Ready For Some More.

I think I'm already getting addicted to this. This past week I have to admit, I got very jealous of the 1/2 bushel people. We are getting the 1/4 bushel because we didn't want to end up with veggies everywhere going to waste, but at this point I really think I could actually use it all up, or at least preserve it and make use of it later. Not that I don't love my box, it really is quickly becoming a major highlight of every week, but seeing the extras other people get (like those scrumptious looking carrots that started appearing this week) makes me want to up our order. Maybe after a couple of months when we're fully convinced we won't waste anything.

I also think I'm going to end up being a special orders person, possibly every single week. It started with the eggs. I fell in love with the eggs from the very first omelet. So I had to order another dozen on top of my 1/2 dozen. Is there an omelet overeaters anonymous? I mean, there's a group for everything else right? What's really sad is I still went and bought another 2 dozen eggs from the store to use in my baking for other people because I'm greedy and want my awesome eggs all to myself. Well, and to share with my family... if they behave. Of course once I started reading the special orders email and saw they had some of their frozen berries on sale I had to get some blackberries too. And now I am hoarding those. They look delicious, but I feel like I need to make something special with them. The average pancake topping just isn't special enough. Hmmm, maybe a cobbler. Oooh, or a cheesecake topping. Someone help me out here, I want them to shine, throw some recipes my way!

I have a few recipes to share this week since I'm behind in my posts. My youngest was sick for a couple of days, and when she's sick she's the saddest, most pathetic little thing. All she wants to do is snuggle all day (and all night, not sleeping a wink), so we basically munched on cheerios and laid on the couch for a couple of days. But if you're a fan of Carrabba's Chicken Gratella and you were lucky enough to get mint in your box, read on, because I've got a good one for you.

Of course no blog post would be complete without a picture of the newest box, complete with my special orders. Blackberries, green onions, romaine, kale, 1-1/2 dozen eggs, a whole chicken, 1 lb ground beef, scapes, kohlrabi, strawberries, broccoli,and cauliflower. Tada!

Oh! I almost forgot to share my "this is how you know it's farm fresh kale" experience. So I decided to make some kale chips the other day. I was in a bit of a rush since my youngest was asleep and I had no idea how long she'd be out for. I quickly sprayed down my kale and tossed it in the salad spinner. Once it was dryish I started massaging olive oil into it, and felt something kind of squishy and slimy. I pulled out my hand to find a caterpillar desperately trying to get away from his very unexpected olive oil bath. Of course, I immediately screamed and flung my hand, then felt bad and put him outside, hoping I hadn't just killed him. It kind of reminded me of that Saved By the Bell episode with Zack, the oil spill, and the duck Becky. Except I'm hoping the caterpillar lived. Anyway, my point is, from time to time you may find a critter or two in there, but that's how you know it came straight from the farm, and they just want to share in the wholesome goodness! Just really make sure to wash your food, unless baked caterpillars is a delicacy to you.

Until next time!
-Sam

Recipe #1 - Homemade Ranch Dressing
I've made this twice now, but I did use fresh herbs instead of dried, mostly because I had everything I needed growing on my porch. I grabbed lite mayo, fat free sour cream, and left out the chives and subbed plenty of AA green onions in their place. I also used a combination of AA scapes and a couple of large garlic cloves. I threw all the herbs and spices in my mini food processor with half of the sour cream and blended until it made a very wet paste, then stirred that into the mayo and remaining sour cream. Served with AA broccoli, AA cauliflower, and baby carrots. We scraped the bowl clean.

I had to make a double batch the second time because I knew it would be gone too quickly!

 

Recipes #2 & #3 - Roasted Garlic Pasta Salad & Knock-off Carrabba's Chicken Gratella
Having never roasted garlic before, I decided for the first time I would actually try it in the oven instead of the microwave and they did in the recipe, but the concept was pretty much the same. Slice the head of garlic, rub down with olive oil, roast. Other than that I didn't make any changes, though I did use whole grain pasta and part-skim ricotta. Normally I'm not a fan of pasta salad, but I think that has to do with so many of them served cold. Cold pasta just grosses me out. But this one is served warm, and I figured I love garlic and the rest of the ingredients, so we gave it a shot. I actually really liked it, and it was very filling, though I used less tomatoes.
As for the knock-off chicken gratella, I would say it is more inspired, less knock-off. I actually had my Mom bring me the mint since I didn't get any in my box, and I added some red pepper flakes because I remember the restaurant version being a bit spicy, but it was very good. You could easily halve this recipe and have plenty for 3 chicken breasts. I managed to get 3 meals out of the sauce. I actually bet it would be really good on a roasted whole chicken, so I may have to try it again soon!

After roasting the garlic pulls away from the skins, and it rather smushy,

Like my fancy plates, y'all? I'm all about easy cleanup.

Recipe #4 - European-Style Hearth Bread
For anyone interested in homemade bread, I do love King Arthur Flour, all their recipes, and their above and beyond customer service. I had a gift card, so I recently ordered their European-Style Artisan Bread Flour and decided to make this my first loaf. This recipe requires patience and a place dough can rise without little hands trying to grab it since it will be out for a while. If you start it the afternoon before you need it, and work on it in the morning when you wake up, you can get it read to bake pretty close to dinner time. Temperature is your best friend (or worst enemy) with this bread. Make sure your water isn't so cold the yeast doesn't activate, but not warm because you want a long proofing time for your flavor to develop. Also, I want to try this again with their normal AP flour, since the European-Style is noticeably less sweet, though the recipe may totally fail if the flour qualities are too different. Still, it was very good, chewy, with a crisp crust. 

Recipe #5 - Strawberries & Cream Scones 
I have to admit, my scones are not as pretty as the ones pictures on the recipe. But they were still a great way to use up the last of our AA strawberries. In fact, I didn't realize how many had been snacked on until I started making the recipe and realized I didn't have enough to have the sliced strawberries folded in. Since I was sure that would take away from some of the tart and sweetness, I ended up sprinkling just a smidge of powdered sugar on top. If I get more berries soon I definitely want to try these again the proper way, because even without the strawberries folded in, these were all completely gone between dinner and breakfast the next morning. Delicious! 

 

Told you they weren't pretty. But they were good!

I can preserve these or have serious onion breath for a week.

Today was the first day I really tried to preserve anything. I had optimistically hoped that I would use every bit of food before the next delivery rolled around, but I am officially putting that notion aside. Not only because I don't want to eat 2 batches of spring onions in 7 days and have terrible breath, but also b/c I want to keep using onions for a while yet. There's just no way that I could have eaten all of those and the garlic scapes in the past week.

So! What to do, freeze or dehydrate? These seemed to be the two best choices for these foods from what I've read. And since I didn't feel like waiting hours to get anything accomplished today, I figured freezing was the quick and easy thing to do. I know some veggies need to be blanched before freezing, but not these guys. It was as simple as a quick wash, a thorough dry, and then chop them all up into a giant oniony pile of goodness. One thing to keep in mind, in the freezer moisture is not your friend. That's why I made sure everything was thoroughly dry before I cut it up. Obviously there is some moisture released when it's chopped, and that's okay. You just don't want to give it extra. Some people prefer to put them in ziploc bags and suck the air out, but I figured since I'm constantly using onions, I'd just put them in an old spice container with a flip top I had lying around. This way I can just shake out what I want. It works for me!

So glad I won't be wasting all these amazing onions.

 
Everything else I managed to use up pretty well. I'm still figuring out how to store radishes. Mine got kind of soft and squishy after a couple of days, both in the fridge and out of it. So those I'll have to figure out a new plan or just consume immediately. Not a bad option either. :)

As far as recipes go, I have a few for you! I don't know if anyone else is all about making bread like I am (it's therapeutic for me), but I've included a recipe for homemade burger buns in case you want something fun to go along with burgers or bbq sandwiches. And tomorrow night I'll be making a knock off of Carrabba's chicken gratella, so I'll update soon and let you know how that was!

Have a blessed day!
-Sam

Recipe #1 - Kohlrabi Chips
This isn't really a by the book recipe. It's all about your tastes and preferences. Take a fresh kohlrabi, peel the outer tough layer, and slice down into thin strips, no thicker than 1/4", preferably closer to 1/8". If you have a mandolin or Kitchenaid attachment, use it because the more even your slices are, the more even your cooking will be. If there are varying thicknesses, some will cook faster than others leaving you with either burned or mushy ones.
Toss chips in a bowl with enough olive oil or melted butter to coat, and drain in a colander, or even better, spin off excess in a salad spinner. Lay flat on a lightly greased baking sheet, then add as much salt and pepper as you prefer (or any other spices, though I think you should try it dressed down first). I baked mine at about 425 for around 10 minutes. You gotta watch them, and once they start to crisp go ahead and pull them out. Let them sit a couple of minutes, then throw them on a plate and dig in!
Just an FYI, I did potato chips at the same time and had them on the same tray. BAD IDEA. Kohlrabi cooks about 30% faster so I could either burn the kohlrabi or way under cook the potatoes. Just do separate trays if you want to do them both together. :)

Recipe #2 - Backyard Chicken Rub (Hickory smoked chicken)

1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. onion salt
1/4 c. garlic powder
1/4 c. paprika
1 Tbsp. chili powder
1 Tbsp. black pepper
1 Tbsp. poultry seasoning
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. cayenne

We had gotten a whole chicken this past week and decided to use this rub and smoke it with some hickory wood. Don't forget to brine poultry if you plan on smoking it! So I mixed this up and put it on the chicken, thoroughly coating it under the skin directly on the meat, and on the outside of the skin about 30 minutes before putting it on our grill. We have a smoker box on ours, but the is keeping the temp around 250-275F and having the indirect heat and smoke cook the chicken over the course of a few hours. We actually pulled ours off after 3 hours because the temperature outside was dropping and I was having a hard time maintaining the grill. So after we knew the smoke flavors were incorporated I popped it in the oven on 300 and roasted it until it was done. It considerably cut down on cooking time, and it was still juicy the entire way through.
Oh, and you may want to keep an eye on your kids when you make this. My almost 3yr old was very concerned and said, "Oh no, Mama, you cut off that bird's head!". She may not trust me around birds anymore.

It took almost 4 hours to cook, and about 15 minutes for my family to eat the whole thing.

 
Recipe #3 - Beautiful Burger Buns
I've made these several times now, and every time they have come out fabulous. You can mix the dough by hand, with a mixer, or in a bread machine, so it's super easy and requires very little handling if you are having a busy cooking day. They are a little on the sweet side, I prefer them more with a barbeque sandwich than on a burger, but we had them the other day with our first AA ground beef. We grilled some burgers, threw on some AA lettuce, and had the homemade buns with them. It was so good!

Risen dough, ready to punch down and separate into buns.

Dividing into 8 gave me regular sized buns for a 1/4 lb burger.
You could go smaller for sliders easily!

Rolled into balls and smooshed, ready for 2nd rise.

Remember my daughter wanting to help cook last week? Yes, that is a toddler sized handprint from when she snuck in  the kitchen to "help squash."

Ain't that the truth?

AA burgers!!

We don't make our burgers pretty or neat. Load that baby up!

Yay! The season has officially begun!

I can't even begin to tell you how excited I have been. All week long I purposely avoided buying produce at the store, anxiously awaiting Wed. when I would get my first official box of the season. I actually had dreams (yes, multiple dreams) about it. Really they started on Sunday when some of the folk in the Nashville area received their deliveries and I still had to wait DAYS for mine.

So Wednesday I headed over to the Discovery Center pickup site a little earlier to give the girls some play time at the playground while we waited for our truck. They pulled in right on time, and I wasn't quite expecting the swarm of people that got quickly in line. There are a lot more people doing this than I realized! I wanted to stick around and see if I could find any familiar faces, but my youngest had smacked her ear pretty hard on the playground and she was at her limit as it was. So anyone reading this that picks up at the Murfreesboro location feel free to introduce yourself since I haven't seen anyone I know as of yet! I'm the one there with 2 very rambunctious toddler girls. :)

Anyway, the food right? That's what you're really reading this for. Look at this:

Seriously. Is that not GORGEOUS? I could hardly keep the girls away from the strawberries. Here's a list in case some things are harder to identify (and if I'm wrong about something feel free to correct me since I'm still learning all this): (from left-clockwise) 1/2 dozen eggs, radishes, broccoli and cauliflower, choy, red romaine lettuce, 2 massive kohlrabi, a whole chicken, 1 lb ground beef, red and white spring onions, garlic scapes, and finally strawberries. This is what comes in a standard meat and produce package, with the exception of the ground beef which is a standing special order for us. All that for $38. And it is so delicious.

So where to begin with this first box? The first thing I did was obviously unpack like a giddy child on Christmas morning waiting to see what Santa brought me. After that I immediately decided I had to use some of it for dinner. And the easiest quickest way to get it in my belly was to make some omelets and roast some veggies.

I know at some point when I was a child I had farm fresh eggs at my grandmother's house. I know this because I remember being rather afraid of being pecked to death by chickens when she asked me to help her go collect eggs. I don't remember much else because she sold her chickens when I was still pretty young, but I know I couldn't appreciate them then like I do now. You're probably going to get very tired of hearing me say this, but that was one of the best omelets I had ever had. The yolks were so much richer, and it had such a nice flavor without being too rubbery and, well, eggy. I don't get too carried away making omelets, I just threw some onion and a smidge of minced scapes and a healthy dose of black pepper in there with some monterey jack cheese, but it was so good! I may have to bump up my order and get more of those each week, especially since I just picked up my box last night and my eggs are now gone.

Having eaten all my eggs already that gives me one less food I have to figure out how to store. I don't think I can possibly go through all my onions so quickly, and the stems on the scapes and a couple of feet long a piece! So now comes the part where I am forced to learn about preserving foods. I know at some point I will attempt canning, but for now I am fortunate enough to have a big upright freezer in my garage, and I will be prepping and storing plenty. First I am going to need some reusable containers, but my quest begins this weekend! I'm not going to let that go to waste!

Now, one thing in the interest of full disclosure because I know some of you have to  be wondering is all the food really that good, and in good condition? I share this, not to talk ill of Avalon Acres, but to praise them for going above and beyond. I will admit when I began inspecting my veggies that I noticed some rather slimy spots on my choy. Thinking it had just gotten bruise and damaged and the dampness caused it to be rather yucky, I figured I could salvage it by removing the outer leaves and just using the inside. However, the very middle core of the choy was the same way, and it smelled like fish. Obviously, no veggie should feel or smell like that.

Not knowing what to fully expect, if this just happens from time to time (I know everything in my own garden isn't always in the best condition if I'm not paying attention to what I pick), I almost just chalked it up to an "oh well, crap happens" kind of deal. However, I asked a long standing member what I should do, if they would want to know or not. She suggested I email them, so I wrote customer service and this is the response I received: "We never expect you to get substandard food  ...  We want your box to sing the glories of God when you open it and if it’s not we aren’t hitting the goals of delighting our customers. I am terribly sorry that your food was not absolutely the best that you have ever experienced. We will make this right for you and then some." This wasn't from some generic customer service guy, it was from one of the owners, Tim Bodnar. How awesome is that? I didn't write expecting compensation of any sort and I would not have asked for it. However, I know they will take care of me as a customer. And to say food can "sing the glories of God"? I simply LOVE that. Love it. What a wonderful perspective. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing that, but I thought it spoke volumes about their operation and service. God does provide!

And in the interest of keeping this post from turning into a mini-novel, I'm going to call it quits here and just share 2 recipes I made from this past week. I will definitely be posting again soon so I can share on the meal we're planning for tonight, but you'll just have to wait and see what that is. Thanks for catching up with me! I promise all my posts won't be this long... maybe. :)

-Sam

 

Recipe #1 Bacon Mushroom Honey Dijon Chicken

I've made this twice now, with subtle changes each time, and it makes for some very juicy, well flavored chicken. My biggest change was adding red bell pepper in with my mushrooms and onions. The first time I made it I used some of the green onions from my AA box. The second time I was out of those so I used a vidalia onion I had at home. Also, I cooked the bacon in the skillet first, left about 2 tablespoons of the bacon grease, browned my chicken, then sauteed my veggies in the same skillet. It's easy to fix, though a little messy looking, but it was a good way to use up some veggies and have some flavor.

About 1/2 an onion, 1/2 a pepper, a 4 oz of mushrooms

Make sure not to overbrown your chicken!

My oldest daughter wants to help out in the kitchen all the time. :)

Onions are just started to caramelize...

I told you it looked like a hot mess. Loaded up and waiting for cheese.

Tada! I need fancy plates for pictures.

Recipe #2 Strawberry Sweet Biscuits

Bisquick Shortcake - I typically am trying to make most everything from scratch these days, but I just haven't found quite anything that replicates the texture and flavor of this, So I until I do, this is the recipe I use for the shortcake portion only.
I bake the above shortcakes, and while those are in the oven, I make some sugar sauce. I take about a cup of regular white sugar, a couple of tablespoons of flour, and whisk in about 1 cup of half and half. You could use water if you wanted to cut back on some calories, but I like the creaminess of the half and half. Turn your stove on a med-high temp, put your saucepan on the stove, and whisk frequently until it hits the desired thickness you want. I like mine to coat a spoon and drizzle slowly off, and that takes about 7-8 minutes, which is just enough time to be wrapped up by the time your shortcake buzzer goes off. Drop the shortcakes in a bowl, slice some strawberries on top, drizzle your sauce over it and PIG OUT. 

Yes, the strawberries are really that red. :)