EatLocal365 » CSA

Cucurbit Risotto

Lindsay — Tue, 19 Aug 2014 00:24:01 +0000

Did you know there’s a name for the veggies overflowing your crisper/garden/CSA box right now? Cucurbitaceae! Zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers, melons…we’re kind of drowning in them over here. Well, not melons, so much, and our little muffin (9 months tomorrow!) devours zucchini and summer squash, so we don’t really have a problem with that, but all the cucumbers are in our refrigerator right now. ALL! So. Many. Cucumbers.

We’ve eaten summer salads for days. I’ve blended them into smoothies. I’ve even baked them into pancakes with questionable success. Pickles? Done. And I don’t even love pickles.

What do I love? Warm smooshy things in bowls that don’t take forever to make. Bonus points if The Muffin likes it. Extra bonus points if he can feed it to himself. Super extra bonus points if leftovers are still tasty. What fits the bill? Cucumber risotto. “EWWWWWWWWWWWWW!”, you say? “Delicious!”, I counter. “EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!”, you still say. Well, everyone’s entitled to her opinion, but this risotto is sweet and subtle and creamy and lavender/green. If you still don’t trust me, substitute zucchini – I have and it’s great.

Apologies (once again) for the phone photos. We’ll figure out this technology thing, I promise!

Cucurbit Risotto

Adapted from Greene on Greens

Serves 4-6 as a main

Amount	Ingredient	Preparation	Notes
4 TBsp	Butter	Divided	Kate’s Homemade Butter
1 medium	Red onion		Farmer Dave’s CSA
2 cloves	Garlic	Minced	Farmer Dave’s CSA
1 cup	Arborio rice
Good pinch or two	Crushed red pepper flakes
About 4	Cucumbers (whatever size you have – use more if they’re tiny or fewer if they’re gigantic)	Peeled, seeded, and diced	Farmer Dave’s CSA
3 cups	Chicken stock		Homemade
To taste	Salt and pepper
Small handful	Fresh, soft herbs	Such as dill, basil, parsley, and fennel fronds	Chopped

Directions

Heat the chicken stock (on the stove or in the microwave). Prep your veggies. You don’t have to be too fussy with seeding and peeling the cucumbers. I think it’s easiest to seed cucumbers by cutting them in half the long way and scooping out the seedy middle with a spoon. (See picture above)

In a heavy skillet, melt half the butter (1 TBsp) over medium-low heat. Add the red onion and sweat (cook slowly without browning) for 2 minutes; add the garlic and cook for another minute.

Thoroughly stir the rice into the onion mixture, so that each grain is coated with butter.

Add the cucumbers and crushed red pepper flakes. Stir well, then use your spoon to smooth and level the rice mixture in the pan.

Gently pour a generous 1 cup of hot stock evenly over the rice mixture. Don’t stir. Just let the rice absorb the liquid, which should take about 15 minutes.

When all the liquid has been absorbed, stir and repeat with another generous cup of stock. Reduce the heat if the last batch was absorbed in less than 15 minutes.

Stir in the last 1/2 cup or so of stock. Keep your eye on the risotto this time. It’s done when the rice is tender, but not mushy. If it’s the right consistency, but there’s still liquid in the pan, raise the heat to boil it off. If the rice isn’t ready when all the liquid is gone, add a little hot water and keep cooking.

When the rice is perfect, stir in the remaining butter (1 TBsp) and salt, pepper, and herbs to taste.

How to Make Ratatouille: The Late Summer CSA Leftover Disposal

Erik — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 14:08:29 +0000

We’ve posted before about how a frittata is our go-to dish for getting vegetables out of the refrigerator. In the late summer we have a second play out of that same playbook to use up vegetables that, quite frankly, aren’t our favorites.

I’m talking about eggplants, summer squash, and those bitter purple peppers. We have good recipes for all of them (maybe not the purple peppers), but sometimes out CSA just drops too many on us at one time, and by the end of the week the squash are getting rubbery and the eggplant feels leathery… you get the picture. Take a look at the picture about to see all that this recipe used up!

This ratatouille uses them up in quantity and although it doesn’t look like much that you’d be dying to eat (I asked Lindsay “are you sure you want me to take pictures?”), it’s actually pretty delicious and incredibly healthy to boot. Did I mention that it’s also easy?

There are a million variations on ratatouille, since it’s a common peasant stew that everybody’s mother makes in France. This one is very stew-like, and because the veggies are cut in thin strips, they take on a noodly quality. Other variations call for cubes, etc. Use your imagination. You can also control how watery you make it by adding fewer or more tomatoes. They provide most of the juice.

Rataouille

Makes 4 servings as a main or more as as side

Amount	Ingredient	Preparation	Notes
1 clove	Garlic	Crushed into a paste	Red Fire Farm CSA
1	Onion	Diced or minced (your call for texture)	Red Fire Farm CSA
1 TBsp / 1 Sprig	Fresh thyme	We were out or thyme, so we used fresh Oregano (any aromatic herb will do)	Red Fire Farm CSA
1	Eggplant	Sliced thin	Red Fire Farm CSA
1-2	Summery squash or zucchini	Sliced thin	Red Fire Farm CSA
2-3	Peppers	Sliced thin (no seeds), whatever color you have	Red Fire Farm CSA
3-6	Tomatoes	Cut into chunks (~eighths)	Red Fire Farm CSA
3 TBsp	Olive oil
1 pinch	Sugar
To taste	Kosher Salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Mash the garlic into a paste if you like (it distributes better throughout the dish), or just mince it. I used a mortar and pestle so that I didn’t have to clean the food processor for a single clove. Chop the onion and slice the eggplant. For this dish we don’t peel anything in order to make it as easy as possible.
Heat 2 TBsp of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, and thyme. Once the onions are translucent, add the eggplant and cook for about 5-8 minutes until the eggplant has thoroughly changed color.
As the eggplant cooks in the pan, start slicing the rest of the vegetables. It’s OK if you have to turn off the burner and let the eggplant sit for a bit; it will be cooked more. I you like it watery, add more tomatoes. If you want it dryer, add fewer.
Add everything to a large roasting pan and mix around with 1 TBsp of olive oil. We usually use a big Pyrex (pictured), but it’s probably best to use something ceramic because at the end it needs to go under the broiler and Pyrex is not rated for that and could fracture. We always forge tab out the broiler with this one until it’s already almost done. Don’t be like us!
Cover the roasting pan with tented tin foil or a sheet of parchment paper. Try to prevent it from sitting directly on the vegetables. Bake for 1 hour.
Remove it from the oven. Turn on the broiler (to high, if your oven has the option). Remove the foil / parchment paper. Add the pinch of sugar and salt to your tasting. Stir thoroughly. Place it directly under the broiler, uncovered, for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, check to see if the top is starting to singe. If so, you’re done. If not, put it back for 2 minutes at a time until the top is as caramelized as you can get it without burning.

Getting Creative with Cucumbers

Lindsay — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 12:20:08 +0000

Hi folks! I am so happy that our heat wave has finally broken. It has been miserable here! Given the weather (and my pregnancy…have we mentioned that?), I’ve been eating a LOT of ice cream. A LOT of ice cream. But not nearly enough to make me sick of it, unfortunately. In an attempt to avoid strange ingredients and unnatural dyes (green mint chocolate chip, anyone?), I’ve been making a lot of it at home. It’s really not all that difficult, but it does take a little planning if you’re planning to use eggs, since they have to be cooked and then cooled. I’ve been making a basic base and then adding whatever looks good at the farmer’s market or bits we’ve got hanging around in the pantry.

The most recent batch, cucumber, sounds wacky, but really works, in my humble (and admittedly possibly skewed) opinion, was inspired by two events. First, a fantastic dinner we had with some friends in Paris last month that was capped off by a sort of sundae with cucumber ice cream, strawberries, and crumbled meringue. We were all a little hesitant at first, but the combo really worked. Second, a crisper full of cucumbers on Wednesday night, less than 24 hours before our weekly CSA pick up. With refrigerator space at a premium, they had to go. I think it’s delicious just as it is, but Erik prefers some accoutrements so he can forget he’s eating vegetable ice cream. Either way, it’s not terribly difficult and it’s something different to try at least once!

I’m really sorry for the equipment heavy recipe this time. If you don’t have a juicer, you could just blend or food process the cucumbers. Either use the mush directly in the ice cream or strain it either through a fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth. I don’t have a tried and true method for freezing the ice cream without a machine, but I’ve seen a couple of methods on the internet, so it’s worth a try. Alternately, I think you could use the base in ice pop molds, perhaps with a few chopped up strawberries.

I didn’t take any pictures of the process, because I thought it was a weird pregnancy thing and wouldn’t be worth posting. Here’s a bad cell phone photo of of the ice cream with a tasty piece of blueberry walnut cake. Mmmmmm!

Cucumber Ice Cream

Makes about 1 1/2 quarts
Note: Ice cream base needs to chill overnight (or 8 hours).

Amount	Ingredient	Preparation	Notes
2 cups	Whole milk		Shaw Farm
1 cup	Cream		Shaw Farm
4	Egg yolks		Red Fire Farm
1/2 cup	Sugar
Pinch	Salt
1 cup	Cucumber juice	See intro for alternatives	Red Fire Farm
Juice of 1	Lemon	About 3 TBsp

Directions

Pour the milk and cream into a small saucepan and heat over medium until it starts to steam and tiny bubbles appear on the edges.

While the milk and cream are heating, give the yolks, sugar, and salt a good whisking until they’re lighter yellow.

Once the milk and cream are warm, SLOWLY pour about a cup into the yolk mixture, while whisking. This will warm up the yolks without scrambling them. After that portion of warm milk has been thoroughly incorporated, dump the lot back into the pan and whisk it up.

Heat the milk and yolks over low heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. This will take somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. Make sure to scrape into the corners to avoid burning.

While the base is thickening, get out two large bowls and a fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth. Fill one bowl with ice and set the second inside it.

Once the mixture has thickened, pour it through the sieve or cheesecloth into the second bowl. Straining the base will remove any scrambled bits of egg. Letting it sit over a bowl of ice water will help cool it down faster, so that you can get it into the refrigerator. Stir the mixture every once in a while until it is room temperature. Chill in the refrigerator overnight.

After its overnight chill down, add the cucumber and lemon juice to the base and freeze according to the directions for your machine. Eat as is or top with strawberries and crumbled meringue cookies.

A Busy Day Working with and Against Microbes

Erik — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 18:48:35 +0000

Lindsay and I had a busy day. But we had a lot of help in the form of pressurized steam, yeast, and lactobacillus bacteria.

We’re leaving for Florida early this week and received a shocking amount of food from our CSA, considering it’s still the winter season and it was the second-to-last pickup. Four pounds of onions, four pounds of beets and radishes, five pounds of apples… you get the picture. We’ve certainly gotten our money’s worth this year! But with all this food on top of what we already had, we needed to prep some for storage.

To deal with the four pounds of fingerling potatoes (which we already had a bunch of), Lindsay used our pressure canner for the first time:

Regular water-bath canning limits you to recipes that are acidic or briny enough to kill off botulism. 212-degree boiling water will kill off everything else, but botulism can survive (see our rules of canning, which we will need to update to include a guide to pressure canning). Pressure canning uses pressure to get the temperature high enough to kill absolutely everything, which means that you can do absolutely anything you wants.

And it’s a two-fee: it cooks at the same time it preserves. In six months, if we want to make potato salad, we can just reach for one of these jars. Lindsay will have to write-up the process of pressure canning. Even though it was perfectly easy and safe, the first time is still scary and intimidating, even for someone comfortable with canning. Just look at this steampunk contraption:

Second, to deal with the two heads of cabbage we weren’t going to eat, Lindsay made (actually, is still in the process of making) sauerkraut. Our CSA this year has given us a lot of cabbage (both red and green), and we’ve found that we waste a lot less of it by taking an hour to make one large batch of kraut which will supply 5-10 quick dinners down the line. We even decided to invest in a ceramic fermenting crock that has a water moat to allow it to “burp” while fermenting while still enduring that no nasty microbes can get in:

Finally, speaking of fermenting, I made a batch of beer this weekend. I plan to take more photos down the line and do a real post once I get the hang of the process, but for now, here’s a preview:

It is an all-grain (from malted barley) recipe and we decided to save the “spent grain” that is left over. This grain has been crushed and steeped in hot water to convert and extract all the sugar from the starches, but what’s left over still has flavor. We used our dehydrator to dry it out so that we can store it. It goes great as an added crunch to granola (reminds me of grape nuts) and we also plan to crush it into flour and make some spent-grain baked goods:

How to Use Up Your Winter CSA / Rutabagas / Parsnips / Turnips and Make a Great Winter Vegetable Casserole

Erik — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 15:10:54 +0000

This year we wound up accidentally stockpiling certain root vegetables from our winter CSA. Rutabagas. Parsnips. Turnips. The good news is that they last a log time. The bad news is, that takes away any imperative to use them up. The next thing you know, you crisper or root cellar (or wherever you keep them) is about to burst. We found this recipe in an attempt to use them up in volume to take care of the issue.

This recipe can be used with any winter root vegetables that you might have. Don’t limit it to the ones listed above. As you can see, I accidentally included some radishes that I though were turnips until I chopped them (watermelon radishes are green on the outside and they’re huge – tricksters!). As long as you get to three total cups, it works with any mix or ratio. However, I would suggest keeping it at least 75% “mild” ones (i.e., not radishes).

In order to use up as many of these vegetables as possible, we actually doubled this recipe and made two casseroles in separate casserole dishes (which, Lindsay informs me, are just called casseroles, but I reject that terminology). It wasn’t much more work than just making one (no more actually, outside of the peeling and cutting, but that is the bulk of the effort). We froze the second, right in the dish (covered with foil) and ate it a few weeks later when we didn’t feel like cooking dinner. This recipe stores and reheats well from the freezer as well as the fridge. (Please allow it some time to thaw!)

It’s easy, versatile, scalable, and stores well, including freezing. That’s the recipe for a go-to…recipe.

Now that I’ve made this (doubled) recipe a few times, I don’t bother to measure the chopped vegetables. Measuring cups of 1-inch cubes is a pain. I just keep going until the pot is as full as pictured. Keep in mind, though, that the pictures are of a doubled recipe.

Winter Root Vegetable Casserole

Makes 1 Casseroles / 4-6 servings

Amount	Ingredient	Preparation	Notes
1 cup	Rutabagas	Peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 cup	Parsnips	Peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 cup	Turnips	Peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
3/4 cups	Carrots	Peeled and diced / chopped
1/3 cups	Yellow onions	Chopped
2 TBsp	Butter
1 dash	Nutmeg	Freshly ground if you have it
1/2 tsp	Salt
1/2 tsp	Pepper	Freshly ground
1/3 cup	Breadcrumbs		Panko works great
2	Eggs	Lightly beaten
1/2 cup	Cheese	Grated	Cheddar, or anything you like

Directions

Chop the three cups of root vegetables into cubes of equal size (1 inch). Chop the carrots smaller (about a quarter-inch dice). Put them in a large pot, add 2 cups water, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce it to a simmer and leave it until everything is tender enough to mash (12-15 minutes). Drain off the water
Once the vegetables are coming to a boil, turn the oven on to 375 degrees.

While the vegetables simmer, chop the onions and melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Saute the onions and set aside.

Measure out the nutmeg, salt and pepper in to one bowl. Measure out the breadcrumbs into a second bowl. Beat the egg into a third bowl. Have all three ready to go when the vegetables finish.
Once the vegetables are done and thoroughly drained, add the nutmeg, salt, and pepper to the pot. Mash! My trusty masher tool makes pretty quick work of it all. The carrots will probably not fully mash and incorporate but everything else will, which makes for a nice textural difference. Also, don’t over mash. You’re not making whipped potatoes; accept the lumps. If you push the boundary you might wind up with something more resembling paste.
Add the onion, eggs, and breadcrumbs and mix until gently fully incorporated and even. (See how much more yellow it is now?)
Grease a casserole dish or something similar (whatever you prefer – butter, canola oil spray, etc.) Fill the casserole dish with the mixture. Once the oven is at temperature (if it’s not already, put it in, uncovered, and bake for 35 minutes.
After 35 minutes, remove the dish, sprinkle on the grated cheese, and put it back in the oven for 5-10 minutes, until it’s the way you like it.
The photo on the left shows the dish after the 35 minutes (notice the nice dark crusting around the edges – a sign you’re almost done. The one one the right is done, after cheese +10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Old Favorites

Lindsay — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:00:56 +0000

Happy Monday!!

We were fortunate to spend this weekend with a bunch of friends in NY, especially after Friday’s tragedy. It’s nice to have a chance to see people before the craze of Christmas sets in.

On Saturday, we attended a baby naming / christening, which was followed by a fun party for family and friends. The hosts told us they wanted to make punch, which seemed weird to me, since there would be older family there. Shame on me for doubting them! It was a huge success! Everyone loved it and had fun guessing the ingredients and drinking out of the tiny cups. Here’s a link to the post about our old fashioned punch, in case you want to liven up your holiday entertaining.

Last night, we met some of my oldest friends for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants – Northern Spy Food Co. I had a delicious cauliflower soup and, of course, their kale salad. Now that we’re deep into dark leafy green season, I’m going to have to dig back into the blog archives and make our knock-off of the Northern Spy kale salad. If you’re getting a lot of kale and squash from your CSA, it’s a tasty and different way to put them to use.

How to Make Sauerkraut

Lindsay — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 21:21:30 +0000

We have complained about / celebrated our CSA many times on this blog. I hate / love it. I LOVE the actual farm. The produce is almost always top notch, the eggs are amazing, and it’s fun to support people living their dream. However, when our refrigerator overflows with turnips or zucchini, I want to bail and just get take out. Half of me gets irritated at the other half that wants to throw out the last radish; but that other half gets annoyed with the first half for being unreasonably anti-waste. Then Erik intervenes in my internal monologue and stops the crazy.

This time of year, we are overflowing with cabbage. (Lindsay #1) It keeps forever, so let’s go out to dinner. (Lindsay #2) Why waste money on a restaurant when we have all this food at home? (1) + (2) = (3) Sauerkraut.

Sauerkraut uses up a ton of cabbage, while allowing us to eat something other than pale green leaves for a week. Homemade sauerkraut is different than the typical store-bought stuff – crunchier and more flavorful. We’ll post a couple sauerkraut-centric recipes in the upcoming weeks, but I’m not shy about eating it straight from the jar.

In addition to being tasty, sauerkraut is super fun to make. It makes me feel very “Laura Ingalls Wilder”, y’know – Little House on the Prairie? I don’t remember ever reading that she made sauerkraut, but smashing salt into sliced cabbage with your hands has a homestead-y, making-do-with-what-we-have feel to it. May I suggest making sauerkraut on a Friday night after a hard week at work? Cheap therapy.

Plus – look at that color! Red cabbage makes the prettiest sauerkraut. It starts out so vividly purple, but then fades to a beautiful magenta. Much better than the regular raw stuff!

Sometimes I water-bath process it, so that I can keep it in the basement and free up space in the refrigerator. But if I’m just doing a single head, I don’t bother. Apparently, this is the healthier way. According to Real Food Fermentation, fermentation, as opposed to canning, preserves and sometimes creates nutrients in food, such as B vitamins, and provides healthy bacteria that we need for digestion and immunity. The high heat required for canning can destroy these benefits. Plus, it’s easier!

The process is pretty simple, but make sure to work with clean hands, clean tools, and clean food.

Ingredients

Cabbage – any kind
Pickling salt – This doesn’t contain iodine, which can darken food.

Tools

Sharp knife, mandolin, V-slicer, or food processor with slicing blade
Food scale
Calculator – nothing fancy; the one on your cell phone will do.
Bowl for mixing
Glass or ceramic container for fermenting

Technique

Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage as well as any damaged internal leaves. Cut the head into quarters from the North to South Pole. Remove the core. Slice the cabbage thinly with a knife, mandolin, V-slicer, or slicing blade on a food processor.

Weigh the sliced cabbage and get out your calculator to figure out how much salt you need. Fermentation requires 2.5% of the cabbage’s weight in salt.
For example, the last time I did this, I used one gigantic head of red cabbage – 1,600 grams after prepping – and 40 grams of salt. 1,600 grams x 0.025 = 40 grams. I think it’s easier to do this in grams, rather than pounds, because the amount of salt can be too small for an accurate reading in ounces. If you can’t measure in grams, you can use about 1 3/4 teaspoons of salt per pound of cabbage.

Using clean hands, layer the cabbage and salt in the mixing bowl. You can do this in batches, if necessary, just make sure to use even amounts of cabbage and salt each time. Now, for the fun part, massage/squeeze/press the salt into the cabbage until you release some cabbage juice. The cabbage will eventually stop feeling fresh and crispy and start feeling kind of rubbery. The amount of time will depend on the freshness of the cabbage and the strength of your hands, so be prepared to work it for up to 10 minutes – put on some music or enlist a kitchen buddy for entertainment.

Pack the mixture tightly into the container you’ve chosen for fermenting, so that the liquid you’ve massaged out covers or almost covers the cabbage. I like to use quart jars, if I’m doing 4 pounds or less (about 2 jars), or a crock like this for larger batches. Whichever you use, make sure to leave some room at the top for expansion – an inch or so.

You have a couple of options for lids. Essentially, you want to prevent air from getting to your food. One good option is to fill an appropriately-sized zip-top bag with water and nestle it into the container on top of the cabbage/liquid, so that it fills the entire opening. Another option is to just screw on the lid of the jar, if you’re using one.

Hide the sauerkraut away in a cool, dark location. I’ve had good luck in a corner of my kitchen when the weather isn’t to hot. Check on it every couple of days. After a while, you’ll notice more liquid is released, so make sure to push the sauerkraut under this liquid. This will help keep the spoilers out. If you’re using a crock, you might try weighing down the sauerkraut with a plate. If you’re using a jar, sometimes a smaller jar will fit right in and keep things under control. After a few days, it will start to get bubbly. This means it’s working! It’s done whenever you like it, so grab a (clean) fork and give it a taste. I usually let mine go for a couple of weeks, but it’s really up to you. When it’s done, pop it in the refrigerator to drastically slow the fermentation. It will keep almost indefinitely as long as the solids are kept under the liquid. During the whole process, watch out for mold, which means the bad microbes hijacked your food and ruined it. If you work clean, you should be able to avoid this.

If you’re interested in other fermented foods, such as yogurt, kimchi, or vinegar, consider picking up Real Food Fermentation

What to do with your CSA: a Husband Alone

Erik — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 16:47:30 +0000

Lindsay was out of town for a few weeks for work. This has happened before. I can fend for myself just fine.

However, this has never happened during the peak harvest season when we have had a CSA. In the past, I could choose to go to the farmer’s market or not, buy however much or little I wanted to, stick to what I was comfortable with, and if all else fails, just order in. Not this time. I had a lot of food thrust upon me whether I liked it or not. If I didn’t cook and eat it, it would go to waste. Although I enjoy the way we eat, Lindsay is generally in the driver’s seat. I had to man up and take control. Lindsay is in charge of our menu planning. I often cook dinner without her help, but she still picks the recipes. Now it was up to me.

I decided that for one week I would track myself and take pictures and write a series of posts on it. Sure, we post a lot, but not every meal that we make, and it’s a lot harder to cook and post at the same time when there is only one person! I was up to the challenge.

Here are the various ingredients that I was given and the five recipes that I used to dig me out from under the CSA. It was like Iron Chef!:

The first thing that knew I had to do was to use up was the eggplant and okra. Neither is on my list of favorites, and both only get worse after a few days (in particular, the okra will get even slimier). My go-to, when left with this combo, is a curry. It makes everything more palatable. The CSA also provided the needed tomatoes and onions:
Eggplant and Okra Curry
Second, there was a large spaghetti squash left from the prior week that needed to be used, and I received fresh chili peppers in the CSA, so I found this online:
Roasted Squash with Chile Vinaigrette
Third, I received two new acorn squashes and found this appetizing recipe:
Acorn Squash with an Herbed Cider Glaze
Fourth, I had a few salads over the course of the week that used up the two heads of lettuce, some of the sweet bell peppers, the heirloom tomatoes (always best in a salad!) and the beets that I received:
A “Use-the-CSA Salad”
Finally, I was left with a mountain of sweet red bell peppers. For two weeks in a row the CSA gave me pounds of them, and although I used some in the salads I still had a mountain left. Over Skype Lindsay suggested that I make this recipe:
Spicy Seitan and Peppers

That’s it! I like the way this series came out, so I think I would like to make this a monthly thing during CSA season. Most people ask “what do you do with all that squash? Or eggplant? Or tomatoes? Or whatever… it keeps changing as the calendar marches forward. Maybe once each month we should do a snapshot like this to help others get inspired and avoid throwing away chunks of their CSA…

How to Make a Use-Your-CSA Salad

Erik — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 23:26:19 +0000

This salad normally wouldn’t be worth a post, but I’m posting it for two reasons. The first is that it’s a part of my “Husband Alone with the CSA” series and needs to be included to show how I used everything up (including the lettuces). The second reason is because of a fundamentally more important lesson: always pre-roast your beets!

I can’t emphasize that enough. When you’re making something quick that could benefit from roasted beets (and what doesn’t?), encountering raw beets in your fridge is a major drag. 95% of the time our use of beets calls for them to be foil-roasted anyway, so my M.O. is just to roast them as soon as possible, when you’re not hungry but you’ll be near the oven (at least in the living room) for 90 minutes. They’ll store for a few weeks and you can toss them into whatever you want.

I made this salad for lunch three times over the course of the week to use up the leftover tomatoes, sweet red peppers, and lettuces. It was delicious and quick and easy, but without the beets it would have been boring.

Big CSA Salad

Makes 1 big serving, 2 normal servings, or 4 sides

Amount	Ingredient	Preparation	Notes
Some	Lettuces	Torn into bite-sized pieces	Whatever you have, as much as you want (you can even through in some raw kale if you’re so inclined)
1	Ripe tomato	Chopped
1	Sweet pepper	Chopped	Red, yellow, orange, whatever… green in a pinch
1	Roasted beet	Sliced into 0.5 inch quarter-rounds	See below
1/3 part	Olive oil
1/3 part	Balsamic vinegar		Spring for the real stuff, not the chemical kind
1/3 part	Apple cider vinegar		We made our own, natch !
1 TBsp	Dijon mustard	I make it a very heaping TBsp
Some	Black pepper	Freshly ground
A pinch	Kosher salt

Directions

Roast your beets. DO THIS IN ADVANCE! Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. On each beet, chop off the base of the greens stalk, and chop off the tendril at the tip (if there is one). Scrub off any dirt. Wrap each beet individually in foil. Cover a sheet pan with foil. Place the foiled beets on the pan and bake.
If there are any small beets (~ golf balls) remove them after 60 minutes. For anything up to the size of a softball, bake for 90 minutes. For anything bigger, you’re on you own. Take it to a state fair.

Let the beets cool until you can handle the foil, then unwrap them. Let them cool completely and, with a paper towel in each hand, palm the opposing sides and twist the skin off. If they are cooked enough, the skin should come off easily (although maybe not all in one perfect shot). Store the peeled beets whole in a tupperware in the fridge until you are ready to use the.

Oh, be sure to wash your hands thoroughly before touching anything, and wash your hands between each beet if you want to make your hand-washing a little easier.

Prep (tear / chop) the rest of the vegetables, and slice the beets for the salad.

Mix the dressing, using about the same amount of each of the three liquids until you get to your desired amount of dressing. Add the dijon and mix / whisk / shake. I don’t measure. I use an old spice shaker, which nets me about enough dressing for two salads of the size pictured. Salt and pepper the salad, add the dressing, and toss. The beets juice and the dressing will mix into a nice sweet purple dressing with a kick, but one that stains badly, so eat carefully!

How to Make Spicy Seitan and Peppers

Erik — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 16:30:17 +0000

Apologies for the picture-less post, but as part of my series “Husband Alone with the CSA“, I decided to post every meal that I cooked, even those that I didn’t take pictures of.

Towards the end of the week it dawned on me how much of a surplus of peppers I had accumulated over the prior few weeks. I’d get five or six each week and use two or three, with a bias towards the sweeter red or orange peppers. In the end I had a mountain of peppers left, mostly green.

It’s hard enough to plan meals to use the variety and volume of things that we get in our CSA. When we wind up unbalanced, with a lot of one single vegetable that doesn’t typically stand on its own, that presents a different issue entirely. Over Skype, Lindsay suggested that I make this recipe (which we’ve made before), since peppers are the only veggie required.

I did have to go buy four packets of plain seitan. What is seitan? Soem call it “wheat meat”. It has a very meaty texture and is used as a meat substitute. From the wikipedia entry: “[seitan] is made by washing wheat flour dough with water until all the starch dissolves, leaving insoluble gluten as an elastic mass which is then cooked before being eaten. We once tried to make it ourselves from scratch from wheat flower. It was an utter mess. It worked, but it was far from worth the time and effort (even we have our limits). Now when we want it, we just buy it. These days it’s available at stores like Whole Foods.

You’d probably do just fine to substitue real meat for the seitan. If I had to guess, I’d say that this recipe started as a beef recipe. We like it just fine with the seitan, though. It reduces our meat consumption, and we don’t have to worry about undercooking it. If you use seitan, just be sure to say it like this:

Spicy Seitan and Peppers

Makes 4+ servings

Amount	Ingredient	Preparation	Notes
32 oz	Plain seitan	Cut into bite-sized pieces	It’s usually sold in 8 oz portions, so that’s 4 packages
2-4	Bell peppers	Sliced into 1-2 inch strips
6	Hot peppers	Chopped; remove the seeds	If you want to lessen the heat level, also scrape down the interior flesh with a spoon
2 cloves	Garlic	Peeled and crushed	Just give it a good whack with the side of a chef’s knife
0.5 cups	Red wine
3 TBsp	Olive oil
1 tsp	Cumin	Ground
0.25 tsp	Cardamom	Ground
0.25 tsp	Turmeric	Ground
0.25 tsp	Cloves	Ground
0.25 tsp	Cinnamon	Ground

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Place all the ingredients other than the chopped seitan and bell peppers into a blender and puree until almost smooth.

Put the seitan and bell peppers in a 9×13 Pyrex baking dish (or other similar vessel, preferably glass. Pour the puree over the dish. Cover the dish with foil.

Bake with the foil on for 20 minutes. Then remove the foil, stir, and cook for another 20 minutes.

Serve with rice, if desired, but we’re usually good as-is .