CSA Week 8 – Carrots, Carrots & More Carrots

With two weeks of carrots still in the crisper, I was a little dismayed to hear we were getting ANOTHER big bunch.  I also picked up beets, basil, red Russian kale, 2 lbs of potatoes, spring onions, 1.5 lbs summer squash, celery, cucumbers and 5 ears of corn.

At the suggestion of my friend Carmen, I’m letting the bail “root”.  We’ll see what happens there.  Right now it’s making the kitchen smell divine!

The beets and carrots from this week and past weeks have been roasted and I’m making the chipotle dip from 101 Cookbooks for the  “carrot fries” tonight.

Corn, celery, cucumbers and such will go into a delicious corn salad that I can’t wait to munch on!

The kale and spring onions I’m plan to saute and serve with beans and some grain.  Delicious, simple and easy!

The potatoes and summer squash are going to hang around for a bit until I decide what to do with them. Any good summer recipe suggestions for those two ingredients?

CSA Week 7

The drought was finally broken by torrential rains and thunderstorms this past weekend.  Unfortunately it also flooded our basement both at home and at work.  Much of the weekend was spent either moving stuff out of the basement or being away from the apartment since we couldn’t use toilet or shower.  Not much cooking happened and so I was a little worried with this week’s farm share and how I’d finish last week’s food AND deal with this week.

This weeks delivery was beets, carrots, spring onions (yay!), curly kale, romaine lettuce, 2 lbs of potatoes, 2 lbs summer and cousa squash, 1 bunch basil and 1 lb green or wax beans.

Once the delivery was announced (thank you Parker Farm for posting the drop offs!) I went on a search for a quick and easy recipe that would use up a majority of the ingredients from this week and the ones from last week that were still kicking around.  I found this awesome minestrone recipe and will be cobbling it together tonight after teaching.  Perfect and summery, I love the addition of” pistou” or pesto for added flavor!

I plan to use half the curly kale and the rest of the Biera kale from last week in the soup, along with some of the potatoes, carrots, squash, green beans, onions and, of course, the basil.

The other half the kale will become my ALL TIME FAVORITE KALE RECIPE: Kale Chips!  Sooooo good!

If you have a farm share or frequent a farmer’s market, how’s it going?  Has it been a good growing season?  Less than stellar?  What are you looking forward to most this season?  (Me: tomatoes!)

Balance: a state of equilibrium

Balance is also defined as:

• equality between the totals of the credit and debit sides of an account
• proportion: harmonious arrangement or relation of parts or elements within a whole (as in a design); “in all perfectly beautiful objects there is found the opposition of one part to another and a reciprocal balance”- John Ruskin
• equality of distribution
• counterweight: a weight that balances another weight
• poise: hold or carry in equilibrium

CSA Week 6 – Too Hot To Cook

We’re in the middle of a heat wave here in northern New England and temperatures have topped 9o+ for the past four days and in some places, tipped over into 100+.  TOO HOT TO COOK.

Luckily there’s not much in this week’s farm share that needs cooking.  This week I picked up beets, 1 pound fava beans, cilantro,1 pound new potatoes, squash, cabbage, cauliflower, mizuna, carrots, 2 cucumbers and biera kale, which looks a lot like collard greens to me…

I’ve been trying to preserve more than last year to reduce waste so this week will be a lot of pickling!

• The cabbage is going to get sliced and paired with the cucumbers, cauliflower and a store-bought red bell pepper for a pickled slaw.
• The beets will keep until it’s cool enough to roast them and then they too will get pickled.

The squash I’m going to saute (god help me) and pair with a green salad with mizuna and store bought (but grown in Maine!) baby spinach.  I think I might just go whole hog and steam the fava beans too to add to the salad.

I’ve got some carrots left over from last week’s share too so what doesn’t get chopped up for salad use I’m going to make into this yummy raw carrot and sunflower spread from The Front Burner blog.

Not sure yet about the cilantro, potatoes and kale.  Hopefully they’ll keep until the heat breaks!

What are you eating to keep cool when the temperature spikes?

CSA Week 5 – The Bounty Continues

Light years better than last growing season, (though the current 90+ heat wave isn’t being so kind) we got another HUGE delivery last Wednesday.  Excuse the late posting as I was on “vacation” and taking some much needed time away from the computer.  But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of cooking going on.

Here’s what we got:  1 bunch chioggia beets, yellow carrots, BASIL (!!!), broccoli raab, kale, purple kohlrabi, cauliflower, fennel and a pound of summer squash.

With the basil and kale I was inspired to make a big veggie lasagna with a kale-tomato sauce.  Parboiled and then sauteed the raab for a yummy, crunchy, garlicy side.  The lasagna made two BIG pans and we’ve been happily munching on that for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The rest of the basil I blended with some garlic, olive oil and roasted walnuts into a pesto that got portioned and put in the freezer for those cold winter months when you long for some good pesto.

Half the summer squash went into a Sunday breakfast of spicy spring veggie frittata and homemade jam pulled from the freezer.

The kohlrabi, beets and fennel were roasted and then tossed with wheat berries, some thyme and a dash of balsamic vinegar for a nice warm weather salad.  The salad was inspired by the Roasted Fennel & Farro Salad in the July 2010 issue of Eating Well.

The yellow carrots and cauliflower (roasted but still in the fridge in a bowl) are still hanging out.  Not sure what tomorrow’s delivery will bring, but I’ve got my fingers crossed for some good salad greens especially if this hot weather continues through the week!

What are you cooking?  Or not cooking, if it’s too hot to turn the stove on?

What I Read – June 2010

Big time summer reading mojo happening here!  Thanks to a five day vacation in Maine and a four hour round trip train ride, I made a pretty big dent into the ol’ TBR.

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Mary Roach
4-stars
Light-hearted, curious and fascinating, Roach covers the history of sex-research.

The Barbed Rose, Gail Dayton
Compass Rose Trilogy #2
3 stars
The second in the series finds Kallista and her illian separated and fighting demons in the heart of Adara.

*Learning to Love You More, Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher
5 stars
Based on the website which offered tasks for participants that ranged from “take a flash photo of under your bed” to “spend time with a dying person” this book offers the best insight into our basic humanness and willingness to connect with those around us.  If you haven’t read this or checked out the website (http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/), it’s a MUST!

The Glimmer Palace, Beatrice Colin
3 stars
Lily Nelly Aphrodite is the vehicle through which we see the history of early 20th century Germany and German film, from the turn of the century to just after World War II.

Cotillion, Georgette Heyer
3 stars
More a comedy of manners and  mistaken intentions than a true romance, Cotillion is a quick, fun, frilly romp through Regency London.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley
4 stars
10-year old and chemistry whiz (especially with poisons) Flavia de Luce finds a dead man in the cucumber patch.  Finally, something exciting has happened and her life will never be the same!

The Help, Katheryn Stockett
4 stars
Told in three voices, this “moment in time” novel set in 1960s Jackson Mississippi will touch even the hardest of hearts.

Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Stout
3 stars
Read for HBS Bookclub, I was pleasantly surprised by this little novel and it’s well-wrought short stories.

What have you read this summer? Any beach reads you’ve really enjoyed?  Share ‘em!

The Little Things

I was in Meghan R’s yoga class at Prana on Saturday when she used a cue that just about blew my mind.  We were in bridge and she cued us to press down through our big toes.  So simple.  So easy.  And yet it opened up a whole new world in that pose.  I’ve probably done thousands of bridges by now and this tiny little cue refreshed and remade the pose into something I’ve never experienced before.