CSA Week 4

Leftover from week 2, I finished the lettuce (it seems never-ending at this time of year) and the Russian kale, which I sauteed up with the Swiss chard. I made an over easy egg to go with the Swiss chard/kale mixture and also added some of these leftover greens to a grilled cheese sandwich. All in all, I was pretty proud of my veggie maintenance this week!

  • Strawberries: 100%
  • Swiss chard: 100%
  • Savoy cabbage: 100% (made a cabbage gratin)
  • Beets: 100% (roasted and added to salads)
  • Pea tendrils: 100% (made a pasta dish, recipe coming soon)
  • Lettuce: 100%
  • Garlic scapes: 100% 
  • Dill: 50% (also donated some)
  • Spinach: 0%
 It’s nice to see some good salad toppings this week (carrots, cukes, broccoli), in addition to all of the lettuce and salad greens!
Week 4
My half


Garlic scape/dill butter

Butter is delicious. So are garlic scapes. And dill. I figured combining them would also be delicious, and super easy. This recipe is very garlicky, so feel free to adjust the amounts of herbs to your liking. 

Choppin scapes
Garlic scape/dill butter
Makes: 1-3 servings

Ingredients
1 Tbsp chopped fresh dill
1 garlic scape, finely chopped
1 Tbsp butter, softened

Directions
1. Mix all ingredients together. Use immediately or refrigerate.

Scape/dill butter

I put the butter on a baked potato, and had it with sauteed Swiss chard/kale and an over easy egg. A pretty delicious (and garlicky) dinner.
Courtesy of Instragram

CSA Week 3

Another week of veggies, and another Bruins game (game 4). Leftover from week 1, I finished up the green garlic, gilfeather, and radishes in my braising/pickling experiment, as well as the kohlrabi and Hakurei turnips from this week. And here’s how I did this week:

  • Kohlrabi: 100%
  • Hakurei turnips: 100%
  • Spinach: 100% (wilted with olive oil and chopped garlic scape)
  • Garlic scape: 100%
  • Mixed greens: 100%
  • Strawberries: 100%
  • Lettuce: 50%
  • Red Russian kale: 0%
  • Oregano: 0%
  • Cilantro: 0% (but it’s de-stemmed)
This week’s goods seem a lot bigger than last year at this time. I got the cabbage this week and my CSA PIC (partner-in-crime) took the endive. The farm seems to have a plethora of lettuce and salad greens – they’ve been advertising (on Facebook) with a “buy one lettuce, get one free” coupon to be used at a farm stand or market. I have some aggressive salad eating to do!
CSA Week 3
I’m intrigued by the pea tendrils, but really have no idea what to do with them. If I think of something interesting, I’ll be sure to share!

My half

Radishes and turnips two ways (braised and pickled)

I had a super fun weekend in West Virginia with some great friends and food, including grape-flavored moonshine and biscuits ‘n’ gravy from Tudor’s Biscuit World. On my way home, I couldn’t help but think about all of the veggies waiting for me in my refrigerator. I decided to tackle all of these guys at once:

Gilfeather, kohlrabi, radishes, turnips

I came across a recipe for radishes in butter that called for 20 radishes and 6 Tbsp butter. This inspired me to look for a recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking…and voilà, a recipe for turnips braised in butter. I chopped up and mixed together the radishes, turnips, gilfeather, and kohlrabi and used half in Julia’s recipe and did a quick pickle for the other half, recipe (for pickled green beans) courtesy of Martha.

Navets à l’étuvée (turnips braised in butter)
Source: Mastering the Art of French Cooking, volume 1
Serves: 6

Ingredients
2 lbs turnips, peeled and quartered (7-8 cups)
2 Tbsp butter
1 to 1 1/2 cups beef or chicken stock, or water
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Blanch the turnips for 3-5 minutes in boiling salted water to cover. Drain, and place them in the saucepan with the butter and enough liquid (stock or water) to barely cover them. Season lightly. Cover and boil slowly for 20-30 minutes or until they are tender but retain their shape. If the liquid has not evaporated, uncover and boil it off. Correct seasoning.

Braised

Spicy pickled green beans
Source: Everyday Food, September 2012
Makes: 2 pints

Ingredients
3/4 pound green beans, trimmed
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 cups white vinegar
2 Tbsp coarse salt
1 Tbsp black peppercorns
2 tsp sugar
2 dried red chiles

Directions
1. Arrange green beans and garlic slices in clean glass jars.
2. In a saucepan, bring white vinegar, salt, black peppercorns, sugar, and dried red chiles to a boil. Carefully pour mixture into jars, secure lids, and let cool to room temperature.
3. Refrigerate, up to 1 month.

Pickled


CSA Week 2

Bruins game 1, CSA week 2. It is nights like this where I wish I had a tv in my kitchen, or could do veggie prep from the couch!

Week 1, how did I do? This blog definitely keeps me honest about my veggie intake. It also leads me to do strange things like a late night spinach and green garlic saute and/or attempt to create radish roses (just kidding about the radish rose part). It takes me awhile to eat radishes since I just add them to salads.

  • Mixed greens: 100% (as in 100% gone)
  • Lettuce: 100%
  • Spinach: 100% (sauteed up with some green garlic)
  • Strawberries: 100%
  • Green garlic: 33% (the rest is chopped and ready to use)
  • Radishes: 20%
  • Gilfeather: 0% (no inspiration yet…)
I wonder how all of this rain will affect our shares. The farm posted this to Facebook yesterday, “Almost 2 inches of rain overnight. Hey sky, turn off the tap!”. I agree, enough with the rain already!

Week 2 brings lots of greens – mixed greens, lettuce, spinach, and Russian kale. Apparently Russian kale is like regular kale except it cooks faster. Since I typically like all things Russian, I’m sure that I will like it just fine ;). Last year at this time, we got beets, carrots, broccoli, and cabbage instead of kohlrabi and turnips.  

Week 2

Btw, our CSA coordinator this year is awesome! She is super organized and I love the addition of the “swap box” (you can leave items you don’t want, and take something else from the box in return).

My half



CSA Week 1

It’s the first week of my CSA…yay! And this year, because I’m super nerdy, I’m excited to compare this year’s weekly shares to last year’s. Same as last year, the goods come from Red Fire Farm in Granby, MA. I am doing a 20-week vegetable share and a fruit share, and splitting it with a friend which comes out to $17.88 per week.


June 5, 2013

Anyone know what a gilfeather is? It sure looks like a turnip…turns out it is a turnip! Those beautiful strawberries aren’t going to last long.


My half

Salsa tilapia

This recipe calls for taco seasoning, which I also like to make…sorry Ortega! It’s super easy and I usually have all the ingredients in my cupboard.

Taco seasoning

Taco seasoning
Makes: About 4 Tbsp

Ingredients
1 tsp black pepper
1 Tbsp chili powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
1/4 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp sea salt

Directions: Mix all ingredients together and store in an air-tight container.

Ok, back to tilapia…actually this recipe would probably work with any type of white, flaky fish (such as catfish, cod, flounder). The heat (spice) in this recipe can be adjusted to your taste by increasing or decreasing the amount of taco seasoning used, and the type of salsa you use. I am a “medium” salsa girl, usually black bean and corn. 

Pan-frying action

Salsa tilapia
Serves: 3-4

Ingredients
1 egg
1/2 cup bread crumbs
2 tsp taco seasoning
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 lb tilapia (usually 3-4 fillets)
1 jar salsa (16 ounces)
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions
1. Beat egg in a shallow bowl. Mix bread crumbs and taco seasoning in a separate shallow bowl. Dip each fillet in egg, then coat with bread crumbs (on both sides).
2. Heat olive oil in a large saute pan on medium heat. Add breaded tilapia fillets and cook until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. 
3. Flip tilapia fillets, then spread salsa over the top and sprinkle with shredded cheese. Cover and cook until fish is cooked through, about 5-7 minutes.
4. Enjoy!

A healthy dinner



May RC – Barcelona Wine Bar

Last month we experienced Asian tapas in Chinatown Shōjō, and this month (my pick!) I decided to take the club for Spanish tapas in Brookline. In the space formerly occupied by American Craft (and Roadhouse before that) Barcelona Wine Bar opened fairly recently.

You can study your pig parts at the bar

I arrived early and decided to have a glass of wine at the bar, which was accompanied by a complimentary order of arancini (a fried Italian rice ball) with truffle honey. Who doesn’t like free? I’d say dinner was off to a great start!

Free arancini and delish wine

For large parties they offer three prix fixe options in addition to the regular menu: tapas alone ($35), tapas plus paella and mixed grill ($45), or tapas plus paella and mixed grill plus charcuterie ($55). We decided to go for the $45 option and then order some charcuterie from the regular menu, which is more economical because the meat+cheese is $17.50 for three choices. We are so frugal! And at the end of the night, they ended up giving us the charcuterie for free, which was a lovely surprise.

Meat+cheese

We are all very good eaters, so we were worried that there wouldn’t be enough food with the prix fixe option – that was not something we needed to be concerned about. The tapas were amazing and we were pretty full after that. I think we would have been just fine with the $35 option. For a party of nine, they brought out three of each tapas dish. We started with mixed Spanish olives and spicy eggplant caponata. I think even an eggplant hater would have liked this eggplant dish. Up next was bunuelos de bacalao (salt cod fritters), truffled “bikini” (grilled ham and cheese), and kale salad. I was so confused by the name of the grilled cheese, but it turned out to be my favorite dish of the night. The kale salad was cold and oily. 

Truffled “bikini”

The last round of tapas included broccolini (which I loved), chorizo and sweet-sour figs, whipped sheep’s cheese with pistachios and smoked paprika, grilled hangar steak with black truffle vinaigrette, and crispy calamari with smoked pepper aioli. The hangar steak was my second favorite dish of the night.

Broccolini
Whipped sheep’s cheese
Hangar steak

And after that, came our main courses…because we were still SO hungry (not). Mariscos paella (with prawns, squid, clams and mussels) and the Barcelona mixed grill (with NY strip, chicken, pork chop, gaucho sausage)…we sent some great leftovers home!

Barcelona mixed grill
Mariscos paella

Despite how full we were, there is always room for a little sweet and we got sugar cookies with dulce de leche for dessert. There is room for improvement on the presentation of the dessert, but it tasted delicious.

Sugar cookie sandwiches

The damage
$78 per person

The rundown
Barcelona Wine Bar
1700 Beacon Street, Brookline

Oat and almond breakfast bars

I love these oatmeal bars, and they are a staple for me when I run Reach the Beach (a 200-mile relay in NH, MA, and now NJ)…just completed my fourth relay this month!

Team Massakruliks

I won’t get on my anti-raisin soapbox, I will just say that I usually substitute dried cranberries. I also sometimes use pecans or walnuts instead of almonds.

Mixin up the dry ingredients

Oat and almond breakfast bars
Source: adapted from Good Housekeeping
Makes: 24 bars

Ingredients
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup honey
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
2 cups old-fashioned oats (uncooked)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup sliced almonds (or chopped pecans or walnuts)
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
1/2 raisins (or dried cranberries)
3/4 tsp salt

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 13″ by 9″ baking pan with nonstick foil.
2. In 2-cup liquid measuring up, stir oil, honey, vanilla, and egg until mixed. In large bowl, mix oats, flour, sugar, nuts, wheat germ, raisins (or cranberries), and salt with fork until combined. With rubber spatula, stir honey mixture into oat mixture until blended; scrape into prepared pan. With wet hand, pat oat mixture evenly into pan.
3. Bake about 20 minutes or until pale golden around the edges. Cool completely in pa on wire rack, about 1 hour.
4. When cool, transfer using foil to a cutting board. Cut lengthwise into 4 strips, then cut each strip crosswise into 6 pieces. Store in tightly sealed container at room temperature up to 2 weeks.

Perfect for breakfast or a snack!


Beet, ricotta, and goat cheese pizza

Confession: there have been CSA beets hanging out in my vegetable drawer since last fall. Since this year’s CSA will be starting up again next month, I decided it was time to roast them up for this pizza recipe. Most of the beets survived the winter just fine, but I had already cut the beet greens off…so no greens to wilt on top (the greens would never have survived the winter).

I usually buy whole wheat dough to make pizza, but lately I’ve been really digging these frozen corn meal crusts made by Vicolo (despite the name, they are not gluten-free). You may need to adjust the amount of ricotta/goat cheese mixture, depending on the type and size of crust you use. For example, I used about two-thirds of the mixture for one Vicolo pizza crust. I also used about 1/4 of a sliced red onion and 2 medium beets.

Beets and red onion

Getting ready to go in the oven

Beet, ricotta, and goat cheese pizza
Source: Adapted from Runner’s World, February 2013
Serves: 4

Ingredients
Pizza dough, crust, or naan
1 cup ricotta cheese
2 ounces goat cheese
Roasted beets, sliced
Red onion, sliced
Beet greens or arugula
Olive oil
Vinegar

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. 
2. In a small bowl, mix together ricotta and goat cheese until smooth and spread on pizza dough, crust, or naan. Toss sliced, roasted beets and red onion in olive oil and add to pizza.
3. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until crust lightly browned.
4. Top with beet greens (or arugula) dressed in olive oil and vinegar; let wilt on the hot pizza.

Lunch (or dinner or breakfast) is served!