Sometimes You Just Have to Eat It.

I like to pretend that I'm this amazing gourmet specialty chef sometimes. I have fancy aprons, a few fancy pots, and a couple of specialty appliances. I mean, I'm not going to say I can't cook, but I'm certainly not ever going to be sought after by a five star restaurant for my innovative creations. When it comes right down to it, I'm a southern girl who loves to be in the kitchen, and though I will make fancy things from time to time, chances are you'll find me eating homemade biscuits, fried chicken fingers, gravy, and mashed potatoes. Many of the things I cook stem from the need to be creative, and the desire to do something "special with my special food."

I'm not going to lie; the past couple of weeks I've been in a cooking rut and had a couple of failed recipes (serious bummer). Between a weekend of deep fried Moon Pies and RC cola and a pizza for our Weekly Pizza blog, healthy eating went a little by the wayside. I also had to throw out about 1 cup of kale I just hadn't eaten, and 1/2 cup of peas that got pushed to the back of the fridge.  I got carried away thinking that all of my CSA, farmer's market, and homegrown goodies deserved to be part of a special meal. However, there's been a few stressful things I've been dealing with personally (and not so personal if you were one of the lucky people to witness quite the crying scene between my daughters and me at our pickup last Wed.) and I keep putting aside that food and opting for a sandwich or omelet, saving the good stuff for a good meal.  This has led to an overabundance of awesome veggies, sitting forlornly in my pantry, praying to be eaten before spoiling. So my goal for the past week has just been to eat them! Boring as it may be I have only a handful of recipes to share for the past 2 weeks because I have been busy steaming, sauteeing, and grilling my little heart out! We also got some rutabaga and more patty pan squash and beets last week, so I'm still trying to figure out what to do with those!

The most delicious heart attack waiting to happen!

Green Beans, potatoes, cabbage, onion, rutabaga, tomato, eggs, chicken breasts, ground beef, zucchini and tomato

Sneaky Little Bit is trying to grab green beans, onion, brats, corn, peaches, potatoes, beets, eggs, dill, and patty pan squash

While I do have a few recipes to share, we'll get to those in a minute. Today I want to talk about bread making a little bit. I've had a handful of people mention to me they wished they made bread more often, or could learn to make it themselves. In all honesty, it's really not *that* hard. Sure, the loafs that take 2 days, special ingredients, and skilled hands are out there, but that's not your starting point to learn. Start with some sourdough, or a good basic white bread. I highly recommend pretty much anything at King Arthur Flour's website as they have awesome reviews, and even more important, very actively involved customer service who will literally walk you through a recipe over the phone. I also highly recommend their flour for the quality and flavor. Even though it's slightly more expensive than some other brands, it's still cheaper to make bread from it than to buy a loaf from your grocery store.

Here's my best advice when it comes to bread making: just jump in and try it already! Obviously that doesn't give you much direction, but look at it this way, if a recipe totally bombs you can always dehydrate it and make croutons or bread crumbs for other recipes. And it's still cheaper than if you had bought those ingredients at the store. Yeast is nothing to be afraid of. In the right recipe, it is your best friend! It gives bread texture, flavor, rise, airiness, all those qualities you want!

My second best advice is to be patient. So much of the process is feeling, seeing, smelling what's going on with your bread. When a recipe says, "let dough rise for an hour or until doubled in bulk", what it's really saying is, "around an hour or so it should be doubled in bulk, but if it's not, that's okay, let it sit a while longer and keep an eye on it." For most basic recipes you have 2 rises, the first being the bulk of the rise, the second after you shape your dough into whatever shapes you need and let it get puffy again. For most basic recipes, it's okay if you let it sit longer than a recipe says. It will likely develop more flavor and be generally happier. Happy bread bakes better than angry bread that's been rushed along.

Just a few more tips and I'm done, hang in there. :) A wetter dough is usually better than a drier dough. Don't be afraid to let a bread machine do the kneading for you. It can really save your wrists. Just keep an eye on the dough to make sure it's not too dry during the first 5 minutes or so of mixing. Of course if you want to knead, go right ahead and have fun, I find it to be rather therapeutic. Just don't beat it. It just wants to be nicely stretched and pushed around a little. Kind of like a little second grade boy picking on a girl he has a crush on, a little playful pushing. Once it starts to spring back when you poke and it, and it's a smooth(ish) ball, it's ready to chill a bit. For a good starter recipe check out this hearth bread. 


And what's a food blog without pictures of our food? Here's some of my less creative, but still AA delicious, meals:

Grilled pork chops, zucchini and cabbage, green beans and cornbread. I LOVE grilled veggies!

More veggies:corn, veronica cauliflower, onions, and zucchini, and some oh so yummy brats!

Have you ever pressure cooked a roast before? It's soooo tender. Too bad it was the first time to use my new pressure cooker and I broke the handle. Oh well, replacement is on order!

Until next time, happy cooking (and baking)!!
-Sam



Recipe # 1 - Lamb and Beef Gyro Meat with Homemade Pita Bread

My husband has a favorite Greek restaurant up in Nashville, but unfortunately they are only open on weekdays from 12-4 (how about those hours, huh?) so he rarely gets to eat there since he works over half an hour away. Every now and then I will take a stab at replicating their food for him, and this is quite honestly the closest I've ever gotten. You'll notice in the Gyro Meat recipe it calls for 2 pounds of lamb, but I did a split with 1 pound lamb (ground here with my Kitchenaid meat grinder attachment) and 1 pound AA ground beef. I ran the lamb through the course grinder first, mixed the beef and other ingredients in with my hands, then ran the whole mix back through the grinder with the fine plate. You could just as easily use a food processor instead of a grinder if you wanted, just don't pulse too long or the texture might be a little off. I did the pitas after the meat came out of the oven so it wouldn't take as long to preheat, and so they would nice and warm. We stuffed the pitas with meat, white rice cooked in chicken broth, diced tomatoes, and shredded lettuce, and then drizzled some homemade ranch dressing on there. I have to admit, though I'm not the Greek fan my husband is, it was pretty delicious, and very filling! Next time I think I would use only a 1/2 lb of each meat since we had a bit leftover and it doesn't reheat super well.
Bonus - the leftover pitas made a great dessert when stuffed with apple butter. :)

Next time I'll have to make more pitas!

Recipe #2 - Sweet Southern Cornbread

Most people think of Southern Cornbread as not very sweet since, after all, the main ingredients are cornmeal and buttermilk. My hubs prefers something with a little sugar in it, but nothing like the cake like cornbread you can get that's loaded up with a combo of cornmeal and AP flour. So I used the above recipe, and just change the sugar to 1/2 cup instead. Just enough sweet without ruining the texture or corn flavor! Since my mom so kindly gave me a bag of local organic cornmeal from Readyville Mill we've been really enjoying have cornbread more often! I will definitely be picking up some more when this bag runs out. It is delicious!




Recipe #3 - Homemade Flour Tortillas & Taco Meat


I had never made tortillas before, and had found so many different recipes and methods online. So I decided to combine those together, and here's what worked out for me!

3 cups AP flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 c vegetable oil (could substitute olive or canola if that's what you've got on hand)
3/4 c of hot water (I brought mine to a boil in the microwave)

First combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl with a whisk. Add the oil and mix with a fork, pastry cutter, or your fingertips until the mixture resembles course damp sand. It should still be grainy, but not really dry and powdery. Add your hot water and mush into a ball with your lightly floured hands. If you need to let it cool off a bit, that's fine, but it's best to do it while the water is still warm. I divided my dough into 8 equal portions, and rolled each of those into a ball. Preheat a flat bottom skillet on medium high, no oil or anything needed. Here's where it gets fun!

Lightly dust your countertop and rolling pin with flour. Flatten your dough ball into about a 1/2" thick round.

 Roll out into a circle, about 1/8" thin. It should stretch easily, and hold together pretty well when you pick it up.

Place in skillet and keep a close eye. It will puff up and start to brown, shouldn't take more than 30 seconds-1 minute on each side. Keep wrapped in a clean soft kitchen towel until using so they don't harden up.

For the taco meat, I browned the meat with onion and bell pepper, then seasoned with cumin, salt, pepper, chili powder, garlic powder, red pepper and paprika.

  

 Get a tortilla, add some meat, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, and salsa and you're good to go!

If Only I Had My Own Farm...

Have I mentioned yet that I would love to live on a farm? Sometimes I sit around and daydream about what it would be like. The life lessons my children would learn, the love for our livestock and what it provides, big fields of produce growing abundantly, manure magically disappearing, sunshine, rainbows, ponies, and deliciously healthy food appearing on our table every night with little effort as we sit around and eat as a family listening to some Michael Buble. In reality I know it would entail hardwork, crankiness, dirtiness, long days, chickens you may want to kick and send flying into the oblivion, that one rooster that won't ever be quiet, as well as dependence upon forces you can't control such as weather, insects, food costs for livestock and so on. The only 2 things my current life has in common with my daydream farm life is the food we get from our CSA box and my garden, and listening to Michael Buble on occasion during dinner. I've tried to convince the hubs that we should get a couple of chickens, and I have even looked up the city codes on having poultry on private property within city limits, but he says it's a no go. He asked me what I would do with a chicken. Well, the obvious answer is get eggs. The harder answer is eat it for dinner. He wasn't convinced that I have what it takes to butcher a chicken (and I don't blame him, I almost threw up the first time I roasted a turkey and felt the bone in its wing break), but after a lot of research I'm certain if I needed the food I could do it. Then I would promptly throw up. Then dig into my delicious roast bird while crying a little.

In the past couple of years, admittedly since becoming a mother, I've wanted to know more about not only where my food came from, but how to prepare it. Have you ever really thought about how much our food process has changed in the last 100 years? How much more reliant we have become on a grocery store? On a box of pasta, a bag of bread, or even our deli meat? Maybe it's the becoming a mom thing, maybe it's the rash of post-apocalyptic novels I've read or shows I've seen (if you want a good book to utterly freak you out read One Second After), or maybe it's an appreciation for past generations, but I want to know how to take care of my family if I couldn't go to the grocery store and grab a quick easy meal. Of course I easily get carried away with things, hence the farm daydreams, and I realize as much as I research how to grow my own wheat, harvest, dry, and grind it myself, I know that I will more than likely never need that skill. So I currently am satisfied with the fact that if the world is going to hell in a hand basket, I can at least be wasteful and make a satisfactory scratch whole grain pasta with a butter garlic sauce to go with my meager portion of wild turkey leg (assuming I learn to hunt though I despise guns and have no idea how to shoot an arrow).

I share all of this so you understand that though my reasoning may be a little crazy, it's a lot of why I appreciate my CSA box so incredibly much. I know how much effort I put into my own tiny little garden, keeping it healthy and chemical free. I can't imagine how much effort these farmers put into the box I get every week. It blows my mind a little actually. It also gives me peace of mind of knowing exactly what we're putting in our bodies as a family. Yeah, sometimes peas get thrown across the room, or squash gets spit back out as a defiant toddler refuses to eat it, but for the most part I know they are getting healthy food much of the time. I won't lie, they get to dig into cookies and cupcakes as much as the next toddler, but still, at least they eat their veggies. :) Just maybe that will turn into a lifestyle of healthy eating for them. I loved learning to cook with my own mom, and I hope my girls are as interested in their food as I am! Right now K loves to cook with me, and they both love going to see our "vegetable truck" on Wednesdays. Of course that could be because there's a playground at our pickup. Oh well. :) Until next time!

Future baker in training!

Clockwise, starting left: green beans, beets, choi, broccoli florets, pork chops, eggs, beef, patty pan squash, green onions, strawberries.

-Sam

P.S. - Please ignore my lack of pictures and poor quality of the ones I have this week. I was scatterbrained and my camera phone had to do in a pinch!


Recipes #1 & #2 - Baked Parmesan Orange Roughy & Baked Squash Hushpuppies

1 package (thawed) orange roughy fillets
2 eggs
1/2 c buttermilk
1 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup parmesan
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika

Slice fillets into strips. Combine wet ingredients in one bowl, combine dry ingredients in a pie dish or plate. Dip strips into egg mix, dredge in cornmeal mix, place on lightly greased baking sheet. Bake at 425 for 12 minutes, flipping once halfway through.  Should be lightly browned on both sides.

As far as the hush puppies go, I followed the recipe exactly except for the cooking instructions. I wanted something healthier than deep fry, so I lightly greased a muffin pan, rolled the (very sticky) mix into 1-1/2" balls, and baked at 425 for about 13 minutes. They look a little muffiny, but the inside had the same texture as a regular hushpuppy.

I wish I had some tartar sauce to go with, but I ran out of time.

Recipe #3 - Creamy Potato Kale Soup

1/2 stick butter
2 cups sliced kale
1/2 cup green onions
3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
5 cups chicken broth
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 Tbsp Cornstarch (optional)

In large pot saute onions in butter until tender, about 2-3 minutes. Add sliced kale and potatoes and stir until well covered in butter. Add chicken broth and bring to a boil, then reduce temp and simmer for 25-30 minutes. Once potatoes are entirely cooked through, transfer to blender and puree, or use an immersion blender. (You can strain the larger chunks of kale that don't puree well if the texture bothers you, I did this) Add heavy cream, salt, pepper and put over medium heat until thickened. Add cornstarch if you want it to thicken quicker, dissolve in 1/4 cup water and whisk first.


Recipes #4 & #5 - Cheesy Burger Buns & Sloppy Joes

Normally the buns I make are a little sweeter and have more sugar, but I thought the parmesan cheesiness of these would compliment sloppy joes, and fortunately I was right! I did accidentally roll them too big and make GIANT buns, but can a sloppy joe really be too big? It worked out in our favor. I followed the bun recipe, but added 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes and garlic powder in, and the sloppy joes I just added about a tablespoon of soy sauce, and 1 tsp of honey. I just wanted the sloppy joes a bit sweeter since the buns wouldn't be. It was a great combination! I made the bun dough in my bread machine so there was very little hands on time and effort involved. And I forgot to take a picture. My brain has been gone this past week. Whoops! Just imagine a big, meaty sandwich of awesomeness.


Recipes #6 & #7 - Chocolate Beet Cake & Poured Fudge Icing

Makes 3 - 8 inch layers OR 2 - 9 inch layers with a few cupcakes.
2 1/2 cups cooked beets, pureed and then cooled
6 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups vegetable oil
3 3/4 cups sugar
3 3/4 cups flour, sifted
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon baking soda
 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together beets and eggs and set aside. In a separate bowl, combine cocoa, vanilla and oil. Mix well. In another separate bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Add dry ingredients into the oil and cocoa mixture, mixing together. Finally, add the beet and egg mixture mixing until well incorporated. Stop and marvel at the gorgeous color of this cake batter. Pour into greased and floured pans. Or, line the bottom of the pans with parchment paper. Bake cakes for 30-45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean and top of cake springs back to the touch. (Try 18-20 minutes for cupcakes) Cook cakes in the pan for 10 minutes then turn out to a rack. Wait until completely cool to frost the cake. (Recipe borrowed from a document posted in the Avalon Acres facebook page by Kelly Larabie.) Side note - the batter seriously was a gorgeous purple. Too bad it baked into a deep rich brown color, the purple would've been fun!

Icing:
1-1/2 c sugar
1-1/2 c powdered sugar
2/3 c cocoa
3/4 c + 2 Tbsp milk
1 stick (1/2 c) butter
1 tsp vanilla

Combine both sugars, cocoa and milk in a large saucepan or deep skillet. Mix well, then bring to a boil for about 10 minutes. Stir often so nothing is scorched, and mix will expand in size so make sure you have a deep enough pot. After mixture is considerably thickened (coats a metal spoon completely and runs off in a solid stream), remove from heat and add butter and vanilla. Stir until fully incorporated. Spoon enough onto your first layer of cake, and smear all over. Let set 1-2 minutes, then repeat. Add next layer of cake. Repeat spoon process twice, and after the second time sets, pour remaining icing over the top from the center out, letting it run down and coat the side of the cake. For easy cleaned up, strips of wax paper around the outside of the cake can collect excess and be pulled away when icing has set. Stick in freezer or fridge if you need to speed the setting process up a little.

Lots of Creativity This Week!

Phew! I need to stay on top of this blog a little better! When I get busy and get behind I end up writing so much I wonder if you guys are actually able to finish everything I have to say. Actually, let's be honest, I'm perfectly fine with it if you guys just jump straight to the recipes at the end, though if you do that this week you'll miss some super cute pics of my girls at a local strawberry patch with their Grandaddy. :)

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.

Little Bit was a little pig.

K was a pro at picking!

Nearly half a gallon of strawberries later and she's still going strong!

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!).
 

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.

Still green, but yellow and red too!

I LOVE the golden color of the cauliflower!

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?

If it was a real fish that cake would have smelled awful. And been gross.

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.

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. :)

"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.

I'd say it's a meatloaf catastrophe, but it was still deliciously edible.

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.

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!

So I did 12"x12" on my tiny countertop, so sue me.

I tend to overfill my pastries. Oh well, the more (meat) the merrier!

Fork and egg wash to seal the edges.

Some of them exploded into delicious cheesiness!

Tada!

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!