Category Archives: CSA Adventures

What am I going to do with ten pounds of kale this week?!?

Summer CSA, Ratatouille and Grilled Bruschetta Chicken

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It’s been a couple of weeks since I have done a CSA post and we’ve almost had a full turnover in produce since last time. Here we are now, in the midst of summer in North Carolina. That means tons of tomatoes. This particular combination of made me think of Ratatouille. We make this versatile vegetable stew quite often and most of the key ingredients are already here. I am particularly fond of the recipe in the New Moosewood Cookbook. This week we were able to use fresh tomatoes instead of canned. Try it for lunch, as a side dish or with fresh scrambled eggs at breakfast.

Ratatouille

The full list this week included:

  • 1 eggplant
  • 3 bell peppers
  • 4# tomatoes
  • 1 pint sungolds – these are extraordinarily sweet and a great on their own or on top of a salad.
  • 1 baggie of fresh basil

I used the peppers, eggplant and some of the tomatoes in the Ratatouille. The fresh basil and tomatoes are a can’t-miss duo. I decided to use the basil to make pesto and create a dish to pair it with the tomatoes. I came up with Grilled Bruschetta Chicken with Roasted Squash and Pesto Sauce. I really wanted to use spaghetti squash to make this a “pasta” dish but it was not to be had at the grocery store this week so I had to work with what I could get. I will post the full recipe soon.

Grilled Bruschetta Chicken

 

 

 

 

 

CSA Week 9

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It looks like agriculture in North Carolina turned over last week. Greens have been gone for a couple of weeks now and it looks like the squash season was short. This week is the first of the blackberries and the blueberries are a week or two out. Onions are consistent and getting larger. This week included:

  • 1 pint blackberries. We ate all of these but stay tuned next week for some grilled pork chops with blackberry chutney.
  • 1 fennel. This is one of my favorite vegetables although it is hit-or-miss with people. If you really like the flavor, try serving it raw on a salad with blue cheese and fresh orange. If you’re looking to chill out the licorice flavor, try making this vegan- and paleo-friendly roasted fennel and tomato soup.
  • 3 large onions. This is the first red onions we’ve seen.
  • 1# carrots. Had these for lunch with some sliced cucumber, tomato and tuna salad.
  • Potatoes. While these are not strictly paleo, I’m not going to turn down any fresh farm food. We incorporated these into a gratin with grass-fed cheddar. I used the rest for roasted potatoes with rosemary served with fresh farm bratwurst and sautéed peppers and onions.

Happy Father’s Day Y’all

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Sean and I aren’t parents (unless you count owning a stinky dog) but we still love Father’s Day as a good excuse to have a big, delicious dinner. I was born and raised in Buffalo, NY and if you ask me the one thing I miss the most about Buffalo my answer would be: beef on weck. Beef on weck is roast beef on a Kummelweck bun (and a Kummelweck bun is a Kaiser roll dusted with salt and caraway seeds). You know you have a legit beef on weck sandwich in your hand when the beef is rare, carved beautifully thin and you have the juices dripping down your arm. Recently I have been seriously craving a beef on weck. In our pre-paleo days Sean and I made some homemade beef on weck sandwiches and they were delicious. Well, Kummelweck buns sure aren’t paleo so I wanted to create a dish that would mimic the beef on weck but without the bun. Instead of beef on weck, I’m calling this Beef Weck. I hope you try it out and enjoy it. If you’ve never had a beef on weck you’re in for a real treat; there is something amazing about putting beef, salt and caraway seeds together. And if you’ve had beef on weck, I think this is a great healthier substitution; it sure satisfied my craving at least.

Beef Weck Ingredients

Kosher salt

Caraway seeds

Flank Steak

Directions

Pretty simple… I grounded up some caraway seeds and kosher salt with a mortar and pestle. Then we used it as a rub on the flank steak and grilled the steak to a nice rare/medium-rare.

Tips: Sean was concerned the caraway seeds wouldn’t stick (and as a result we woud miss out on the awesome flavor they bring) and he was concerned the salt would dry out the steak. To fix this we made sure to rub the caraway/salt into the steak really well. We also put the rub on right before grilling the steak; that way the salt didn’t have time to soak up the steak’s juices before we grilled it. The steak turned out awesome!

We served the steak with a broccoli salad and au gratin potatoes. Yeah, potatoes aren’t paleo, but we got some potatoes in our CSA box this week and we aren’t going to not eat something from the farm just because it’s not paleo – you can’t deny good, local food. I really do love au gratin potatoes so I decided to make them with some local whole milk and grass fed cheddar & butter.

I made up the broccoli salad in an attempt to mimic the (non-paleo) pasta salad I would usually make with beef on weck.

Broccoli Salad Ingredients

2 small heads of broccoli

hard salami, cut up in small chunks

black olives, sliced

Dressing Ingredients

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp basil

1 tsp red pepper flakes

2 cloves garlic

sun-dried tomatoes cut into small pieces

Directions

Again, pretty easy… I cut the broccoli up into small pieces and boiled them until cooked. Then I mixed in the black olives and salami. I mixed all the dressing ingredients together and coated the salad with it. Yum!

 

 

Quick Pickles

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Here’s a recipe for a quick pickle; no cooking or waiting. A great way to use fresh cucumbers which will be plentiful now that summer has arrived. These are also salt-free, unlike those dubious jars from the grocery store. I can remember eating these growing up, so I have to thank my Mom for the inspiration on this one. Try them at your next BBQ.

Procedure:

Slice three medium-sized fresh cucumbers very thinly using a knife or mandoline.  Add them to a mixture to 1 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/2 tbsp each of sugar, dill and red pepper flakes. Stir to combine and refrigerate until you are ready to eat them, which could be immediately.

 

CSA Week 7

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So I’m liking this posting with a week delay. Rather than speculation, I have results. This week (last week) was sort of a transition week. More summer veggies and a really great variety. Spinach and lettuces are less frequent. Summer squash is plentiful. This week included:

    • 1 lettuce. Instead of salads this week we did chicken lettuce wraps. We cooked skinless chicken thighs in enchilada sauce I had frozen with a dash of homemade hot sauce. I would say this was a marginal success. The chicken was really good but it was too messy.  I have yet to find a good paleo tortilla. I’ve tried coconut flour but they were too fluffy and fell apart easily.
    • 3# squash. This was mostly the yellow summer squash and 1 large green zucchini. We incorporated this into “meatless Monday” by making a squash “pasta bake”. Essentially this was cooked sliced zucchini, onion, garlic, diced tomatoes and italian seasonings topped with fresh mozzarella and baked until brown and bubbly.
    • 1 large onion
    • Leeks. Now I love leaks. I posted my favorite preparation a while ago served with seared sea scallops. This time I quickly charred them on the grill, then wrapped them in foil with a little balsamic vinegar and let them braise on the grill for about 10-15 minutes.
    • Swiss chard. We made Jacquie’s breakfast casserole again using local sausage and sweet potatoes. Went really well with the homemade hot sauce and yielded breakfast for four days this week.
    • Beets. One of me and Jacquie’s favorite veggies. Nothing better than roasted beets with a little olive oil. There weren’t many so we also made roasted parsnips to go with them. Both were a great side dish for chicken Kiev.

      Chicken Kiev

      Chicken Kiev

    • Cucumbers. Made some quick pickles with these to serve with a marinated and grilled flank steak.

Quick Pickles

Sausage, Sweet Potato, and Swiss Chard Breakfast Casserole

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Awhile back Sean and I got rainbow swiss chard in our CSA which we used to make a breakfast casserole. I made the casserole on Sunday night and would heat it up in the microwave for 30-45 s every morning and serve it for breakfast. Healthy, tasty, quick & easy… not much more ya can ask for!

What You’ll Need

  • 1 pound of breakfast sausage (I got some sausage from the farm… it was delicious beyond words)
  • A bunch of greens (I did swiss chard but you could also do spinach, turnip greens, collards or kale)
  • ~2 sweet potatoes
  • ~6-8 large eggs

I started off cooking the sausage in a skillet.

While it was cooking I cut up the sweet potatoes into thin slices and lined the bottom of an 8″ x 8″ baking dish with them.

I chopped up the swiss chard a bit and once the sausage was done cooking I threw it in the skillet as well. I cooked the mixture until the swiss chard was nice and wilted. Then I evenly topped the sweet potatoes with the swiss chard & sausage mixture.

In a separate bowl I whisked the eggs and poured them on top of the casserole, making sure to distribute the eggs evenly throughout the dish.

Baked at 400-deg until the eggs were thoroughly cooked (30-40 minutes). If you stick a knife in the thickest part of the casserole and it comes out clean, it’s ready to eat!

I like the sweet potato & egg layers at the bottom – it made it fun to eat :-)

 

CSA Week 6

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I waited to post this week’s CSA contents until I had a plan for all of them (or in this case, have already eaten all of them). It looks like it’s officially squash/zucchini season in North Carolina, which is short but abundant. Jacq harvested her first zucchinis last weekend and we ended up with 2# of summer squash. Probably plenty of squash recipes to come. The rest of this week’s content’s included:

  • 2 onions. We sautéed these with the first two zucchini from Jacq’s plants.
  • 2# yellow summer squash. We made a fantastic curried squash soup courtesy of Emeril. The only modification was adding coconut milk instead of heavy cream. It was good both warm for dinner and cold for lunch the next day.
  • 1 lettuce. Had salads for dinner on our new “meatless Monday” tradition with the curried squash soup.
  • 1 bunch carrots. Used these for a spicy carrot slaw with lime, cilantro and jalepeno. The dried jalapeno really added an extra punch.
  • 0.5# peas. Grilled the pods until lightly charred on the outside. Tossed with a little bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Ate as finger-food like edamame.
  • 1 cabbage. Sweet and sour cabbage as a side for meatballs.
  • 1 head broccoli.

 

CSA Week 5

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So Morley and I just went to pick up our CSA box and it’s like Armageddon in Chapel Hill, NC. We had thunderstorms roll through this evening and some of the traffic lights lost power.  There were car horns and sirens everywhere (which Morley likes to imitate by howling at them).  To be fair this is how it gets every time there is weather down here; North Carolinians can’t handle it. Or maybe it was just a free-for-all mob-style protest of the passing of Amendment 1, I can’t be sure…

But anyway, Morley and I did manage to eventually get our veggies home. You can tell this stuff is fresh. It was dirtier this week than the last couple of weeks, probably because of the rain today.

I didn’t do a Week 4 post because everything was a repeat of something we had previously. I still have some lettuce and spinach from last week that I am trying to quickly finish up now that the stocks are replenished. I’m also super-excited that we just bought a food dehydrator. I can’t decide what to dehydrate first! Looks like there are some possibilities here. So here’s a list of the contents. Quite a bounty this week.

  • 1 pint of strawberries – Still strawberry season here in NC. No complaints from this guy. I might try dehydrating these.
  • 1 head of cauliflower
  • 1 lettuce
  • 3 onions
  • 1 bunch of turnips – The onions and turnips are easy. I was really excited to see these. I see a breakfast casserole in our future made with grated turnips, diced onions, eggs and farm sausage.
  • 3 green/3 yellow squash – Another option for dehydrating. I want to try me some zucchini chips.
  • 3/4# spinach – I’ve been eating a lot of spinach lately. Will have to think about this one a little more.

CSA Week 3

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Swiss ChardIt’s week three of the CSA and holy lettuce! We just finished our salad from last week and here comes round two. What I’m really excited about is the swiss chard though. I’m not sure that I’ve ever eaten this particular vegetable much less prepared it. It looks like it could be good sautéed and Eric recommended trying it in a raw salad.

Two more pints of delicious strawberries this week. The bad news it looks like the rain and cold have hurt the ripening strawberries. The good news is that the rain helps the blueberries and blackberries and those have survived the cold so far. I’m looking forward to both! For the first time the farm  is also growing mushrooms. An email update says they’ve cleared some trees and shrubs where the mushroom logs are incubating and preparing the area for production.

 

The box this week included:

  • 1/4# arugula
  • 1 large lettuce (not sure what kind exactly)
  • 1/4# spring salad mix
  • 1 bunch rainbow swiss chard
  • 2 pints strawberries

CSA Week 2

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CSA week two is here already. We just managed to finish the lettuce from last week when another pound shows up, plus 1/4# of spring mix. Good thing I like salad. Some of the ingredients are the same as last week and some are new. Here’s what we got and what the plan is to use it all in a week. I’ll update this post if I do anything particularly interesting with any of these ingredients:

  • 3 pints of strawberries. These are the most delicious strawberries I have ever had. So sweet and juicy they don’t need any help. As of now, we finished 2/3 pints. I’m doubtful the third with survive the night.
  • 1# lettuce . That’s a lot of lettuce. We saw a great episode of Growing A Greener World on PBS this weekend where he made a green bean and tuna salad.
  • 1/4# spring mix.  More salad of a different variety. Looks delicious. I’ll probably make a salad for lunch similar to last week. Also, pistachios are great on salads.
  • Broccoli. Steamed combined with toasted almonds and crispy shallots.
  • 1/4# asparagus. Wrapped in proscuitto and drizzled with olive oil. Baked in the oven at 400 F for about 15 minutes until the proscuitto is crispy and the asparagus is tender.
  • Bunch of field onions. We had these already with “meatza” (think pizza with a ground beef crust or meatloaf with pizza toppings).  This one I topped with sautéed field onions, bacon and sliced jalepeno.