Fudge

Making 60# of fudge requires a lot of ingredients.

Homemade Falafel

Delicately crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside, it wasn't quite what he was going for. The white bean yogurt sauce was good though, and so were the fried chickpeas.

Making pasta for the first time

Thank you, Mom. Great xmas present!

Making red cabbage

Blackberry ice cream

It's better without seeds. Trust me.

Kale and Kohl Rabi Salad

When I picked up our first week of veggies the CSA folks had very thoughtfully provided prints of a couple recipes, so it was really easy to come home and make something immediately. The provided recipe was this one from Epicurious which we modified for available ingredients and efficiency, as always.
 

Ingredients
 

2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 bunch kale, stems and center ribs discarded, then finely chopped
2 kohlrabi bulbs, peeled and finely sliced
4 Japanese kumquats, finely sliced
1-2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/3 cup salted roasted pistachios, chopped
4 button mushrooms, sliced
 

Preparation
 

Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Sauté garlic until pale golden, about 30 seconds. Add kale; when wilted sauté with 1/2 teaspoon salt until just tender, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a bowl to cool. When room temperature stir in remaining ingredients plus 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Serve.
 

(Might be good with some chili flakes or other spicey addition.)

The CSA Boxes- Where is it all going?

Almost 2 month in, and it's been interesting to see how the stuff from the CSA boxes has been used. We're both from "nothing wasted" types of families, and we've done fairly well, I think, in trying to use or preserve everything. We've also tried a lot of new recipes, many of which were okay but nothing to get excited about. So what have we been doing with stuff?

Things like lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, peas, and strawberries don't require much in the way of preparation and have so been eaten fairly quickly. Tomatoes are something we've really looked forward to, and so those in particular are eaten at the earliest opportunity in sandwiches and caprese salad.

Scallions and onions are such general use things that they make their way into many other dishes; great pantry fodder. Carrots have been the same, but we're reaching such a volume that I think it's time to make some honey roasted carrots, maybe with some garam masala. Garlic scapes have been adopted into this category; I cut them into 1/4" pieces and froze them so we could use them in place of garlic for months to come.

Herbs have been all over the place. I don't like dill, but Clay used some for a while. The rest became inedible. Parsley has gone into a number of things including pesto with some of the mint. Mint also went into a jelly/syrup. The basil was already turning dark when we got it, and after being rushed into caprese and regular salad the remainder was composted.

Members of the cabbage family have been interesting. Broccoli is easy because we've had it all our lives. Kohlrabi was unusual to clean, tastes like broccoli stems, and ended up raw in salads. I think the first bok choy was used in noodle bowls, and we may do the same with the next round. Napa went into egg rolls and a salad, but we still have almost half of the 4# napa head we got week 3.

Dark, generally bitter, leafy greens are not a huge part of our regular diet, but judging by the sheer volume I'm guessing they are for the sort of people who normally get farmshares. I'm running out of ways to make these things edible. After initially trying collards, kale, chard, and dandelion greens straight we have resorting to hiding them in other dishes that are less healthy but more palettable. If you think you can put spinach in it, one of these will work. We've put dandelion greens into sandwiches, chard into lasagne (2.5 weeks worth of it, all at once) and a chile chickpea soup, and kale into a stuffed pizza (healthier than it sounds) and cavatini. I actully just washed, chopped, and froze the last 2 bunches of kale so we could use them later and may do the same with the last bunch of chard.

We've actually frozen a lot of stuff- ingredients, partial components, and entire meals. We may be inundated now, but we'll be eating off the farmshare long after the season is over.

In some ways it's been kind of a stress trying to use things: using stuff before it goes bad, not having enough time to really process or cook a lot of stuff when we want or when it's ideal for the produce, knowing the next box full of stuff is looming X days in the future. I can see why people would choose to split a box with another couple or small family, but live and learn. Regardless, these are very first world problems to have and a lot better than the alternative.

Swiss Chard and Chickpea Curry

The original recipe is here. We made a few modifications because our goal was to use stuff in the fridge and pantry. We may have tweaked the recipe more, but honestly it's been so long that we don't really remember how...

Ingredients:
1-14 oz can chickpeas
1 medium onion, chopped
1 bunch swiss chard
1-14 oz can diced tomatoes
Garlic ginger paste (I didn't add it, so no idea how much.)
1 tsp yellow curry powder
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp ground cumin
Salt, to taste
1/2 tsp olive oil

Directions:
1. Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add chopped onions, tumeric, coriander, curry, and stir fry on medium heat for 1-2 minutes, periodically stirring.
2. Add diced tomatoes and juice, kale, and chickpeas and juice and cover with a lid. Cook 3-5 minutes.
3. Add garlic ginger paste.
4. Serve by it self or as a side dish.

Apple Mint and Jalepeno Syrups

So I went to Ace yesterday to get more canning jars because they are apparently the only brick and mortar stores left on earth with a decent canning section. The trouble is, they have a decent canning section. So I came home with a copy of the Ball Blue Book and ambitions to see what else I could use up out of the fridge.

 

It was all downhill from there. The mint jelly I was trying to make tastes more like apple and less like mint than I'd like, and the jalepeno jelly started with the lesson that our blender turns peppers and apple cider vinegar into foam instead of puree. I know I followed the first recipe correctly and messed up on the liquid-to-powder substitution of the second; neither one set. I even opened them, cooked in more pectin, and recanned. Not much better. They taste good though, especially the sweet-and-sour flavor of the jalepeno stuff. I think they'll be good on pancakes, so I'm can't imagine they'll be wasted. I'm just going to call them syrups because it's all about marketing.

 

Taking a photo didn't go too well either, but trust me, they look pretty cool in person. Both of these jellies usually receive green food coloring, especially if made commercially, so you might be surprised to know that this is what mint and jalepeno jellies syrups, respectively, look like naturally.

 

Wild Blackberry Jam

 What does one do when one has pounds of highly perishable wild blackberries that need to be used? I can think of a few things. Personally, I'm a big fan of jam and so decided to give canning a shot.

I used this recipe by MizzNezz because of the large number of high ratings, and after doing some reading about lower sugar canning and discovering that pectin does not come in packets around here, this is what I used:

 

5 c. crushed blackberries (almost 50 oz. of loose berries to get that)

7c. 6c. sugar

1 packet 3 Tbsp. low-sugar powdered pectin

 

I wanted a mixture of jar sizes, so I ended up with (5) 8 oz jars, (7) 4 oz jars, and maybe 1-2 oz of leftover in a jar in the fridge. That means the equivalent of (8.5) 8 oz jars instead of the 7 the the recipe told me to expect. Thank goodness I planned for extra jars.

 

 

Of couse we sampled a little bit of the leftover, and there will be some tweaking next time. Wild berries have a lot of seeds, straining blackberry jam results in jam on the ceiling (family story there), so we need to figure out how to deal with the former without producing the latter. We aren't big fans of really sweet stuff, so I'll probably try 5 cups of sugar next time instead of the 6 cups. Overall it went well, set up nicely, etc. We plan to make more in the next day or two.

Wild Blackberries

 

We were lucky enough to discover that we have wild blackberries in the back yard. We let them grow wherever they wanted this year, and it's kind of payed off. When Clay brought in the first handful of berries I didn't think much of it; in the face of birds and such we've never had good luck with getting a share of our fruit. But a few days later it occured to me to check on them, and after filling the first tub I had to go in and get another. This photo is what I brought in the first day, and since I'm very curious about what the total yield will be I've been weighing each batch since. I've found that to balance the time it takes to comb through looking for berries (and amount of wounds from thorns) with the amount of berries received for that time, it's optimal to go out every 2-3 days. This week was been crazy so the last pick was 4 days, and that's definately too long because significantly more berries past their prime and/or fermenting in place.

 

So this is what we've gotten:

Day 1: 24 oz

Day 2: 10 oz

Day 3: 4 oz (apparently not a lot of berries ripen on rainier, overcast days)

Day 4: 10.95 oz

Day 7: 30.4 oz

Day 11: 35.4 oz

 

Total: 114.75 oz, or a little over 7#

 

Considering what that would cost to buy somewhere I feel very lucky indeed.

 

 

Another Misguided Egg Roll Recipe

You may or may not be familiar with the original Somewhat Misguided Egg Roll Recipe (his, which makes for pretty good dumplings), but regardless I've made another version. I wanted to use up napa from the CSA basket, so I did some research and decided to try this recipe. After looking over the comments and adjusting for stuff I wanted to use up from the fridge and freezer I ended up with something like this (marked out stuff is what I did, with what to do in the future next to it):

Stirfry over high heat until fragrant, 30 seconds:

4 tablespoons vegetable oil 

4-inch grated fresh ginger
8 cloves garlic, finely chopped

 

Add and stirfry for 2 minutes:

9 scallions, sliced thinly
4 carrot, cut into 1-inch julienne strips
1 small red pepper, cut into 1-inch julienne strips

 

Add, bring to boil, and simmer 5 minutes, until veggies are soft:

10 cups 8 cups Napa cabbage, shredded
1 cup 2 cups shrimp stock

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup sugar

2 little bags of salad shrimp

 

Add, then rest 15 minutes and strain if too wet:
1/4 cup sesame oil

some chopped cashews

 

Fill with 1/3ish cup of filling, roll, and fry until golden brown:
20 wonton wrappers covered loosely with a damp paper towel to prevent drying
little bowl of water for sealing edges

The flavor was good, but since I A) inadvertently added too much liquid, and B) then tried to cook it off, the filling was rather soft. We think we'll try it again with the correct cooking time and see how that batch turns out. In terms of other feedback: This quadruple batch only made 16 reasonably sized egg rolls, so I can only assume that the original recipe used dumpling/wonton wrappers instead of actual egg roll wrappers. It could stand to have more cabbage, so I'd probably do something like 10 cups minimum.

We also need to learn to make sweet and sour sauce. We've tried a few versions now, and this latest one tasted like sweet and sour ketchup...

Vietnamese-Style Pickled Spring Turnips and Carrots

I wanted to do a light pickle on some of the turnips, and I found this recipe for what are essentially refrigerator pickles. The batch I made was 2# turnips, 1# carrots, and a 3/4 batch of the pickling solution. We also had some cabbage hearts in the fridge so I prepared them the same way and put them in some leftover liquid. We'll see how they turn out.

Bringing home the bacon

Well, not really. More like bringing home the pork belly, salt, sugar, maple syrup, and various spices & herbs.

A while back, I purchased a whole hog, and, as many of you know, hogs have bellies, and bellies have a magical habit of turning in to bacon.

I pulled the belly out of the freezer earlier in the week, let it thaw, and then cut it into quarters. Each quarter received its own special cure, all based on the Charcuterie recipe (since you-know-who got that particular book for me a while back). The recipe is in a 8:4:1 ratio- Salt, sugar, pink salt. I did everything by weight and used kosher salt, Japanese brown sugar, and pink salt. According to the book, I'm supposed to use 1/4c of the sugar per 5# of belly, put it in a bag in the fridge and flip it every day for a week.

In my research, I found that most people prefer twice as much cure, so I went closer to that route, as follows:

1. 1/4 cup of the cure, nothing more
2. 1/4 cup of cure, 1/4 cup of maple syrup**
3. 1/4 cup of cure, 1/4 cup of maple syrup, 1tsp of: blk pepper, sze pepper, juniper berries
4. 1/4 cup of cure, 1tsp of: paprika, granulated garlic, minced onion, pink peppercorn, cumin

** There was a bit of a disaster with this particular guy.

I put each of the 2.5# pieces of belly in to a vacuum bag and used my handy-dandy food saver to pull a vacuum on each (I thought it might help the cure penetrate the meat, plus it's geeky). Now, the first one went off without a hitch. It was wonderful. The second, however, took advantage of my lowered defenses. I basically did the same thing that I did for the first, but wanted to clean the outside so I didn't have to worry about contamination. Well, during that process, the stream of water entered the partially-unsealed top of the bag and diluted the cure in side. Sadness. I ended up mixing up another batch of cure, 1/2 cup this time, drained the water, added the cure and more maple syrup. We'll see how that works.

The plan is to flip the bellies once a day for the next week, then evaluate the firmness of the belly and go from there. I plan on letting them cure for 7-14 days and then rinsing the bellies and soaking them for 30-60 minutes, placing them on a rack, and letting it dry in the fridge for 1-2 days to form a nice pellicle. Finally, I'm going to smoke the bellies to an internal temperature of 150.

I have high hopes.

Tomatoes!

Technically we've had a small Chocolate Stripe and an unfortunate incident that's about to become a fried green tomato, but I think this is the first real harvest. From left to right these cherry tomatoes are: Gardener's Delight, Blondkopfchen, and something incorrectly labeled as Marvel Stripe that may actually be Stupice. There are more green on the vine and lots of flowers, so we look forward to trying everything else in the coming months.

Girl Scout Cookie Recipes

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/voracious/2011/01/make_girl_scout_cookies_at_home.php

So, who wants to try making some girl scout cookies?

Saurkraut - Day 0

The inaugural run of saurkraut has been started. Once we got through all the sanitizing procedures it was even kind of fun.

Because we can't do anything new at a reasonable scale we began with 4 heads of cabbage totaling 17.52 pounds, and after removing the outer leaves and core it was probably down 2 or 3 pounds. This was shredded (thank goodness for salad shooters) and liberally mixed with kosher salt, about 13-15 tablespoons we think.
We didn't think to photograph the cabbage heads at the beginning, but here's everything shredded and salted and packed into the crock. It takes up less space than we expected, but honestly it's still more than we know what to do with. Planning ahead ftw.
And here is Shade beside the 6 gallon-ish crock for scale. This was before he decided that cabbage was not made of pork or cheese and therefore beneath his notice.

The cabbage is now weighted down with a plate and a gallon ziplock containing salt water; by tomorrow night it should have released enough water to submerge itself in brine. The crock has been lidded and placed under Banik's desk where the AC register will keep it relatively cool during the pickling process.

My hands smell like cabbage and bleach, and I think it's time for bed.

pancakes

Every year we go through the agonizing cycle of "What to get Kris for Xmas." I don't particularly want anything, I say not to get my anything or to make a donation somewhere, and then I get things that I have to figure out how to give away.

Now, if you can figure out what makes that stormtrooper pancake, however, that would be a good gift. I'd keep it forever. Not that Darth Vader pancake, mind you; that one is ugly and only there for the novelty of it. Just the stormtrooper one. Please.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

So I was reading Popular Science and read about a website called shop4freebies, and since many of the best things in life are free I was obligated to go look at this website. Aside from "yes, I would love for you to send me a free sample" type things they also have recipe books that you can download or ask to have mailed to you for free. One booklet I skimmed was for Sun-maid raisin recipes, and that resulted in:

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (24)

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix in a small bowl:
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Mix in a large bowl:
1 c. brown sugar
6 Tbsp. nonfat vanilla yogurt
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla

Add the dry mix to the wet and stir until well combined.

Stir in:
1 1/3 c. uncooked rolled oats
1 c. raisins

Drop rounded spoonfuls of dough onto a cookie sheet about 1.5" apart. You should get about 24 cookies. *

Bake 11-13 minutes or until lightly browned. **

Immediately remove with a spatula and transfer to a cooking rack or plate. If you wait they will be harder to get off of the tray. ***

_____

* I used 2 half sheet pans with a 3x4 layout, and the amount of cookie dough worked out perfectly for 24 cookies.

** Doneness is admittedly hard to determine since the brown sugar and wheat flour make the cookies so dark. I look for the cookies to be matte instead of glossy on top and for resiliance when I poke them.

*** To make your life easier you could lightly grease the sheet with butter to make the cookies easier to remove. You could also use a silpat that you can just lift off and move to the counter, the cookies will easily peel off once cooled and set.
______
Feedback: As a first attempt these are quite tasty. I think they have good flavor and texture. Banik finds the cookies to be a bit too sweet. Since we tend to like less sweet foods I may try using half brown and half white sugar next time to see if that helps. They must be decent though- he's already eaten 4 of them.

Tomato, Basil, & Mozzarella Salad

Happiness is an heirloom tomato from the farmers market, mozzarrella from Stew Leonard's, basil picked from my own plants, and some basalmic vinegar.
For those who prefer it, some salt and good olive oil would also be nice.

Next year I'm hoping the tomatoes will be from the garden, too.