Thursday, March 13, 2008

CSA goodies!

(Updated--and bumped--with pictures!)

Yes, it's that time of the week again! As you might have spotted, there wasn't a post last week, not because I forgot, but because I was out of town defending, so my parents got my box.

But this week the CSA goodies are back and as exciting as ever! In this week's box:

- Baby carrots (1 bunch--they really are baby, and there really are a bunch)
- Leeks (4)
- Lacinato kale (1 bunch)
- Beets (3, with greens)
- Red chard (1 bunch)
- Baby lettuce greens (enough to fill my salad spinner)
- Treviso (1 head)
- Yukon Gold potatoes (1.5 lbs)
- Minneola tangelos (8)
- d'Anjou pears (4)
- Cameo apples (6)

I DID take pictures, but I'm having technical difficulties getting them from the camera to the laptop, and today is way too frazzled for resolving technical difficulties. Tomorrow I hope to be able to post the pics.

Now with pictures! In this one: beets (toward the back), tangelos (four of the eight), kale (top center), and baby lettuce (about half of the total)


More goodies: chard, potatoes, leeks, and carrots!


And almost all the goodies, veggies wedged into a basket and the fruit tumbled into a bowl:


As for what I'm going to do with it all, I have plans for almost everything. Tonight I used the chard in a chickpea dish that was delicious and oh-so-healthy. Tomorrow I'll have some of the lettuce in my salad at lunch, and for dinner I'll use the kale in a sesame-ginger stir-fry with soba noodles. Friday I'm making a leek and potato gratin to go with a salad and roast chicken. The beets will go to my parents, as I'm really not a beet fan. The carrots will probably be for munching, although some might be shared with a certain puppy dog who is currently convalescing after surgery. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with the treviso, but risotto is a possibility. And of course, the fruit will be eaten out of hand (although an apple or two might make it into a dish of baked French toast).

What are you cooking this week?

13 comments:

Brave Sir Robin said...

yum.

Beets are lovely. Roast them until just tender, slice them into salad, or wilt the greens in olive oil and garlic and use that as a bed for the beets.

mmmmmmm

Supersaps said...

Beets are often done poorly, in my opinion, but I second the roasting of the beets.

We made the beet recipe that came with the newsletter this week (with yogurt and pistachios) and it was GREAT as a complement to this bulghur dish that we made; I think it would complement the recipe you have in your most recent post.

Brave Sir Robin said...

I have carrot envy.

:)


That is some amazingly beautiful produce.


Not exactly what my local HEB has to offer.

:(

Brave Sir Robin said...

OMFFSM!!!

Anne - Yesterday's Good Eats was on beets!!!!!!!

Bee said...

Your veg looks gorgeous -- I'm jealous.

We are having roast chicken tonight, too. With roast potatoes (I have mastered the English method) and broccoli probably. Nothing too fancy.

I concur with BSRH -- beets can be very good. I was scared of them until last year, and then a goat's cheese and beet salad turned me around.

What does OMFFSM!!! stand for?

Brave Sir Robin said...

What does OMFFSM!!! stand for?

Well, I don't do OMG (Oh my God!)

And sometimes OMFSM (Oh my Flying Spaghetti Monster) isn't strong enough, so OMFFSM (On my Fucking Flying Spaghetti Monster) is used.

:)

If you are not yet an initiate of his noodley appendage see here.

Anne said...

BSRH - I saw that! Not the show, I saw that the show was on beets. The Suitor had just arrived with a movie, and as much as I adore Alton Brown, The Pink Panther Strikes Again was more what I was in the mood for last night. (I'm sick--again!! WTF?!?)

Bee - roast chicken with potatoes and broccoli is one of my favorite dinners. Especially when the broccoli is either roasted or sauteed with pancetta, garlic, and crushed red pepper (and maybe pine nuts). Yum.

What is the English method for roasting potatoes? The best way I've found so far, if I'm looking for something really comforting, is this: peel them and cut them into 2-3" pieces, parboil them with a lemon for about 10 minutes, drain, shake around in the colander to roughen up the edges, and then dump into the chicken pot when the chicken is about 40 minutes away from being done. The potatoes get coated in all kinds of chickeny goodness, and brown a bit... just lovely!

Bee said...

I'm glad that I checked back here because there is just all kinds of stuff going on.

First of all, I reread your post and paid better attention to the word "defending" this time. Have you been defending a dissertation? What is your specific area of science? Which Uni are you at? My first love, Scott Lokey, is a chem prof somewhere in California -- can't quite remember where.

Thank you for filling me in on the OMFFSM acronym. Will look up history of this interesting bit of verbiage.

Please do elaborate on what you mean by crushed red peppers. Oh -- and pine nuts, like bacon, will enhance most savory things. IMB (in my book)

My roast potato method is similar: but I parboil for only about 7 minutes; then after I rough up the potatoes I add a bit of semolina (just in the general roughing-up process); then I roast in pan with canola oil which is already hot when you put the potatoes in. I use goose fat for special holidays, but my husband is diabetic so we watch the saturated fats. It gives a light and crispy potato -- probably not as flavorsome as cooking with the chicken -- but then you pour gravy over the top of the whole in England.

Bee said...

I just checked out the new religion worshiping spaghetti. My husband's father is (was) Italian, and pasta is worshiped in our house several times a week.

BTW, my friend Jenine (she often comments on my site) actually lives in Kansas. (After 10 years in California!) She shared some favorite bumper stickers with me just yesterday.

What's next? Gravity?
I (heart) Evolution!

Anne said...

I just defended my master's thesis. Rice's physics department is a little weird among physics departments in that they require a master's defense and oral candidacy exam in lieu of a written qualification exam. So now I'm done with that part and move on to the PhD (which will probably take another couple of years). My specific area is solar physics, and I work on 3D simulations of magnetic fields in the solar atmosphere. It's mostly writing computer code, but in a couple of weeks I'll start applying it to some recent observational data from this mission.

By "crushed red pepper" I mean the red pepper flakes you get from crushing up dried red chile peppers. I don't know about in England, but in the states it's found in the spice section of the grocery store. It looks like this. I love to add it to food to give it a bit of a kick: pasta sauce, roasted broccoli, and so on.

Your (English) potato roasting method sounds excellent. I'll have to try them that way!

Bee said...

Anne,

Here's a funny little thing that we share: I, too, have a Master's from Rice. Mine is in English Lit. I will not even try to understand about what you are studying -- but I will admire it, deeply. I can't even remember how to get the HTML tags to work! (I am such a computer idiot that I give big thanks for Blogger templates.)

I had to defend my thesis when I was 7 months pregant. Nice!
That same pregnancy, plus our move to England, kept me from getting the PhD I was supposed to be working on. But who I am kidding? I'm not too sure that I was actually that driven. While I love reading more than anything, there is always a downside to turning your hobby into your profession.

Thanks for the red pepper update; that is what I thought that you meant, but then I was worried that you meant FRESH red pepper.

Last night my family actually discussed the roast potato method at the dinner table. We all agreed that my method gives a crispier, lighter potato. Most people in the UK use your method, though. We saw some nasty potatoes on Xmas night; they had been sitting in turkey fat all day long. They were waxy and gross. It was a little scarring, actually. I get the semolina thing from Nigella. I'm really glad that you are also a fan. I appreciate that she is such a loose, generous cook; always encouraging us to alter recipes to suit our own tastes.

Anne said...

What a small world! I don't envy your having defended while 7 months pregnant, but I do admire it! And I whole-heartedly agree about the hobby v. profession distinction. It's why I will (almost certainly) never be a professional chef--or linguist.

Do you have a preferred variety for your roast potatoes? I tend to use Yukon Gold potatoes for most things (except baking, for which I use Russets), but there are so many other delicious varieties out there. I learned yesterday that there are actually thousands of different kinds of potatoes. Amazing!

Bee said...

You know, potatoes are just a whole topic unto themselves. We do not get russet or yukon gold over here. Baked potatoes have been one of my favorite default meals since I was a child and I still miss the texture of a russet skin.

Maris Piper and King Edward are probably the most popular varieties for roasting/chipping. There were about 10 varieties in my (smallish) Waitrose -- I made sure to check when I made a flying visit there this afternoon. Unfortunately, some of them had names like "white" or "baking" -- not too helpful for this discussion.

In the spring, (they will be coming soon), we get the most delicious new potatoes here. They are unlike anything that I've ever had in the U.S. You just boil them until slightly soft, and then toss them in butter, fresh mint, and coarse salt and pepper.

Gosh -- I didn't realize that there THOUSANDS of varieties. I will keep my eyes peeled for unusual ones to share with you.