Tag Archives: #food

Girl vs. Vegetables

Posted on June 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

This has been a tough week so far. It’s only week 2 and I’m already starting to feel like the vegetables are overwhelming my fridge. Okay, maybe it’s just the Romaine because I’ve gotten that two weeks in a row and, let’s face it, there’s only so much you can do with Romaine, right?

When I had a conversation with someone at work about joining the CSA, and after I expressed my hesitancy about the veggies I’ve never cooked or eaten (“What on earth am I going to do with kale?”), her response: “You have to make kale chips. My husband can’t eat enough of them.” Hmmm…then when I received an email from the farm with CSA week 2 recipes and a recipe for kale chips was included, I had to try them.

It’s too simple, really. Wash the kale, pull the curly leaves off of the tough stems, toss in a bowl with a bit of olive oil and salt, place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for about 20 minutes or until crisp at 300 degrees. I used truffle salt to add a bit more flavor. Garlic salt would also be divine. Don’t forget to line the cookie sheet with parchment for easy clean up.

What do you get? Well, they come out of the oven looking pretty much the same as when they go in. The difference is that they are extremely light and so crispy that I would call them fragile. Remove them from the cookie sheet and place in a bowl with a paper towel to absorb any extra oil. A word of caution: They should be eaten right away. My daughter dropped by the next day and said “Oh, are these kale chips?” (their reputation precedes them?). She tried one and it was already chewy. I have also included a photo of a lovely tomato, cucumber, basil salad with balsamic dressing that I made for a picnic. The cukes were from the CSA box, the basil from my backyard. This salad was a tasty accompaniment to egg salad sandwiches on rosemary lavender foccaccia (also from CSA).

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Week One: Swiss Chard Spanakopita Casserole

Posted on June 11, 2011 | 2 Comments

I’m not sure why I felt so utterly challenged (read daunted) by the swiss chard in the box this week.  Was it because I’ve never (knowingly) consumed it in my life, let alone cooked it?  Was it because I had to Google it to verify exactly what it was?  I don’t know…but I was determined to find a tasty way to fix it.

This recipe is an adaption from a Cooking Light.  I added a pound of wonderful grass fed ground beef to make it heartier, as well as pine nuts (because it seemed like the Greek thing to do!).  The original recipe calls for mint, but I’m wary of using mint in cooking.  In my house, mint knows its place:  Altoids and mojitos.  Don’t be intimidated by working with the phyllo.  The last time I used phyllo, I was brushing each sheet with melted butter to make a chocolate baklava.  This time, you simply spray each sheet with cooking spray after you layer it making for a wonderfully thin and crispy crust.

Ingredients

Cooking spray

2 1/4 cups minced white onions

3/4 cup minced green onion

3 garlic cloves, minced

9 cups chopped trimmed Swiss chard

6 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1 cup (4 ounces) crumbled feta cheese

1/2 cup (2 ounces) freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 pound lean ground beef or lamb

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

3 large egg whites

10 sheets frozen phyllo dough, thawed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Brown ground beef in large skillet over medium heat.  Drain fat.  Add white onion to skillet with ground beef.  saute 7 minutes or until golden.  Add green onion and garlic, and saute 1 minute.  Stir in chard; cook until chard wilts (about 2 minutes).  Stir in parsley and cook 1 minute.  Place in large bowl and cool slightly.  Stir in cheeses, salt, pepper, and egg whites.

Spray 9 x 13 inch casserole or Pyrex dish with cooking spray. lay one sheet of phyllo in bottom of dish.  spray with cooking spray.  top with another sheet and spray with cooking spray.  Continue in this manner until you have layered 5 sheets of phyllo.  spread filling in dish.  Repeat process of layering phyllo sheets on top of filling, spraying each sheet before laying the next one.  Bake at 350 degrees 40-50 minutes or until golden brown.

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Serious Strawberries

Posted on June 8, 2011 | 5 Comments

I don’t know what came over me, but I had made up my mind that I was going to make strawberry preserves.  It could have been the preemptive email from the farm that is hosting my CSA saying that members would not be getting any fruit this week in our box because “strawberry season has ended and we are waiting for the blackberries and blueberries to ripen.”

Wait….what?  strawberry season has already ended?

The pick-your-own farm that I have frequented on many field trips with my kids didn’t even open until May 25th, so how can that be so?  I visited their web site and was delighted to see that strawberry picking was, at present, fair.  The web site also stated that strawberry picking was expected to end next week.  My mother and I used to make strawberry preserves together when I was growing up.  I have memories of picking berries together in our younger years.  In later years, I would do the picking and we would make the jam in her kitchen together.  A labor intensive affair of constant cleaning, hulling, and stirring at the stove top-all which must be done within 24 hours or so of picking so that the berries don’t go bad.  The last time I picked strawberries to make preserves, my mother was sick with cancer.  I kept my oldest daughter out of school to help me and we picked two large boxes, only to have them rot when my mother passed away later that same day.  After twelve years, I decided this was the year to continue the tradition.

I headed out to the farm as soon as I put my youngest on the bus.  It was already 83 degrees on a day that promised to reach 95 degrees.  I started picking, an elderly man in the next row moving much more efficiently than I since he scooted directly on the ground up the row whereas I was afraid of  bugs (I saw not one, not even a bumblebee!) and bent down on haunches.  I lost steam quickly this way, in the heat, but managed to pick 5 1/2 pounds.  My car smelled heavenly on the drive home from the farm.

You don’t have a strawberry huller from Williams Sonoma?  Well, good grief, you must have one if you love strawberries and make lots with them.  This inexpensive tool grabs the stem and pulls it out in three seconds.  I hated hulling the berries when I was younger, but I always chose that job versus stirring the cooking preserves because I could sit down to hull.  Yep, I was am lazy.

I used a lower sugar pectin to make the preserves, and followed the recipe on the box.  I had some thought about eliminating the sugar altogether and using something else, such as agave nectar, but apparently the sugar is necessarily to the whole “jelling” process so I felt that if I could at least cut some of it…well, that was something.  I used a paraffin seal on top of the preserves-a process my mother taught me.  This eliminates the need to boil the jars or use a pressure cooker.

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