Tag: cooking

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the happiest kroger on earth

Full disclosure: I was recently contacted by a PR person from the Kroger company, who had found my blog and wondered if I might like to join some other Little Rock bloggers in a tour of their new Kroger Marketplace store which opens tonight in West Little Rock. Since many of my local bloggy friends were going, I said sure! So, today, I went on a guided tour of the nicest, newest grocery store I’ve ever seen, and I ate free samples of delicious food, and I had a fabulous time.  Honestly, it’s not hard to have a fabulous time when surrounded by ladies who will giggle with you over the pussy willows in the floral department and laugh at your quips about dog popsicles being FOR dogs, not MADE FROM dogs and make jokes about how a bunch of bloggers around a sushi sample tray is a lot like Shark Week.  And I admit, I’m just plain interested in grocery stores, so I thought I’d share what I learned (I was not required to write about this event).

You see, though I’m a super proponent of local, sustainable food (see my “we might starve without a CSA” post for proof, or check out this post for a rundown of my “food rules”), most of my food still comes from my local grocery store.  In Charleston, I was rather spoiled in my last year there, because a brand-spankin’ new Harris Teeter opened up less than a mile from my house and an awesome Earth Fare natural supermarket was located just down a greenway from us.  I could bike to both.  And y’all, the Teet, as I liked to call it, was FAN-CY.  It had the largest produce section I’d ever seen, and, upon first visit, I noticed the fanciest thing of all– like a Methodist, I felt “strangely warmed” in the frozen foods section.  I looked up to see that they were piping in hot air to cut down on the chills when the freezer doors were opened! It’s not very eco-friendly, I’ll admit, but it sure is fancy!  We got most of our produce from our CSA, most of our other groceries from the Teet, and I hit up the Earth Fare once in a while to shop the bulk bins.

No grocery store I’ve visited in Little Rock has come close to being as nice as the Teet. Until today.

Have you ever seen a grocery store produce section with every veggie in a perfect little pile, not disheveled by a hundred shoppers’ grubby little hands?  It’s glorious.  The WLR Kroger Marketplace has the largest produce selection I’ve ever seen, and they said they make an effort to acquire local (within 400 miles) produce as much as possible.  Anything you see labeled local is within 400 miles of the store.  Sure, it’s not hydroponically grown in your neighbor’s back yard, but I will applaud any step in the right direction– when a company like Kroger, the largest grocery store chain in the world, tries to cut down on the amount of petroleum used in the shipping of our food, it makes a difference.

nice selection of organic produce.
perfect piles of produce.

In addition to an awesome produce department, this Kroger had BULK BINS. I could have hugged them.  I’m a big bread baker, and a big baker in general, and having a place to buy organic flour and raw sugar in bulk? Well, it makes my little heart happy.  There was also a large selection of natural/organic products, and even a large selection of gluten-free products.  Right now I have to make separate trips to a Kroger store for my groceries and a Whole Foods for the bulk bins.  After this store opens, I’ll just be hauling my little hiney out to Chenal and hitting up the fancy Kroger Marketplace. (Though my usual grocery store, the Kroger in Hillcrest, will be reopening after renovations this October, and I’ll still shop there for most of my day-to-day food.)

Bulk Bins!

I was also very happy to hear from the guys in charge of the meat and seafood departments.  Kroger apparently is very big on voluntarily labeling country of origin and wild-caught/farmed on its seafood, which is really helpful for me as I try to eat sustainably when I consume seafood (for a consumer’s guide to sustainable seafood, check this site out).  We also learned that Kroger goes above and beyond national standards and employs its own inspectors to make sure its seafood and meat is of the freshest quality.  And when it comes to meat, I was happy to see that they had a number of all natural, hormone/antibiotic/nitrite free, vegetarian-fed, sustainably raised meat to choose from, including pork products.  I have cut down a lot on my meat production in order to afford to eat natural/sustainable/ethical meat when I do consume meat.  Beyond the products that made me happy because they fit into my food values, I have to say that the folks working the meat and seafood area obviously take a lot of pride in what they do and have a passion for their jobs.  That’s fun to see!

The seafood selection, which will be labeled as to country of origin and wild caught vs. farmed, which will make choosing sustainable seafood easier.
So happy to be able to get natural, more ethical meat in a major grocery chain.
Linda from the bakery had a theatrical flair and a love for her job.

Overall, yes, this is a conventional grocery store and it’s still full of rows of foods I wish didn’t exist– heavily processed, full of corn syrup, empty calories in boxes and bags. BUT, this store is also making it easier for people to get fresh, more local produce and fresh, more sustainable meat and seafood, and that’s a step in the right direction that I totally applaud.  The store also has a commitment to helping shoppers create more meals at home by demonstrating cooking techniques, suggesting pairings, giving samples, and having well-trained employees who can answer shoppers’ questions.  All of that on top of bulk bins? Well, my only complaint is that it’s way too far away from my house for me to shop there on a regular basis.  Now to begin the countdown until my neighborhood Kroger reopens!

If you’d like to see more photos from the store, you can check out a slideshow on my Flickr.

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kitchen catch-all

My Kitchen Catch-all posts are a roundup of what I cooked, where I ate, what I’m thinking of cooking, and what’s got my brain cooking each week.  Let me know what you think, and tell me what you’ve been cooking lately!

eating in

This isn’t everything I cooked this week, but more of a highlight reel.

  • The best dinner I made all week was this French Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart. (At the time of writing, this link was giving me “database errors” but I swear it’s where I got the recipe.)
  • The same night we ate the tomato tart, I also made us a fancy dessert: Honey Lemon Pots de Creme.  Usually, you see chocolate pots de creme, and though I love them, they’re not very summery.  This recipe makes a VERY lemony, tart, creamy dessert. Jon wasn’t crazy about them, but I was a fan. Be sure to grate the lemon zest very fine or it will make for a strange texture.
  • Berries in Meringue bowls with Orange-Scented Chocolate and Vanilla Cream: Because the pots de creme used a bunch of egg yolks, I had a bunch of whites left over.  I had seen an episode of Jamie Oliver this week where he made a big meringue with pears and chocolate and cream and decided to try something similar.  My vision was to have little bowls made of meringue, filled with summery berries and drizzled with orange-scented chocolate and sweet vanilla cream.  To make the meringue, I whipped my six egg whites until they formed firm peaks, then added about a cup and a half of sugar and a pinch of salt and whipped on high for about 8 minutes.  I formed the meringue into 6 little bowl shapes on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper and baked for about an hour at 300.  I filled each bowl with blackberries, and drizzled them with chocolate (the chocolate was bittersweet chocolate, melted with the zest of 1 orange and thinned out with a little cream) and topped them with a vanilla cream (1.5 cups heavy cream whipped with 1/4 cup powdered sugar and a dash of vanilla). SO YUMMY.

    Ok, so, you can't see the berries, the cream would look better if it had been piped on, and the chocolate wasn't thin enough for pretty drizzling. STILL. This was amazing.

eating out

Much like I did for Charleston restaurants, I plan to make a running list of places I’ve tried in Little Rock.

  • Wednesday night I joined some girlfriends from church for a girls’ night at Salut Bistro on University.  The restaurant is a little hard to find, as it’s in the first floor of what seems to be a tall office building, and the entrance isn’t clearly marked.  I had a yummy $6 glass of Kung Fu Girl riesling from Washington and enjoyed a beef brisket sandwich with a side of fries.  The sandwich was tasty, and the fries were well seasoned.  The menu was a bit scattered, but the food was good, and I think everyone I was with enjoyed their meals.  They also have a late-night menu that looked pretty good– might have to go back and see what that’s like sometime.

food for thought

  • I’ve been meaning to try my hand at making my own pitas for a while. Now I’ve got my eye on making some tzaziki sauce to go with them (Serious Eats).
  • My favorite restaurant in Charleston was the Glass Onion.  Located just around the corner from our house, the GO was a regular haunt for us. I liked things there that I wouldn’t eat anywhere else, including biscuits and gravy and meatloaf. Their delicious Southern food is also deeply local, and they served as the pickup point for our CSA. All this to say, they have a blog, and word is they’re going to be putting out a cookbook.  I was happy to see they shared their Country Captain recipe and plan to make it soon. It’s a Southern curry dish– yes, there is such a thing!
  • I’ve also been dreaming of replacing my non-stick KitchenAid cookware for a stainless steel set. Serious Eats says the Tramontina sets sold at WalMart are basically as good as 5 x’s pricier AllClad sets.
  • First cupcakes, then macarons, then whoopie pies. Apparently the next big dessert trend, according to The Kitchn, is Moon Pies.
  • From The Atlantic, a theory about why we love food TV so much.
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bufflo’s boozy peach cobbler

Along with raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bourbon is one of my favorite things.  Somewhere high on the list is also peach cobbler.  So I decided to combine the two into a boozy peach cobbler, to great effect, and I thought I’d share my recipe, created after looking at several recipes and finding none I loved, with you.

You can't go wrong with Maker's Mark.
Local Arkansas peaches!

This cobbler has a rustic cornmeal crust, which I think really goes well with the peaches and adds to the Southern appeal.

Rustic Cornmeal Crust:

  • 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
  • generous pinch salt
  • 1 T sugar
  • 9 T frozen or very cold butter cut into cubes
  • 3-4 T ice cold water

Pulse the flour, cornmeal, salt, and sugar together 2 or 3 times in the bowl of a food processor fitted w/ a plastic blade.  Add the cold butter and pulse another 8 or 10 times, until the mixture looks like small peas.  Drizzle the cold water through the mouth of the processor while pulsing until the mixture starts holding together (It may take you more water. That’s fine. My crust didn’t hold together very well, so I wish I had added more water).  Turn the pastry onto a lightly floured surface and form into a 2 inch thick disk.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Boozy Peach Cobbler:

  • Peaches (I had about 8 smallish peaches, another time I had 4 softball sized peaches, so you be the judge of what will fit in your dish)
  • 1/2 cup honey (or sugar, if you don’t keep that much honey around)
  • Zest of 1 lemon
  • 2 T bourbon (or more, you can never have too much!)
  • 2 T cornstarch
  • Cinnamon to your taste (I like cinnamon, so I used 1 tsp)
  • 4 T butter

Preheat oven to 425. Peel and slice the peaches and mix with all ingredients except the butter.  After your crust has chilled, roll out to 1/4 inch thickness on a floured surface and transfer gently to your pie dish/cake pan/whatever you’re using, letting excess hang over the sides.  Pour in the peach mixture, placing pats of butter on top.  Fold over the overhanging crust, tearing off peaces to cover the middle if necessary. Place the cobbler in a rimmed cookie sheet to catch any overflow of the bubbling filling and bake at 425 for 40-50 minutes, until bubbling and crust is nicely browned.  Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Excuse the chipped bowl. We had a few years without a dishwasher, and they got chipped all to heck in the hand washing.
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a winner of a chicken dinner

We’re eating a lot less meat these days, but when I saw organic free-range chicken on sale at Kroger, I knew I had to grab it.  After that, I had to decide what I wanted to do with it.  Very quickly, I remembered Jamie Oliver’s Chicken in Milk recipe which I had seen hyped on Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn more than once.  They even called it “the best chicken I’ve ever had.” So of course I had to try it!

Overall, the recipe is a very easy one.  Aside from browning the chicken in butter in a skillet (which I think you could totally skip if you’re not planning to eat the skin), the recipe is pretty hands-off.  You just put all the ingredients in a dutch oven and let the chicken braise in the delicious flavors of lemon, herbs, garlic, and, strangely, milk.  Many Apartment Therapy commenters seemed confused that you’d mix milk and citrus and were concerned about curdling. They were right to be concerned, as I often mix lemon juice with milk to make buttermilk in a pinch.  In this recipe, it’s just lemon zest, not juice, in with the milk, so it doesn’t really curdle and separate so much as melt into the chicken, tenderizing it with the lactic acid and keeping it nice and moist during cooking. This is NOT a dried-out chicken recipe.  I’m pretty sure if you just served this up to someone, they’d have no idea milk was an ingredient.

When perusing recipes online, always read the comments– you’ll probably pick up some interesting tips that may make for a better dining experience.  Reading the entire Apartment Therapy post and comments rather than just Jamie’s recipe let me know that I should probably cook this with the lid on for the first hour and off for the last 30 minutes.  I also got the idea to stuff the cavity of the chicken with the zested lemons and a little thyme (the herb I had on hand, though the original recipe calls for sage).

OK, so it's not magazine gorgeous and I should have tucked the wings back instead of letting them flop all over. I PROMISE it's one of the tastiest, easiest "roasted" chicken recipes you'll find.

Here’s the recipe, modified to my liking.

Chicken in Milk, a la Jamie Oliver

Ingredients:

  • 1 3.5 lb. organic chicken
  • 1 pint milk
  • 2 lemons, zested, and lemons halved (If you can, zest the lemon with a coarser grater or use a vegetable peeler for larger strips)
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1 handful of sage leaves or whatever herb you have on hand. Rosemary or thyme works too.
  • 10 (or more) cloves garlic, skin left on
  • salt
  • pepper

How to:

  1. Preheat oven to 375°F
  2. OPTIONAL, only do this if you like to eat crispy chicken skin or want it to look pretty and brown, otherwise, it’s just an unnecessary step: Season chicken all over with salt and pepper and heat a few tablespoons of butter or olive oil in your dutch oven. Sear the chicken to golden brown on all sides. Remove the chicken and discard the oil/butter. Otherwise, just season chicken all over and move along.
  3. Stuff cavity of chicken with the halved zested lemon and some of your herbs.
  4. Place chicken and all other ingredients back into the dutch oven, sprinkling with salt and pepper to taste. Cook for 1.5 hours, lid on for the first hour, lid off for the last 30 minutes. Baste if you want, but I totally didn’t, and it worked out fine.
  5. Let chicken rest for at least 10 minutes before cutting and serving. While it rests, fish out the garlic, because it’s SO YUMMY smeared on crusty bread.
  6. Reserve the sauce. Pour it over the chicken, dip your bread in it, pour it over the chicken and serve over rice, make mashed potatoes with it… DO SOMETHING WITH IT, as it’s so delicious.

I served my Chicken in Milk with homemade beer bread smeared with the garlic and sauteed squash and zucchini.

Save your chicken carcass and giblets to make chicken stock.  It’s SO NOT HARD, and so much more flavorful and less sodium-filled than canned/cartoned stock.  My method is to put the carcass and giblets with a halved onion in my crock pot and cover with water. Then I cook it on low for at least 12 hours. Fish out the big stuff, strain the rest, the freeze in Ziploc bags in 1 or 2 cup increments for future use.

It may be cloudier than store-bought stock, but it's much more flavorful and has way less sodium.
I freeze my stock flat in Ziplock bags in 2 cup increments. Makes for fast defrosting in a sink of warm water when I'm ready to cook. Usually it's thawed by the time I'm done chopping other ingredients.

Let me know if you try this recipe!

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we might starve without a CSA

Image: Clagett Farm CSA Week 9, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from galant's photostream

We’ve been in Little Rock and without our beloved CSA for three weeks now, and I’ve realized that after a year as a CSA member, I completely forgot how to feed us in a conventional way.

You see, I became so used to receiving a giant box of veggies each week and planning my meals accordingly, that I actually forgot how to plan a week’s worth of meals and shop for us without it.  This became apparent today when we realized we were both starving and had nothing in the house for lunch.  Before, back in our CSA days, when our fridge was always overflowing with veggies, every meal I cooked involved enough leftovers for at least two lunches.  On top of that, just to use up all the veggies before they went bad, I was always making and freezing ratatouilles, soups, and pasta sauces that could be pulled out and defrosted to make a last-minute meal.

Today, stomach growling, I peeked in the fridge and realized that while I had ingredients to make two more dinners (I shop the Farmer’s Market on Saturdays and fill in with the grocery store on Sundays), the only other things I had to eat were bacon, eggs, tortillas, cheese, pita chips, and hummus.  I had completely forgotten to plan for lunch, because I got so used to having leftovers or something from the freezer!  “What are we going to EAT?” I wailed to Jon, flopping down on the guest bed near where he was using his computer.  (I tend to get swoony and dramatic when hungry.)  “We could get some lunchmeat and sandwich stuff,” he suggested.  “But that’s against the rules!”

What are the rules? Well, after seeing “Food, Inc.” we agreed upon the following:

  • We only eat meat that is sustainably and ethically raised.  This basically means “pastured” meat, or meat that comes from an animal raised in a pasture (more than “free-range”, which is basically meaningless) where it can stretch its legs, graze on grass, and, in the case of chickens, munch on bugs and worms.  This meat would preferably be local, but does not have to be.
  • In order to afford that meat, we eat vegetarian (or nearly vegetarian) for much of the week.
  • What veggies we do consume are to be local (when possible), first and foremost, and preferably organic.
  • All of our dairy is to be organic.  Eggs are to be from pastured nesting hens.
  • We avoid corn syrup, processed foods, and excessive packaging.
  • Our coffee is to be fair trade and shade grown.
  • Most of these rules go out the window outside our home.

After some discussion, we decided that 1) we might have to relax our rules while we figure out a food routine here in our new city, and 2) it was time to get ourselves to Sam’s Club.  In Charleston, we were members of Costco, but it’s basically the same thing as Sam’s.  The #1 major reason to be a member is to get big frozen bags of seafood.  Currently, we don’t have rules about seafood, though we are moving in that direction as we learn more about the environmental impact of commercial fishing and fish farming operations.  I have a general idea that wild-caught salmon is “better” than farmed salmon, but I couldn’t tell you why.  Still, fish is a staple in our diet, because it’s easier to get than pastured meat most of the time, and because I’m still not a good enough vegetarian cook not to base most of my meals around a protein source.  Other things we commonly buy at Sam’s/Costco: canned tomatoes, chicken stock, chocolate chips, pasta, pita chips, Zyrtec, Prilosec, Lactaid, parmesan cheese, feta cheese, and dog food.

So, now we’re members of Sam’s (which, I have to say, membership for a year was $40 and they gave us a $20 gift card, so, with the savings on what we bought today alone, our membership is more than paid for), and our pantry is nicely stocked.  I’m realizing I need to buy more than I think I need at the farmer’s market on Saturdays so I can make a few extra dishes and freeze them to have in a pinch later.  We’re still figuring out how to eat our values in a new city, and I’m sure we have a ways to go.  I’m also trying to figure out how the food aspect of this blog will look without the weekly rhythm of our CSA boxes, though I know I want to keep sharing stories and recipes of our adventures in more ethical eating.  If you have suggestions, let me know! Here’s hoping we won’t starve because I don’t know how to eat like a regular person anymore.

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CSA: Charleston – ratatouille two ways and other fun

We are moving this Saturday, and will be picking up our last CSA box this afternoon.  We’ve arranged for friends to take over our boxes for the three weeks left in the season after we’re gone.  All of this means: this might be my last CSA post for a while, because who knows how long it will take us to get our internet hooked up in our new house.  Here’s what we did with last week’s goodies.  We gave away a good portion of it because we wanted to be able to eat at some of our favorite Charleston restaurants one last time, but I made some goodies with what we used!

  • 8 ears corn (gave away half)
  • 6 cucumbers
  • 4 slicing tomatoes
  • 1 bag cherry tomatoes
  • 4 bell peppers (gave away 2)
  • 3 yellow squash
  • 1 watermelon (ate at the beach)
  • 2 eggplants (gave away 1)
  • 1 bag green beans (gave away half)
  • 3 pattypan squash
  • 7 banana peppers (Jon ate 2 raw)
  • 1 bag potatoes (gave away half)

I confess I forgot to write down which days we ate what, so I’ll just write up each meal.

Meal 1: Ratatouille Pizzas

Inspired by the Smitten Kitchen’s ratatouille tart, I decided to make a ratatouille pizza.  I made a double recipe of crust before work using this recipe:

  • 3 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 cup whole wheat bread flour
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • salt
  • 2 packets yeast
  • 1 1/3 cup warm water
  1. Mix flours in bowl with 2 T salt and the oil.
  2. Stir yeast into warm water.
  3. Using dough hooks on mixer, pour yeasty water into flour while dough hooks are moving.
  4. Let rise at least 1 hour, preferably all day.
  5. Separate into two balls and stretch each ball across a baking sheet.

Then I topped each pizza crust with some leftover tomato sauce I’d made and frozen using this super easy recipe from the Smitten Kitchen (I’m a bit of a fangirl).

Next up: time to slice these babies up!

Then I arranged the slices on top of the sauce, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper, sprinkled with herbes de provence, and sprinkled with parmesan cheese.  I baked the pizzas for 20 minutes each at 450.  They came out delicious!

Meal 2: Ratatouille with poached eggs over couscous

After the pizza, I still had a gallon bag full of sliced squash, zucchini, eggplant, and peppers.  I also had half of my tomato sauce leftover.  So I decided to try a baked version of ratatouille following this Smitten Kitchen recipe for Ratatouille’s ratatouille, inspired by the Pixar film.  Mine wasn’t as pretty as Smitten’s, but I don’t have a mandoline for fancy slicing, so I think I did pretty well with just my knife!

I decided to serve my ratatouille over couscous with a poached egg on top.  Considering I’d never poached an egg before, and considering I’m still getting over an aversion to runny yolks, I think my poached eggs came out pretty darn well!  It was an absolutely delicious meal. and we still can’t decide if we liked the ratatouille pizza or the ratatouille with poached egg and couscous better!

If I were a real food blogger, I'd have a photo of the yolk oozing out of the poached egg. Lesson learned.

Meal 3: Smoky corn chowder and Greek cucumber salad

I made a smoky corn chowder with the corn using this Real Simple recipe, which I’m a big fan of.  I’m an even bigger fan of it now that I have an immersion blender– the first time I tried the recipe, I had to use a blender, which resulted in a molten corn chowder volcano.  An immersion blender is really a must-have for creamy soups, and it’s also crucial to the tomato sauce I mentioned above.

To go with the chowder, I decided to go Greek with the cucumbers and slicing tomatoes.  I chopped them into bite-size chunks and tossed them with a dressing made with the following recipe:

Whirl the following in a food processor:

  • 1 cup crumbled feta cheese
  • 1 cup Greek yogurt
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 1 clove garlic, chopped finely
  • 2 sprigs oregano (any herb fresh from the garden would work!)
  • 1 tsp. ground cumin
  • 1 tsp. ground coriander
  • 2 dashes hot sauce

The resulting salad was delicious, and the smoky cumin in the sauce went well with the smoked paprika in the soup.

Meal 4: Nicoise salad with pesto

To use up the last of the veggies, I adapted two recipes to make a nicoise salad with a pesto dressing.  I always have good pesto on hand, because my mom makes her own with home-grown pesto, and, even if I have to pack it on ice in a cooler, I always bring home a jar or two after a visit.

I boiled four eggs and let them cool.  I chopped the potatoes and the green beans into bite-size pieces, then boiled the potatoes for 10 minutes, then added the green beans to the pot and boiled both together for 5 more minutes.  Then I drained the potatoes and green beans and rinsed with cold water to cool.  I cut the cherry tomatoes in half and tossed all the ingredients in a bowl with a can of tuna and a can of garbanzo beans (both drained) (not traditional, but I wanted to use them up before the move).  Then I dressed the salad using a mixture of pesto, lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper.  Yum!

Meal 5: Pattypan scramble

One morning when I was home alone, I fried up some bacon, sauteed the pattypan squash in the drippings, and then scrambled them with eggs, mozzarella cheese (it’s what I had), oregano (it’s what I grow in my front yard), and the bacon.  A yummy brunch!

After all those meals, you need dessert: Key Lime Coconut Cake

I’m not kidding about my Smitten Kitchen fangirldom.  I went looking for a recipe to use up some coconut before the move, and I found this Key Lime Coconut Cake recipe.  Whaddaya know? I had limes too! I was so excited about this cake, only to be devastated when It got half stuck in the pan and crumbled into a big mess.  I tried again, this time buttering and flouring the pan instead of following the instructions to butter it and place parchment paper in the bottom, and this time it came out great.  A great summer cake.  I have a feeling I’ll be experimenting with the recipe, maybe trying to turn it into cupcakes or a layer cake.

And there you have another week of fresh local eats!

Bonus: restaurant reviews

When not eating delicious food at home, we ate out a lot! One night we ate at FIG, one of our favorite Charleston restaurants (seriously, a must-visit if you come here).  Another night, we rounded up a whole gang of friends in search of a seafood feast.  We had planned to hit up our favorite, Bowen’s Island, a true experience and a must-visit if you’re in Charleston for oyster season (any month that has an “R” in it), but Bowen’s was closed for a private party.  So we ended up trying the Sand Castle, a seafood joint on Folly that we’d never visited before.  I was sold when I saw that they had fried softshell crab and $3.25 pinot grigio, and Jon got a seafood feast which featured fried flounder, shrimp, oysters, and deviled crab.  Saturday we hit up Red’s Ice House with a bunch of friends.  Red’s has miles of deck space overlooking Shem Creek, and my one goal was a giant pina colada, a goal I achieved.  We also spotted a guy paddle boarding with his DOG on board, and were amazed at the dog’s steady, calm pose aboard the surfboard.  Just another great night in Charleston! I’m going to miss this place!

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CSA tips and tricks

Image: "Clagett Farm CSA Week 18", a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from galant's photostream

Each week, I blog about what I got in my CSA box and what I do with it.  After reading this Slate piece by an overwhelmed CSA member, I thought maybe I should also write about the tips that help me figure out how to handle my weekly deluge of fresh, local produce.

  • The goal is not to love every item, but to find a way to eat every item. That might sound a little strange, but hear me out.  I don’t like turnips. I don’t really like rutabagas.  If I were just shopping the Farmer’s Market or grocery store, I’d probably never eat a turnip, a rutabaga, or even greens like collards or kale.  However, part of the appeal of the CSA experience is trying new things, and I consider it my mission to find at least one way I can eat every item without hating it.  The author mentions her struggle with turnips. I share that struggle.  I’ve hidden them in chowders, put them into risottos, and even snuck them into pot pies.  For me, they need to be part of an ensemble of other veggies that hide their turnipy flavor.  The same is true for mustard greens.  I don’t really like them by themselves, but I’ve discovered that, covered in cheese in a frittata, they’re pretty tasty!
  • The internet is your friend. Not sure what to do with collard greens? Get thee to Epicurious.  Sites like Epicurious, The Kitchn, and AllRecipes are the keys to CSA success.  You just type in “collard greens” into the search bar, and tons of recipes will pop up.  Read the reviews on the recipes, and don’t be afraid to experiment and substitute. A recipe calls for celery and you don’t have any? Maybe you can add in a little celery seed for flavor, or substitute a similar watery, crunchy veggie in its place.  You don’t have the herb they call for? Try substituting something you do have!  And don’t be afraid to Google for substitutions either– it’s how I learned I can make my own buttermilk if needed for a recipe by simply adding vinegar or lemon juice to a cup of milk!
  • Make a plan of attack. It helps to make time on the day you usually pick up your CSA box to plan and do prep work for the week’s worth of meals. On the day you get your CSA box, lay everything out.  Figure out which things are most perishable, and plan to eat those first. Estimate what you can reasonably eat in one week, and make plans to give away or preserve (via freezing, pickling, or canning) what you can’t.  Don’t feel bad about giving away your produce if you know you can’t eat it! You may help win new subscribers for your CSA program that way!  Use the aforementioned recipe websites to find recipes for each meal, then head to the grocery store to get things you might need to fill in. Look at any recipes that might take longer than an hour and see if you can do any prep work ahead of time to ensure faster meals later.
  • Learn to pickle. Seriously. Pickles are a great way to preserve your produce, and they’re a great thing to give away to help lighten your load. You can pickle cucumbers, squash, peppers, onions, carrots, green beans… anything.  I’m a big fan of spicy refrigerator dill pickles and summer squash bread and butter pickles (doesn’t have to be used with squash).  You don’t have to spend all day boiling them in jars, either– just keep them in their brine in the fridge for a few weeks.  They’ll get pickle-ier as time goes on, but they won’t go bad. You don’t even need jars! I make my personal-use pickles in large re-used yogurt tubs. Updated to add: Don’t stress if you can’t find pickling salt. My research has shown that kosher salt will work just fine, it just might result in cloudier brine and less-green cukes. They will still taste great.
  • Make friends with your freezer! Another great way to save veggies for a later day is to make up a big batch of soup, pasta sauce, or ratatouille and freeze it flat in a ziplock bag for a later day.  We ate frozen soups and sauces all winter long.  I even froze shredded zucchini to use in zucchini bread after the season was over.
  • Have some stand-bys. Every week, I eat at least one stir-fry made with any variety of veggies, using a simple sauce that uses any and all of the following: soy sauce, honey, lemon/lime juice, sesame oil, sriracha, ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes.  Another good standby is a frittata using a variety of veggies.  Another is to saute veggies with garlic and herbs and serve them over pasta with parmesan or feta cheese.  These meals will carry you through when you just can’t be bothered to try something new and fun with your produce.
  • Have fun. Don’t let yourself feel too guilty about greens wilting in your fridge. Some days, you just aren’t feeling it, and that’s fine. I’m little miss CSA, and I still eat popcorn for dinner on occasion.  If possible, try to give away your excess produce to someone who will eat it, but don’t beat yourself up if something goes bad before you use it.  Compost it if possible!

Are you a CSA member? Do you have any tips to share? Questions you’d like me to answer?

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CSA: Charleston — a whole lot of summer

Another delicious week with our Pinckney’s Produce CSA! This week was like an explosion of summer goodies.  Here’s what we got:

That’s:

  • 8 ears of corn (gave 4 to the neighbors)
  • 6 potatoes
  • 9 yellow squash
  • 9 cucumbers
  • 8 zucchini
  • 4 pattypan squash
  • 6 banana peppers
  • 1 bag green beans (gave 1/3 to the neighbors)
  • 1 bag broccoli
  • 1 small bag of cherry tomatoes
  • 3 sweet onions

Tuesday

On Tuesday, I picked up our box.  For dinner, I made a stir fry with the broccoli and 2 of the pattypan squash, which I served over brown rice.  I also made refrigerator dill pickles with the cucumbers and bread and butter pickles with the yellow squash, half of the zucchini, and the banana peppers.  One reason I make so many pickles is that people love them, and they’re a nice thing to give away.  If we had a smaller box for our two-person family, I wouldn’t give so much food away, but as it is, we just can’t eat it all, and we can’t freeze it because we’re moving in two weeks.  My boss in particular loves pickles, and I give him a jar of each variety each week.  He’s kind enough to return the jars for a refill the next week!

Wednesday

On Wednesday, I adapted Rachael Ray’s Green Minestrone recipe for dinner, using up half of the green beans, and half of the remaining zucchini.  I made a few changes, using a couple of slices of bacon instead of pancetta, omitting the spinach (though if I’d had greens this week, those would have worked well), and omitting the celery (I tossed in a little celery seed to get the flavor).  I didn’t have a lot of parmigiano reggiano on hand, so I tossed a couple hunks of parmesan cheese rind into the pot while I was simmering the soup to get the flavor.  I always freeze my parmesan rinds to use in flavoring soups– they’re the secret ingredient to a good chicken soup!

Thursday

Thursday night, I tried a recipe that a fellow CSA member recommended on the Pinckney’s Produce Facebook page.  I had seen the recipe in my Real Simple magazine, but the fellow member jogged my memory.  It was a zucchini and orzo salad with feta cheese.  I added the cherry tomatoes and served it alongside grilled tilapia, which I sprinkled with a little lemon juice and dill to mimic the flavors of the pasta dish.  Yum! We had a feeling it would be a very tasty stand-alone pasta salad with the addition of some tuna, so that’s what I did with the leftovers.

Friday

Friday was a quintessentially Charleston night.  It has nothing to do with our CSA, but food is involved, so I thought I’d mention it here.  We went out to a friend’s family’s Isle of Palms beach house for a shrimp boil.  This was the view:

And this was the food:

So good! We stuffed ourselves on spicy shrimp, sausage, potatoes with garlic, onion, corn, and carrot (a BRILLIANT addition to the mix), we danced around, we took a walk on the beach in the dark, and we swam in the ocean, which felt divine.  It was a great night with friends that reminded me just how much I’m going to miss this place.

Saturday

Saturday Jon was on call and I was home alone, so I ate leftovers and watched World Cup.

Sunday

Sunday brunch was a scramble I made with the rest of the pattypan squash, eggs, fontina cheese, bacon, and fresh basil. Delicious!

For dinner on Sunday, I made a potato, green bean, and corn salad, which has a tangy mustard vinaigrette (I added red pepper flakes and the sweet onions).  We had a dinner made of side dishes by eating the salad with the leftover pasta salad from Thursday, and some of the squash pickles. 

Monday

Monday we ate a little bit of leftovers and a whole lot of popcorn for dinner.

Overall: a delicious week! We ate almost everything, and we’re looking forward to two more weeks of goodies before we move. I’ve already arranged for a coworker to take over our share for the remainder of the season.

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CSA: Charleston – The Halfway Mark

I believe we’re now halfway through our CSA season with the wonderful Pinckney’s Produce, but I could be wrong.   Anyway, here’s what we got this week:

That’s:

  • 1 bunch kale
  • 1 bunch chard
  • 1 cabbage (gave away to a coworker)
  • 10 yellow crookneck squash
  • 3 sweet onions
  • 3 bell peppers
  • 5 banana peppers
  • 6 pattypan squash
  • 12 pickling cucumbers
  • 8 zucchini
  • 1 large bag green beans (gave half away to a coworker)

And here’s what we did with it all:

Tuesday

Tuesday I focused on making pickles with the squash, zucchini, peppers, and cucumbers.  I did refrigerator dills with the cukes and bread and butter pickles with the rest.  I’ve been taking jars of the pickles to friends and coworkers and everyone loves them.

refrigerator dill pickles

bread and butter squash and zucchini pickles.

Otherwise, we ate leftover corn on the cob, grilled squash salad, and grilled cabbage coleslaw from last week with some blackened salmon for dinner.

even our leftovers are yummy thanks to our CSA!

Wednesday

Wednesday I fried some bacon in a skillet, poured off most of the grease, and sauteed the chard with some garlic and red pepper flakes.  I served this with the crumbled bacon and some parmesan cheese over orzo.  Not bad for a random no-recipe meal!

sauteed chard with garlic and red pepper over orzo.

Thursday

Thursday I was feeling crummy and Jon was feeling crummy, likely because some germy kid at his work gave him a cold, which he kindly shared with me. The hazards of pediatrics! Anyway, I was feeling like some comfort food, so I made fried rice with the bell peppers, 2 pattypan squash, and an onion.  I made a ton so I had leftovers for lunch on Friday as well.  Fried rice, like frittatas, is just one of those meals where I throw in a bunch of veggies I need to use up and it always turns out great.

Friday

Friday night, I was home alone, but that didn’t stop me from making myself an awesome dinner.  I made two delicious quiches with the kale and some leeks I bought at the store, following the Smitten Kitchen’s recipe for a Leek and Swiss Chard Tart.  I’m really not sure what the difference is between a quiche and a tart, but basically this was a quiche.  I used pre-made puff pastry for my crust, and I subbed in herbes de provence, because I couldn’t find my dried thyme.  It came out so delicious, and it fed us for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday as well.  Definitely try this recipe if you have some greens around!

Saturday

Saturday I went with one old standby and tried one new thing.  The old standby is my usual green bean recipe: sautee green beans with garlic and onions with ginger and soy sauce.  Jon loves them, I love them, can’t go wrong.  The new thing was using the rest of the squash and zucchini in a potato and summer squash gratin with goat cheese.  It probably would have been a lot less time consuming if I had had a mandolin for slicing the veggies crazy thin, but my one and only Wusthof knife worked out pretty well, even if it did seem to take an eternity.  No matter what, all the slicing was worth it for a dish that tasted so good!  Mine had a few more layers than the original recipe called for, but I just kept layering.  I added more milk and more cheese to make up for the fact that my gratin was larger.  This is another recipe I highly recommend.

potato, squash, and goat cheese gratin.

Sunday we had a party to go to, so I didn’t do any cooking.

Monday

Monday we were feeling lazy and wanting to watch Battlestar Galactica (we’re nerds) and drink margaritas.  I had a bit of kale left in the fridge, so I cut it up and sauteed it until wilted, and then I used it in place of spinach in a spinach and artichoke dip recipe.  Turns out, any green will do in spinach and artichoke dip. My theory: with enough cheese, you could basically use grass clippings and no one would care.

So, another week down, and besides what I gave away to a coworker, we ate it all! I’m pretty proud!

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on skinny shoppers, food elitism, and gender in the kitchen

You don't have to be a skinny, white, rich lady to get into cooking. Image by Nina Leen via the Google LIFE Photo Archive.

I’m a foodie. I’m an unabashed, CSA-member, local-beet-eating, corn-syrup-eschewing, pickle-making, bread-baking foodie. I write a lot about food, how I sacrifice my hopes and dreams to bake bread, how I experiment with the new and wacky produce that appears in my CSA boxes, how I try to eat everywhere worth eating in my city before I have to leave it.  I also read a lot about food.  I’m a big fan of Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and if Michael Pollan wrote it, I’ve probably read it.

This doesn’t mean I *like* everything I read from Michael Pollan. Continue reading “on skinny shoppers, food elitism, and gender in the kitchen”