3 months I've purchased a share in a farm, in exchange I get to pick up my share of the products of the farm once a week.
This begins my encounter with eating local.
The reading I've done talks so much about how the chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, etc. . . leach into our food system and into our bodies and our bodies don't know what to do with all these things. So, in going natural, the best way I found to do that was to go local, so I know where the food came from, can see where it was raised or grown and come into contact with it before it heads for my dinner table; so I joined a CSA. If you don't know what that it, it stand for "Community Supported Agriculture," it basically means for the next 3 months I've purchased a share in a farm, in exchange I get to pick up my share of the products of the farm once a week.
This begins my encounter with eating local.
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