So. Let's just jump straight in this time, huh? I've been super busy since the last time I posted. Between a trip to the strawberry patch, a teething toddler, cakes, Memorial Day cookouts... I've been running a little nuts. I would like to say I was generous and shared my CSA goodies at the cookouts, but I tend to hoard those for us. I did however share my strawberry jam. Though I had eaten all of my CSA strawberries (who can resist them?!), my dad and I took my two toddlers to the local strawberry patch here in Murfreesboro. I had been dying to make some strawberry jam, but kept eating my CSA berries too quickly, so we stocked up as much as we could with the little ones pulling berries out of the baskets, and it was enough to make 32 oz of it. K was actually extremely good at picking the berries and hunting them down, though Little Bit just pulled them straight off the vine and they went straight into her mouth.
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| Little Bit was a little pig. |
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| K was a pro at picking! |
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| Nearly half a gallon of strawberries later and she's still going strong! |
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| She was intent. Not even the clovers and bees stopped her, and this is a girl who runs from butterflies. |
I used this recipe for Strawberry Jam with a minor change of less sugar. I weighed my strawberries out at 2 lbs, mashed them with a potato masher, and then added 3 cups of sugar instead of the 4 in the recipe and it was plenty sweet. As you cook it will become more syrupy and some of the lumpiness will break down so it's more jam like and less preserves, but really go for whatever texture you want. I didn't have a candy thermometer at the time, so I just used a spoon out of the freezer to determine when it would actually set, and I cooked about 30 minutes. Keep in mind you would need to actually process these to have long term storage, but I only had 2 pint jars and they are being used immediately so they just went straight into the fridge (and we've already made a pretty decent dent in them!).
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| First ever jam. I made my grandmother proud! |
Even though we're getting out of strawberry season now (so sad), we are finally getting some more color in our boxes! I am loving the yellow cauliflower. It tastes pretty much the same, but I think God had a day where He thought, "You know what, I can make this food more fun." I would love to get some of the purple that people have been talking about, but we'll just have to see if we luck out or not! This week's haul included my first squash of the season! I never thought I would look forward to the day that squash showed up in my house, but I have come to love it. This box did have some challenges for me though. I've never really eaten beets or peas, I'm running out of kohlrabi ideas, and I've never made anything with cabbage. The green onions I added to my frozen stash, the cauliflower became Cauliflower Poppers, and the fennel is still sitting in my fridge as I wonder what on earth to do with it. Add 3 lbs of ground beef, and this week is challenging my creativity! At least I have my good ole omelet obsession to fall back on.
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| Still green, but yellow and red too! |
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| I LOVE the golden color of the cauliflower! |
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| This is my lunch at least 3 times a week. I am an omelet fanatic. FANATIC. |
Meanwhile I've still been trying to make the most of last week's box, and I had a couple of large cakes to make last week. Here's a quick non-CSA story for you, just because it's fun. :) My brother-in-law got married this past weekend to a wonderful woman. They are lovely, fantastically silly couple. When I asked him what he wanted for a groom's cake his only request was, "I know it's really weird, but can you do a small mouth bass?". When he said it needed to feed a crowd of about 60 I informed him that it would be much closer to the size of a shark than a bass, unless he let me get creative. Luckily he's an easy going dude, so he let me have free reign. My husband loves when I do cakes, and his ideas are usually more grand than I can possibly imagine pulling off, but this time he hit the nail on the head with the suggestion of an ice chest with fish. This way there was enough cake to feed everyone, and it met the groom's criteria. So can I take a teensy moment to brag on this?
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| If it was a real fish that cake would have smelled awful. And been gross. |
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| This was just too much fun! K was convinced it was her birthday cake. |
I'm seriously proud of it. My brother-in-law actually never ended up eating his fish because he was so excited about it. It is now frozen so he can just pull it out and look at it whenever he wants. And a word of advice. When someone says, "Is that a real fish on that cake?", and someone tells you it's not, it's actually cake, don't poke it to see if what they say is true. Now you're just sticking your fingers all over someone else's perfectly edible fish. But I did take it as the highest form of compliment. And in the interest of making this somewhat acceptable for me to post on my CSA blog, I'll share the scratch recipe I used. I had to make this dairy free due to allergies for people in attendance, but using soy substitutes wasn't a problem at all. Better Than Box Scratch White Cake
So now for some recipes. There's quite a few today, some are my own, anything else I will link to like normal.
See you guys next week!
-Sam
Recipe #1 - Chicken Fried Rice
1 lb of chicken, cut into 1in. chunks.
1 cup of rice, prepared with boiling directions on package
1/2 c green onions
Minced garlic scapes to taste (or any garlic substitute really)
4 Tbsp butter, divided
1/4 c soy sauce
Salt, pepper, cayenne to taste
2 eggs scrambled (however you normally season them)
Start rice before cooking chicken, following instructions on package. (Sometimes I cook it in chicken brother instead of water for some extra flavor, depends on my mood.) While rice is cooking, melt 2 Tbsp of butter in a cast iron skillet, and cook the onions and scapes on low about 2 minutes, enough to release some of the flavor. Add chicken chunks, salt, pepper, and cook through, letting them brown a little on the outside. Once rice is done, add the remaining butter and soy sauce to the skillet with the chicken, and add rice, stirring frequently until it starts to brown. Scramble eggs in a separate skillet, and when cooked and crumbly, add to the chicken and rice. Mix well, serve hot.
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| I love my cast iron skillet. And this meal is so filling. |
Recipe #2 - Juicy Roasted Chicken
The only addition I made to this recipe was to put some garlic cloves and green onions in the cavity as well. While I prefer the flavor of the smoked chicken we made a couple of weeks ago, this was a nice juicy alternative. Definitely let the chicken rest after cooking, it lets the juices really soak into the meat and keeps it from drying out. I will say the skin on this fell off and was a bit, well, slimy for lack of a better term, but the meat itself had a great flavor, particularly the dark meat sections. Per usual, we picked the bird clean! And K is no longer worried about the chicken's head being chopped off, she just digs right in like everyone else. :)
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| "Pretty bird, pretty bird!" (Dumb and Dumber anyone?) |
Recipe #3 - Penne Pasta and Meatballs
I know everyone probably has a go to meatball recipe, but I never did until now. I have always made meatloaf, but after a small mishap last week when my usually gorgeous meatloaf fell to pieces, I decided to alter my recipe and make meatballs out of it. I decided to bake them first and get as much of the grease out as I could to make them a little healthier, but I was pleasantly surprised when so little baked out. Gotta love that lean AA meat!
1 lb ground beef
1/4 c green onions
1 piece of bread
1 egg
1/4 c milk
2 Tbsp ketchup or tomato paste
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 can diced tomatoes, or 2 fresh tomatoes, diced and squeezed
4 oz beef broth
1/2 c flour
1 package penne pasta, cooked according to box directions
In small bowl, pour milk and add bread, letting it soak up as much as possible. Once saturated, pick up and gently squeeze out excess, then place bread in large bowl. Add beef, egg, onions, ketchup, garlic powder, salt and pepper, and mix until everything is thoroughly incorporated. Form into 1" round meatballs, and placed on lightly greased baking sheet. Cook at 400 for about 15 minutes. You want them brown, but not necessarily cooked all the way through. Transfer meatballs into crock pot and pour your tomatoes and broth over the top, and then cook on low for 2-3 hours. When it's near time for dinner, about the time you start your pasta, remove meatballs from the crock pot with a slotted spoon and keep nearby. Little by little add your flour to the tomatoes and broth in the crockpot, whisking as you go so it doesn't clump, and increase the heat to high. Once it is thick enough to be considered "sauce" add your meat balls back in to keep them warm until your pasta is done and you are ready to serve.
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| I'd say it's a meatloaf catastrophe, but it was still deliciously edible. |
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| The pasta was way easier for the kids to eat than traditional spaghetti. |
Recipe #4 - Southern Style Crockpot BBQ & Kohlrabi Ham Bake
I have no idea how many times I've made this barbeque now, but every single time it has been delicious. Especially when we put it on the homemade buttery buns I posted a few weeks ago. We had some friends over, and wanted to show off some of our CSA goodies, so we used our AA pork roast, and then the kohlrabi ham bake that some many AA facebook people had suggested. The ham bake was an easy side to fix, and a good way to use up some of the excess kohlrabi we had laying around.
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| I almost forgot a picture, so here's my half eaten food. |
Recipe #5 - Cheeseburger Puff Pastry
With all the ground beef, I wanted to get creative and make something like a hot pocket for my kiddos to snack on. I couldn't decide what to put them inside of though, so I settled on puff pastry. They came out pretty good, though next time I might buy puff pastry instead of making them from scratch just to save some time. The good thing about this is you can get super creative and make these with whatever flavors you normally have on your own burgers.
1 pack puff pastry or Fast and Easy Puff Pastry
1 lb ground beef
green onions (or whatever onions you want really)
1/2 tsp garlic powder or 1 tsp garlic scapes
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup cheddar cheese
1/2 cup monterey jack cheese
1 Tbsp dijon mustard
2 Tbsp mayo
2 Tbsp ketchup
Brown ground beef in a skillet with onions, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. I didn't put an amount on the onions, because this is really all about your personal preference. Once everything is cooked though and in small chunks, remove from heat and put in a medium bowl to cool. While that is cooling, roll out pastry roughly 16"x16", and cut into 4" rows making 4"x4" squares. Once meat is cool, add cheeses and condiments, mixing thoroughly, with your hands if needed. You don't want it to press together like a meat ball, but you don't want it so crumbly that the cheese goes all over the place. A sticky kind of mess is the best way to describe it. When it is all ready, brush the edge of your pastry square, then place a heaping tablespoon of the beef mixture in the middle. Fold over edges and seal, and move to a baking sheet covered in parchment or a silpat. When all pastries are sealed, bake at 400 for about 20-25 minutes, or until the tops are very lightly browned.
Feel free to go nuts and add shredded lettuce, mushrooms, or dip into condiments of your choice. :) Enjoy!
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| So I did 12"x12" on my tiny countertop, so sue me. |
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| I tend to overfill my pastries. Oh well, the more (meat) the merrier! |
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| Fork and egg wash to seal the edges. |
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| Some of them exploded into delicious cheesiness! |
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| Tada! |
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