Fall CSA: The Missing Weeks

My plan was a simple plan. I would write about what I got every week in my fall CSA. It was supposed to get me back in to the saddle of writing after taking a bit longer of a break than anticipated for the holidays.  That was the plan.  I made it two weeks in, and then time skipped forward and I couldn't catch up before the next box of fresh veggies and fruits would arrive.

This is me playing catch up and trying to figure out what to do with sweet potatoes. The last time I wrote I was lamenting over what to do with collard greens and turnips.  My friend, Dr. Jolly is a turnip genius, and I can day that I am no longer afraid of them. Oven roasted with spices and sugar made them an acceptable substitute for potatoes and quite tasty, that even my husband will eat them and not grumble too loudly.  I still want to leave them out for the Hogfather, but seeing that the Hogfather only comes once a year and I have plenty of turnips, there will be more turnips in my future menus until next Hogswatch.

Collard Greens are one of those things that I have to thank Dr. Jolly for also, since otherwise I might have left them out for the rabbits. Instead they ended up in homemade  Kung Pao Chicken.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, and it turned out well. I don't think that Collard Greens were meant to go in Chinese Food, but it didn't hurt anything and I can say that I ate my veggies. Even if they were cooked down and slathered in a spicy sauce.  It still counts as eating my veggies.

Week Three

Gala Apples
Kabocha Squash (Yippee another new squash that I have never heard of and have no idea what to do with!)
Broccoli
Sweet Potatoes (Still not done with the last ones, and now I have a small army of sweet potatoes, and yet can't help but thing about The Bloggess and Sam the Yam.)
Kale

Week Four

Apple Cider
Fresh Greens (Looks like baby Spinach to me)
Brussel Sprouts (I still think they look like alien pods like I did when I was 8.)
Apples
Acorn Squash

I never realized what a lazy cook I was until joining a CSA.  I thought I was a pretty active cook, and that my cook book challenge was keeping me from falling into a culinary lull.  That was all a lie until I joined the CSA, because now I am challenge to figure out what to do with the items in my white box every week. It is not as easy as throwing stuff on the grill and calling it a day. I guess I could do that, if I wanted to stand out in the dark and the cold wind while I try to figure out if the potatoes are done, which I don't.  I don't want to hang out in the cold where the wind has a habit of cutting through you like a hot knife to butter. I like my creature comforts, which means I have to put a little more effort in to my meals, and possibly eat an apple a day to combat the growing number of apples in my fridge.

Despite the challenge that this presents me, I can't help but feel like I won the lottery every week when I open my CSA box.  I never really know what I am going to get, and since my friend, Lizzy is doing it with me, it is a pleasure to know that she also has a sweet potato/apple infestation and I am not alone in this.   It is two days until my next box, and I have only used up about half of both boxes, and part of me wants to laugh hysterically if I end up with another potato and the other part of me wants to cry, because I know I will end up with another potato or possibly some other item bigger than my head that has never graced my kitchen before and I won't know what to do with.  I have begun to believe that laughing and crying are two sides of the same coin.

Fall CSA: Week Two

Week Two of my CSA is trying to make my brain explode. I had barely finished typing out my thoughts on Week One, when Lizzy popped over with my Week Two box.  She was kind enough to pick up my box when she picked up hers, but had not yet had a chance to look inside. Lifting off the white box lid, I was flabbergasted.   The first things that I saw were giant leaves that looked like they came out of the Jurassic period.  Lizzy helpfully informed me that they were collard greens, as we sifted through the rest of the box.

Week Two: One Spaghetti Squash, Two Heads of Cauliflower,  half dozen apples, a bunch turnips, collard greens

I can tell that  I am not from The South. I have no idea what to do with collard greens, much less how to fix them.  Part of me wants to take the foliage and build a roof to a Tiki hut with them, and hope for warmer weather. I am sure my cats would love to have a little handmade hut for the holidays, which makes me wonder if cats eat Collard Greens.  

Collard Greens is going to take some research to be able to prepare into something that I won’t need liquid courage to try. As if the Collard Greens were not enough of a challenge, I had a passel of turnips.  My only real knowledge of what to do with a turnip has to do with something not so real, which is to say that you leave them out for The Hogfather.  My husband is not enthused about turnips, and I have no practical experience with them. I also don’t think that The Hogfather is going to stop by our house.  This week’s box is going to require research and asking good friends for some advice on what to do with the items in my box. I do know one thing for sure, and it is that this week is going to be interesting. I can only wonder what week three is going to bring. 

“The philosopher Didactylos has summed up an alternative hypothesis as "Things just happen. What the hell".” 
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Cook Book Challenge Slacker

I am slacking in my cookbook challenge. It isn’t that I am not using the cookbooks, but more that I am not writing about what I am doing.  This is going to be a somewhat long post of me playing catch up on the cookbooks that I have used in the effort that it will keep me on track.

I have a sweet tooth. I have discovered this. I did not think that I did, until I really looked at my cookbooks.  I was pleasantly surprised by my Cookies cookbook.  I found a recipe that took me a little bit out of my comfort zone, because it used fresh cranberries. I like cranberries. I like cranberries juiced and mixed with vodka.  This recipe involved chocolate, and in my mind the tart of the cranberry and the rich taste of chocolate would balance each other out into something passable. What I did not expect from the Cranberry and Chocolate Squares was that it would turn out so decadent. The recipe was easy, and because of this I made the bars three times and have probably given myself a cavity on the richness of it.  This recipe I will do again. I will also lie to myself and say that I get an acceptable amount of Vitamin C in my diet from eating a whole pan of chocolate cranberry bars.

Just to prove that I don’t just own cookbooks that have to deal with baking, I thought I would utilize a chicken cookbook that my friend, GAT gave me.  It is probably one of the more embarrassing cookbooks on my shelf, mostly because I don’t participate in the program.  It is a Weight Watchers Everyone Loves  Chicken cookbook.  There is nothing wrong with Weight Watchers, and it works for lots of people, I however have never partaken of the program. I just wanted chicken recipes.  Leafing through the pages I discovered little tidbits of information, such as Hunter Style Chicken and Chicken Cacciatore were the same thing. I flipped through the book several times, before I decided to make the Hunter Chicken.  I love mushrooms, my husband not so much. He says they taste like feet and have a way of permeating a meal, because of this mushrooms were omitted and while it was a good meal, it was missing something and that something was most likely mushrooms.  I am undecided if I will ever try this recipe again. It was a nice change from the sweets, but did nothing to dazzle the taste buds.

Lastly I utilized the Recipes from the Raleigh Tavern Bakery. This book was a gift from my mother in law from some of her many travels.  She had brought me a cook book, along with some rather delicious gingerbread cookies.  The cookies were the size of a small child's head. That could be a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one, since the cookies were huge. The cookbook had a quaint historic feel to them, and seemed simple enough.  Deciding on trying an oatmeal cookie did not turn out as well as one would hope. In fact it made me wonder if I had any sort of baking ability at all, since they did not tantalize the taste buds in the slightest. There was molasses in the cookie, which I think added to the weirdness factor. There was also a point in making the cookies, which it seemed like there was something missing, either an ingredient or an extra step somewhere, because it didn’t seem to come together. I think this is the first time in my adult life, that I have made cookies that no one was the slightest bit interested in eating.  I almost feel like my cook books are going to be taken away from me, because of this kitchen failure.  It is now getting closer to the holidays and I have to wonder if I should experiment on the influx of company or if I should stick to tried and true recipes that won’t kill people.  Jury is still out and I have too many of 63 cookbooks to get through before the end of June.

Fall CSA: Week One

November has come and gone, and I for one am thankful. I love November. It is the one month where I purposely drive myself a little nuts and spend hours obsessing over imaginary beings. Every November, for the past six years, I have participated in NaNoWriMo.  I laugh, I cry and I debate on killing off characters, just to move the story along, and when all else fails I write about food.  This year’s story had me working on my word count until the second to last day, which means I was remiss in my blogging duties, along with a lot of other duties.  The first week of December is my catch up week, and then the rest of life resumes and I realize how behind I am in everything else and start to panic. Deep breathing exercises are wonderful.

In my enlightened creative state of mind of the NaNo zone, I agreed to be part of a fall CSA that started in December.  Every week for the next several weeks I will be receiving fall and winter produce. In my brain this sounded like a really good idea.  I would get a bunch of root vegetables that I could use at my leisure.  At least that is the way that it played out in my head.  That is not the case.

Week One- Two Red Onions,  One bigger than my head Chinese Cabbage, one Acorn Squash, winter greens, a baker’s dozen of sweet potatoes and a half dozen red apples.

While there were potatoes in the mix, I had completely forgotten that squash is a winter supplemental, and Acorn Squash is a new territory for me.  I don’t consider myself a chicken when it comes to trying new food, but I sometimes need a little bit of prodding. I like squash for the most part, or at least that is what I told myself as I chopped it in half, scooped out the seeds and baked it until it was squishy, and then ate it. It was good.  I would not have guessed that it would be a cross between a sweet potato and a butternut squash; I was expecting a nuttier flavor, like Swiss cheese. I hate Swiss cheese, and a Swiss Cheese flavored squash sounds horrible to me. Thankfully Acorn Squash doesn’t taste like that.  I feel like I passed a week one challenge, by eating the Acorn Squash and am now ready for the Week Two box.  Or at least I think I am ready.