CSA Week 2

I was so proud of myself last week, I used everything, no waste! Consuming all this week will be harder - holy lettuce! Going to be a big salad week. Got 5 heads of salad greens. Also received some great things like green beans, yellow squash, cabbage and a huge thing of basil. Got another darn kohlrabi, this time it is purple. Hope the purple one is more exciting. I think I'll start this week with a big batch of pesto from the basil. I grow basil too so I should be able to pull of a nice big bowl of pesto. I bought some ground turkey and think I'll make stuffed cabbage. Planning a soup with the chard this week and any other veggies I can throw in it, probably some purple kohlrabi. And on the side or every meal will be a big big salad, with lots of radish!

Week Two Box
3 heads of lettuce
2 bunches of mixed salad greens
1 bunch Swiss Chard
1 Head of Cabbage
3 Yellow Summer Squash
Box of Green Beans
Bunch of Beets
2 big bunches of Radishes
Scallion Onions
Purple Kohlrabi
Bunch of Basil

Can you say SALAD!!!

CSA - Kohlrabi

The kohlrabi did not get a vote of approval from the family. It is just kind of boring. Everyone told me it is like a turnip and we should cook it like one, so I started with a simple steamed kohlrabi side dish. Very bland. Also, when I described the size to my parents, they said these particular kohlrabies might be too big. Guess they should be small, tennis ball sized at the most, these are softball sized. Multiple people told me they would be woody. What kind of description is that? Turns out a good one. When they were steamed they were woody. There were small hard fibers in them that you kind of had to spit out. After the steamed kohlrabi got the axe, we didn't give up (mostly because there was still another one waiting), I tried it grated on salad, by far the best way to eat it. Looks like cheese on the salad but that is the kohlrabi. Gives it some crunch and the flavor is strongest this way. So far raw is best for kohlrabi.


Finally I tried baking sliced kohlrabi topped with Parmesan. I found this recipe several times when searching on-line and it was one of the suggested recipes by our CSA. It was not too impressive either, maybe I roasted it too long. I think I just haven't found the right recipe. There are many international dishes using it, but they required several ingredients I just didn't have handy. I wanted to try it in a simple form, but it seems it might be best in a heavy medley or just raw.

Baked Parmesan Kohlrabi

INGREDIENTS
4 kohlrabi bulbs, peeled
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Directions

Preheat an oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).
Cut the kohlrabi into 1/4 inch thick slices, then cut each of the slices in half. Combine olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Toss kohlrabi slices in the olive oil mixture to coat. Spread kohlrabi in a single layer on a baking sheet.
Bake in the preheated oven until browned, 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally in order to brown evenly. Remove from oven and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Return to the oven to allow the Parmesan cheese to brown, about 5 minutes. Serve immediately.

CSA - Radishes

My relationship with radishes consists only of making roses to pretty up a table. I took a bite of a fresh radish and realized I may never have really eaten a good radish. It was hot! Seriously strong with a hard bite. When you slice them thin and use them, they are not too strong, but just to eat them plain, wow!

I had friends over on Saturday night, so I took the opportunity to make some fun appetizers. I served classic English radish sandwiches and fancy looking cucumber radish bites. The cucumber/radish bites were a bit hit, not just for the upscale look, but they were yummy. The radish sandwich was good, maybe too simple to wow, but a nice combination.

English Tea sandwich, open faced
Source: several sites, seems to be a pretty standard sandwich in England

Bread
Butter
Thin sliced radish
Coarse Sea Salt

Assemble - so simple. Enjoy!

Herbed Cream Cheese Cucumber Radish Appetizer recipe adapted from Bon Appetit
Source: www.finedinings.com

Makes 12 Appetizers

4 ounces Cream Cheese, softened
2 tablespoons fresh mint, thinly sliced
1/4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon salt
pinch of cayenne pepper, or to taste
3 teaspoons fresh chives, snipped, divided
1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest, divided
English cucumber, trimmed, sliced 1/8-inch thick
3 small radishes, trimmed, sliced 1/8-inch thick
French sea salt for sprinkling

In a small bowl combine cheese, fresh mint, lemon juice, salt and cayenne. Add 2 teaspoons chives and 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest reserving the remainder for garnish.

Stack a cucumber and radish slice together with a dab of the cheese mixture between to hold slices in place, then top each with 1/2 teaspoon of the cheese mixture. Garnish with the remaining zest and chives, place on a platter, sprinkle with sea salt and serve immediately.



My friend and fellow CSA Member, Janice, used her radishes in a simple stir fry and served it with pasta. She said it was great, gave some crunch to her stir fry and a bit of a bite. She just cooked the vegetables in oil and garlic. Nice and colorful!

CSA - Swiss Chard

As I begin to dig through and plan my first CSA box I feel like I am relearning something. It is like reading a book 20 years after the first time you read it. My parents have always been pretty adventurous with produce, so I was exposed to more than just the common vegetables as a child. As an adult, I have to admit, I have not really ventured out of the usual vegetables when cooking. I am excited about the CSA as it will challenge me to experiment with new vegetables as well as remember some that I just haven't had since I was a kid. Like kohlrabi and beets. Still stewing on what to do with them. The CSA is a true adventure in discovering new things!

I started with the Swiss Chard because everything I read about it says the fresher the better. I made it very simply, just sauteed in olive oil with some garlic and salt. I might have over salted, or is this a salty vegetable? Are there any salty vegetables? Not sure, but it was bit salty.

This is not a true recipe, but a bit of my step by step

Big bunch Swiss Chard
2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil
1 Clove of Garlic
Salt and pepper to taste


The bright red celery like stems are so beautiful and crispy. Almost to perfect to chop and cook. I started by removing those red stems, but saves some and cut sort of Julianne strips for the dish.


I learned this by watching Rachel Ray. She washed spinach by filling the sink with cold water and floating all the spinach. The dirt falls out and sinks to the bottom. I drained it and ran it through the salad spinner. Was really quite dry and perfectly dirt free.


I chopped some of the beautiful red stems and sauteed them in the oil for about 10 minutes prior to adding the chard. It took about three or four batches added slowly to fit it all in this small skillet. It is always amazing how those huge firm leaves can all cook down to this small little mass.


Not the cover of Gourmet Magazine, but this is what dinner looks like at our house. It killed me to chop those fresh from the ground carrots and just boil them in water, but I know my audience (1 and 3 year old) so I cook what will be eaten. I was pushing it with the chard, we needed simple carrots. All was delicious!

CSA Week 1

Got our first box of the CSA today! The harvest is quite plentiful. All my fears of waste are running rampant. And what on earth am going to do with a kohlrabi? No, make that two kohlrabi? Google will be buzzing tonight with crazy vegetable searches. I think I will first tackle the Swiss Chard. Seems easy enough, just doing a simple saute recipe like I make spinach. Hoping to use some of those radishes for appetizers this Saturday night when I have friends over,maybe there is a beet dip or something I can find. The rest will mix into our everyday meals easy enough except that darn kohlrabi. I remember my mom making it once. Think I need to call Mom.

Week 1 Box
Swiss Chard
Lettuce
Beets 2 or 3 kinds
Zucchini
Radish 2 kinds
Carrots
Scallion Onions
Kohlrabi
Fresh bunch of Cilantro
Pint of Fresh Cherries

Blog in review

Blogging is a strange thing, I have been blogging now for about 5 months now and I still can't say that I totally get it or understand my draw to it. You can take two approaches to blogging; 1. writing for yourself or 2. writing for an audience. When you write for yourself, it is like journal and can be very therapeutic and easy to share your feelings, but it is also sort of creepy because it is out there for the world to read. It is like leaving the tiny key to your diary out at a slumber party, everyone gets access. Writing for an audience is a full time job. Oh and you have to collect an audience, count that as another full time job in PR and Marketing. I still am not sure what approach I am taking with my blog, maybe a mix of both. I am enjoying the writing, though I feel my writing skills are not up to par with other bloggers. Reading other well written blogs has been fun and gives me new recipes and ideas. Secretly I sort of do want blog fame, but why? And who will read it? There are a million stay-at-home-mom blogs. Who knows why I am doing it, I like it and I guess that is enough, so I am going to keep going and will add a few new features to the blog. May was a light month on the blog as we did some traveling and the excitement of summer's arrival took up much of my time. I am back in the game, there will be travel and many fun summer adventures, but I will try make time for the blog.

Contesting Update
The contesting is not going so well, but I am not giving up!! As I said, May was a slow month for me, I was cooking, but not much for contests. Currently there are not many contests running that I feel passionate about. I feel like when I try new recipes from cook books I am really just training and becoming a better cook which all helps me in my progress to contest success. I will win a contest someday!

New feature - CSA Community Supported Agriculture
My CSA starts tomorrow! I am very excited and slightly intimidated. It is crazy how nervous I am about the responsibility of using all this fresh produce. The CSA is my first step at being a responsible consumer and feeding my family safely grown foods. I really want to be one of those people, but change is hard. I feel very torn by the whole "organic & local" movement. I can't bring myself to buy organic milk for $6 a gallon when the regular milk is only $2.50. Why!?! Shouldn't my family's health be more important than saving a few bucks? The CSA will be a great introduction to the "healthy life" for us all and maybe it will help me begin to make that change. I will do a weekly blog on the CSA box: what's in it and what I make out of it. I would also like to invite my fellow CSA members to contribute their recipes and CSA success. I'll post pictures from our first box tomorrow!

New feature - Cooking For Fun
I love writing about my contest dishes, but we make great meals everyday. I have been holding myself to this silly strict rule that the blog is only about contesting. No more! I will begin blogging about good meals we cook just for fun.

So to wrap it up, I like my blog and am going to expand it slightly so I have more things to write about. Who knows if I will every achieve "blog fame". As long as I am having fun blogging and if I don't put too much stress on myself over it, we'll keep it going. Let's see what we can cook up this summer!

Twice Baked Avocado-Potatoes

Contest: The Adaptable Avocado Recipe Challenge - entered by me

This is a cool contest! It is a blog contest so my original recipe will be judged right off my blog. I love avocados. There are so many reasons to love the avocado; the unique taste, the creamy cool consistency, they are very healthy and who doesn't love the color? There was no way I was not going pass up this contest - The Adaptable Avocado.

The title of the contest is The Adaptable Avocado. When thinking of how to use an avocado in a new way I stumbled upon a great adaptation that really hit home with our family. My youngest son has a dairy allergy. I think the avocado presents a perfect alternative to dairy when creating creamy dishes. We just discovered the little guy's dairy problems a few months ago, so it really has not had a huge affect on how the whole family eats yet. I have begun to make changes to easy dishes, use oil instead of butter where I can and making soy milk pancakes, but I still feel stumped everyday on what to feed this kid. He is only 15 months so he doesn't seem to notice he is eating something different than us, but the day is coming. The weather hit 90 degrees the other day so we went for the season's first ice cream outing. There we all sat with big bowls of ice cream and he had a banana. It was just so sad. Maybe I only imagined it, but I swear he gave my ice cream a long look then gave me big questioning eyes that said, " Really Mom? You get an ice cream sunday and I get a darn banana!" I just felt guilty. I have not tested the avocado in ice cream, but that kind of sounds kind of cool, I started testing the creamy affects of avocado in soups and mashed potatoes.

An avocado's flavor is mild enough when mixed with other foods it doesn't have to drastically changing the dish. I of course love the avocado flavor, so I like to actually enhance it when mixing it into a classic dish by adding "avocado friendly" flavors to create a unique twist on a common dish. Twice Baked Avocado-Potatoes are just a perfect example of how you can use an avocado to re-create a creamy classic. Just a few minor adjustments, like adding a pico de gallo topping turn this classic favorite into an awesome "all about avocado" dish.

I realize the following is not a dairy free dish as it has butter and is topped with cheese. I omitted the butter in a small batch for the dairy-free kid. The flavor was not as rich, but it was creamy and he still gets to eat what we do. I just feel like the avocado has opened a new door to us when cooking for our poor dairy-free kid. I can't wait to experiment more, I am thinking creamy soups, chicken and dumplings, and pastas. How could we mix it with macaroni for a faux mac & cheese? The wheels are turning... stay tuned... more to come on the adaptable avocado!

Twice Baked Avocado-Potatoes

Ingredients
4 Large Russet Potatoes
2 Large Mexican Avocadoes
4 Tablespoons Butter Softened
1 Small Lime
1 Teaspoon Salt
Salt and Pepper to taste for seasoning potato skins
8 oz Shredded Monterrey Jack and Cheddar Cheese Mix
Pico de Gallo - see recipe below
Sour Cream if desired

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Scrub 4 large russet potatoes and poke holes in the skin with a fork all over. Once oven is hot, place potatoes in oven right on the rack. Bake for approximate 1 hour or until they are soft when poked with a fork. Remove potatoes from oven and set aside until cool enough to touch and work with. Slice potatoes in half long ways and spoon out the flesh. Put all the potato flesh in a separate bowl. Do not spoon too close to the skin, leave about a 1/2 inch to create a solid shell.

Cut and scoop!

All scooped out.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Add 4 tablespoons of butter and the juice from one lime to the potato in the bowl. You may need to really soften the butter in the microwave or use really soft butter if the potatoes are not very hot still. Cut two Mexican Avocados in half, remove the pit, scoop out the avocado and add it to the potato bowl. Add one teaspoon of salt and a dash of pepper. Mash the potato and avocados well with a potato masher. If you really like a smooth mashed potato you can finish it of by whipping the mashed avocado-potatoes with a hand mixer. Spoon the mashed avocado-potatoes into the potato shells creating a mound in the skins but leaving the edges clean. Top each avocado-potato with shredded cheese. Add crumbled bacon now if you want a classic twice baked flavor.

Beautiful green mashed avocado-potatoes.

All stuffed and ready for toppings. Yes, I did try stuffing an avocado shell. Not nearly as good as potato skins. They turn into slippery little devils!

Topped and ready to go! I made some with bacon and topped them with Ranch dressing. Just another option, this is a very versatile dish.

Bake avocado-potatoes at 375 for approximately 20 minutes or until the cheese is perfectly melted. Let cool a few minutes then top with pico de gallo and serve with a side of sour cream. Enjoy!