applesauce

all my creativity went into the title of this post.

i don't like apples. i actually like some apples - the soft kind. maybe the mealy ones? i'd eat a mcintosh. but regular apples that others always say are delicious... i can pass those up.

so i decided to make applesauce today, which is a little weird since i don't like applesauce much either. but i like it more than apples, and i've literally eaten one piece of the pie i made six days ago. also, applesauce can be used instead of eggs or oil in some recipes, so its good to have some around. i used to buy the little four ounce cups because they wouldn't spoil in the fridge because they were so convenient for baking, but it seemed wasteful.

to make applesauce:

basically, i peeled & cored the seven apples i had been glaring at since tuesday, and put them in my soup pot with a bit of water and a dash of salt, brought it to a boil, lowered the heat, and ignored them. a while later i went to stir them and they had basically turned into apple sauce. i let it cook a bit because it was a little watery, then took a potato masher to them. the resulting applesauce does not need sugar and is fairly delicious. yay.

i am going to actually try to eat this applesauce. but i might measure out some half-cup sized portions and stow them in the freezer, in case i need them.

CSA Week 4: Possibilities... Salad!

Each week I pick up a box of raw goodness and figure out how to manipulate it into deliciousness.  It is a constant struggle: taming the wild.  As soon as I start to feel like I'm in control, like there isn't too much food or too many unused vegetables - usually day 2 or 3 - I get an e-mail telling me what to expect next week, and the struggle begins all over again.

However... next week is so easy.  So easy it's kind of embarrassing.  So easy I may even have to buy my lunch at work, which will be super exciting for me since I love buying lunch.  But it all comes down to this one word:  Salad.

Tuesday I will pick up:

Carrots (salad)

Spinach (salad!!)

Onions (some for salad)

Leeks (pink leek-mushroom risotto possibly with cheddar seems likely here)

Sweet Potatoes 

Cranberries

Currently, the cranberries are the most exciting thing, not because I'm such a huge fan, but because they hold the greatest potential.  I'm not the hugest sweet potato fan, but it is way more delicious than squash, and I can use it in my to-date favorite squash recipe - the butternut/chickpea/tahini yum - if i don't feel like being creative.

My to-date favorite cranberry recipe involves a bit of sugar, a food processor, and an orange, and I like the idea of keeping them raw, but i also have started fantasizing about roasted cranberries.

We shall see.  I still really have five days to figure this out!  And plenty of deliciousness to consume in the meantime.

Pink Vegetable Broth

I've read varying accounts on what makes the best vegetable broth, but I think all of them tell me not to use beets. I've read that you should never use onion skins, I've read that you should always use onion skins. I just kind of decided it didn't matter. In fact, I really decided to cook up some vegetable broth when I added the parsley to the borscht, because besides agreeing that you shouldn't use beets, the only other thing everyone seems to agree with is the use of parsley. Always. And then I basically just through in all of the vegetable scraps I had left, which I will try to categorize here.

* cabbage - outer leaves and core (outer leaves could've been used for something else but I knew that would never happen)

* beet stems/peels/tops (no greens)

* carrot peels

* half a grated potato plus peel

* onion skins and tops

* parsley stems

* garlic skins and a couple of cloves

* juice from can of drained tomatoes

I think that's all. I threw in some salt but not too much. It is very pink. I keep trying to envision a situation in which this is a problem and I keep failing.

There are a couple of carrots that have kind of lost their crunch in the crisper drawer I would've thrown in if I'd thought of it.

I'll be using some broth next week since it is likely i will make risotto, so we'll see if the pink is a problem!

Borscht perfection

This was my baseline, the recipe my sister acquired from the one vegetarian she found in Russia.

I'd made this recipe once before. What I remember from the last attempt was that an entire head of cabbage is way way way too much cabbage. Perhaps Russian cabbages are smaller? Or it was a Savoy? But I liked the separate cooking of the soup pot and the beets - the vegetables retained their own color - at least initially - better than the method I'd taken in the past, to boil everything in a pot. In the past I've also shied away from using tomato paste, and flavored the soup with apple cider vinegar. I had to buy tomato paste in order to make this soup and I almost always have a huge bottle of apple cider vinegar at home, which usually factors into my cooking decisions

In any case, this was my second farm share cabbage... and it was pretty big. I'd already decided to make cabbage with tomatoes and sour cream, which needed 6 cups of cabbage, which was honestly only about half of what I had. I shredded the cabbage, measured out the 6 cups, and then used the remaining cabbage in the borscht. This is also kind of the reason I ended up staying up so late cooking on Tuesday - I started the borscht and then chopped the cabbage for the other dish and then, since the cabbage was chopped, I felt inclined to cook it right away.

I did have one kind of large shot of vodka while cooking the borscht. It was not as delicious as the borscht.

Alterations to the original recipe:

* I used a little less onion, maybe one? one and a quarter?

* olive oil

* parsley was my herb

* more than the equivalent of a can of beans

* no sugar - and can i just say, it really does not need sugar.

i've been eating it with sour cream, and having it for lunch with a tofu-mustard sandwich, which tastes infinitely better than it sounds.

Week 3: Cabbage with tomatoes and Sour Cream

I've started to think of this kind of as "Fresh Kraut" - it's got the caraway seed and a little bit of that sour taste. And is super delicious. But the cabbage doesn't ever come close to being pickled.

Heat 2 T olive oil

add 3/4 c onion, cook for a minute or two until softened.

add 6 c shredded cabbage (I've gotten much better at shredding cabbage this week) and cook for awhile (10-15 mns) until softened, whatever.

add 1 1/2 T caraway seed - I added early. More flavor? I hope.

Cook until cabbage is a little more cooked.

Drain large can of diced tomatoes, add to cabbage (i had them draining for awhile.)

Cook until the tomatoes are warmed and incorporated and cabbage is kind of brown (i did not brown the cabbage at all which i kind of regret)

add 1/2 c sour cream, heat.

I could've used yogurt but I like sour cream better.

Fall CSA Week 3!!

I cooked for about five hours last night. It was really, really fun, but damn, I was tired.

Accomplishments include:

12 Potato-Mushroom Mini-Quiche

Enough Borscht for a Large Russian Family

Cabbage with Tomatoes and Sour Cream

Pink Vegetable Broth

I will blog about each one, hopefully I will get through it all before I cook even more food.

Even this morning, I got an e-mail with a list of what I'm getting next week! I'm already overflowing with deliciousness, this is just completely daunting.

I felt very accomplished at the end of the night, but I realized that I only had used less than 1/2 of the vegetables I got this week. I used the entire cabbage (some in the Borscht) and about half the mushrooms, but I still have tons of mushrooms left, 11 new apples (I'd only recently gotten rid of the old ones and I haven't come close to finishing the pie I made anyway!) and an entire Festival Squash, which is basically a prettier and more annoying Acorn squash. Plus some beets, but those will be easy enough to get rid of (since I love them so!)

mini muffin quiche: the perfect high cholesterol breakfast

The first thing i made when i brought it home last night was mini quiche, based on the incomplete recipe i posted last week. I would like to take a moment to state for the record that I still don't like eggs. Also, I think I can feel my blood pressure rising when I eat egg yolks. Is that crazy? Next time egg white only!!

Here's whats in my eggs:

heat 2 T olive oil in pan

add 1 medium potato, grated (about one cup) and begin to cook.

add 1 C chopped mushroom (if you don't like mushrooms, you are not cutting them small enough and/or cooking them in enough butter/olive oil)

cook until a little brown, turn off heat and set aside

meanwhile, whisk together:

1/4 c flour

8 eggs

1/4 c cheddar (I just used the leftover cheddar from last week's farm share, since I got delicious Gouda for this week!)

touch of salt

some black pepper

turn oven to 350.

I used pam on half of my muffin pan, so six of them were a little easier to get out than the rest, although even the ones without pam released pretty easily. i guess i would recommend cooking spray but if you don't have it you'll be fine.

Spoon equal amount of the potato/musroom mix into the bottom of your muffin tin. Drop the egg/cheese mixture on top, bake for about 25 minutes (I generally don't use an oven timer... This drives my mother crazy... so 25 minutes is just a guess) Until a knife inserted comes out clean (or cheesy but not eggy) and they are a little golden.

I didn't even have hot sauce this morning and they were yum. I had two - one had more potato/mushroom mix than the other and that was more delicious, so I'd probably use a little more potato/mushroom next time.

New recipe strategy

A co-worker just came up to me snacking on the squash-chickpea-tahini glory I blogged about yesterday, and he said "Garbanzo" when I said "chickpea", and he informed me that these aren't chickpeas - there's a different Spanish word for this bean and what he'd call a Chickpea.

To prove that Garbanzos and Chickpeas are the same thing I did a Google Image search of the word Chickpea, and most of the pics were of what I'm eating, although some were the little green variety he was referring to.

But that's not the point - the point is that in this search, there were some great pictures of delicious-looking food. So I have a new strategy for finding delicious squash recipes - an image search! Find the prettiest picture and see if it yields the prettiest food. I think my mom would be a fan of this mode of recipe-choosing.

Borscht tonight! Also I got the list of what will likely be in my farm share next week.... and there isn't any squash!!!

My Sunday

I was scheduled to leave the house to watch the Packers, but it's a good thing I didn't, because I never would've accomplished everything.

On Sunday, I made:

* an apple pie - it is too runny, probably because I let the apples sit for an hour in sugar before I worked up the courage to try and make a crust. but it tastes decent, and that's what's important. i won't record the recipe because i'd rather just start over with my internet research.

* a pound of kidney beans - in the crock pot. i just through them in with 2 bay leaves. tonight i put 3 plastic bags of 1.5 cups each (about the size of a can) in the freezer, so there's 3 cans of kidney beans i won't need to buy! most of the rest of them have ended up on salads.

* a pound of baked tofu - i took the jar of mustard with the least amount of mustard in it (i have a mustard-buying problem) and added some oil and hot sauce and vinegar and soy sauce and shook it up and dumped it on my sliced tofu and threw it in the oven. it's too thick - every time i say this - i'm going to cut it thinner next time. but good for sandwiches, which is what i had for dinner. i put even more mustard on the bread, that might not have been necessary, but it was very delicious.

* the smitten squash recipe i already posted about.

i think that's it - i also made 3 delicious spinach salads. one of them was for lunch today (and it was delicious! as i blogged earlier), one of them was for my dinner yesterday, and the other fed my friend emily who stopped by on her bike ride and who i told must eat if she was stopping by.

all in all, it sounds less time-consuming and tiring than it was, but my goal was to catch up to my farm share, and i think i'm going to be fine.

Squash Week 2: Chickpea Tahini Salad

I followed some advice and made this:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/01/warm-butternut-squash-and-chickpea-salad/

I mostly followed the recipe - I did use allspice, cider vingear instead of lemon juice, parsley and garlic added at the end. I have this huge tub of Tahini so that was pretty exciting.

I would say that my red onion was store-bought, and very pungent - I wish I would've had some farm share onion to use instead.

Two notes:

* I like the texture of squash better when it's roasted - it isn't just mush. this is probably related to the next note...

* In addition to peeling the outside of the squash, before cutting it up I peeled the inside, where I'd removed the seeds. I hate the stringiness of squash, and I think just knowing that I peeled that stringy part out makes my Chickpea Tahini Salad more delicious.

I would make this again. And, since I am up to my elbows in squash, I probably will.

Farm Share Week 3: The To-Be-Cooked List

As I write this I am eating a salad of spinach and carrots from my farm share and tomatoes, red beans, croutons, and red onion from other various sources. (Would be more delicious but I ran out of Goddess Dressing.) I still haven't finished everything I got in my first farm share week, and I'm getting Week 3's tomorrow, so I have a lot of eating to do. Also at work I have some leftover cabbage & apples I made, and the delicious butternut squash/chickpea salad I made yesterday (which I'll hopefully blog about later.)

So I need to take a moment this lunch hour to figure out what I will be doing with Week 3 Farm Share.

The first rule of the week is NO OUTSIDE EATING. Meaning, everything I eat this week has to be made by myself.

I would like to also only eat things that I already have (no grocery shopping) but that will be trickier.

In my farm share this week I will be getting:

* MORE apples (My house currently looks like an apple farm, and I've already cooked all of mine into a pie... but now there will be more.)

* Festival Squash

* Green Cabbage

* White Button Mushrooms

* Beets

I also currently have, in my possession, to-be-used:

* about half a red onion

* half a lemon

* cherry tomatoes

* potatoes (Week 2)

* carrots (Week 1)

* lots of kidney beans

* a loaf of multi-grain bread

* a bit of parsley

I'm also getting eggs, gouda, and GF cake/cookie flour as elected "extras" in my farm share.

I'm done eating my delicious salad and need to get back to work so I should write down my cooking intentions:

1. borscht! using my sister's Russian friend's recipe (and kidney beans!!) will get me through some beets and cabbage (and carrots) - i will either have to buy an onion or it will be low on onion, which i don't think is so ridiculously bad... i'll just use more garlic.

http://tortinafavola.blogspot.com/2010/08/recipes.html

2. baby quiche - i hate eggs but they make a fantastic breakfast - this version gets doused in hot sauce. will use mushrooms and potatoes, and flavor with garlic and gouda. and leave room for hot sauce.

3. SQUASH... I look forward to Squash: Week 3 - i'm imagining the possibilities...

4. (? - i don't have salad to put it on) goddess dressing - while i have lemon juice and parsley. i've never attempted to replicate the recipe but i read a blog or three about it today.

4. russian cabbage and tomatoes, a bittman recipe i stumbled across. it has caraway seed so it has to be good.

5. beets glazed in orange - i shouldn't have bought so many beets. i just didn't know when i'd be getting more... and i think i'm getting more week 4, but(!) i love beets!

for now, i'm ignoring the apples. maybe they will disappear magically. or i can just take them to work and keep feeding them to my co-workers. and if i ignore the apples, than i have plans for SO MUCH of my farm share that i might actually get back on track and be able to once in awhile "splurge" on a purchased lunch because i don't have enough food to keep myself going... ok, well, a girl can dream

grocery list:

can of tomato paste (borscht)

can of diced tomatoes (cabbage)

oranges (for the other beets)

dill if it's cheap or maybe another herb but i already have parsley (borscht)

an onion? (borscht?)

sour cream ! borscht

gluten-free soy-free vegan carrot cake cupcakes

i modified a recipe, i guessed at lots of ingredient choices - and even the amount of liquid i used generally, but this is kind of what I think I made:

1 c grated carrots

3/4 c bob's gluten-free flour

1/4 t baking powder

3/4 t baking soda

1/4 t salt

1/4-1/3 c currants

1/4-1/3 c almonds

2/3 c sugar

2 T ground flax seed stirred into about 1/3 c of water

1/3 of vegetable oil

baked at 350 for about 25 minutes.

i'd never baked GF before (my new roommate is GF) and I must say these were more delicious than I expected - I think I used too much sugar, and they developed a nice sugary crust at the top. Yum.

breakfast

I think that eggs are gross. Where they come from? Gross. Plus, they taste horrible.

Unfortunately, my body disagrees with me. My body loves eggs! I rarely eat breakfast but when I do, eggs are the breakfast my body responds best to - I feel full, I feel centered - it's great.

A year ago, in preparation for a 12-14 hour day work schedule that would last a couple of weeks (with shorter Sundays) I made myself some baby quiches in a muffin tin that were delightful. I mean, even with delicious cheese (I think I used gruyere) and delicious vegetables (broccoli? or asparagus?) they still needed oodles of hot sauce for me to enjoy them because they had that egg taste, but they got me through some very long hard mornings.

In any case, a few months later I was looking for the recipe and I could not find it anywhere. I wanted to adjust it a bit, see if I could go egg white only, etc. I tried checking my internet history and I looked through . Then yesterday I found a handprinted recipe in my office at work, on the backside of a piece of paper I'd written a playlist on while doodling my senior year of college (it was 4/1/03). I've included both in this post.

RECIPE:

1 bunch asparagus

1/2 T oil

8 eggs

1 c frozen peas

1/4 c flour

2 T fresh mint

1/2 c cheese

1 t salt, pepper

cooking spray

there is no description, just a grocery list.

the playlist:

April first (spring!!!)

neutral

mr. e

crows

last summer

U2 beauti

brad & suzy (or la)

island

say it ain't so

rilo - frug

america - bree sharp

brenda ... ?? mp3 sunray?

free to go folk implosion

this ain't livin - (g.

cold beverage!!

brass monkey - beastie

girls. beastie

rufus - april fools

circles - soul

aimee mann -

ani - little plastic castles

m doughty - never gonna

ben lee - cigarettes will kill you

Fall Farm Share = Squash

I just sent my sister an e-mail telling her about all the things I made/am making/ am thiniking of making with my new farm share (fall farm shares are tricky, i think, but worth it) and I know what her response is going to be - "Alisa, instead of e-mailing me this, you should be blogging about it." And so I'm beating her to the punch.

When you order a fall farm share, you know that you will be getting squash every week. So I really, I brought this upon myself.... but still I will now say it... I hate squash.

Last week I got an Acorn. I already had a huge Acorn squash that had been taunting me for weeks, so I peeled them both and cut them up. I cooked a red onion in some olive oil and then added the squash and a TON of curry powder (to mask the squash flavor) and added some water and a can of coconut milk and I must say, this soup is pretty delicious. When the squash was cooked i blended a bit with my hand blender but then i realized that wasn't good enough so blended the whole thing in small batches.

And I confess... it was delicious. I can even make squash tasty.

Now on to the Butternut I got this week... crap, I hate squash. But if I get creative in my spices, I think I can make this the Fall of Squash Soups.