Dandelion greens

So, I decided to make a foray into backyard foraging. We're growing quite a crop of dandelions in our yard, and I knew TK was going to mow 'em all down last night. So, the boys and I headed out to pick dandelion leaves.

I researched a little online and saw the young, small leaves are generally less bitter, so that's what we picked. We got about half a colander full before we all lost interest.



I popped 'em in some salted boiling water for about 8 minutes while frying some bacon. Then I drained the dandelion greens and transferred them to the pan with the bacon grease, along with some minced garlic. Snipped in a few chives from the garden, sauteed it all for a few minutes, then topped it with crumbled bacon.

My overall assessment: kind of bitter, but certainly edible. And kind of fun that it's just a weed growing in the yard!

CSA decision making

It's hard to believe, but it's that time of year to make a decision about joining a CSA for the summer season. At least in this area, the CSA shares sell out FAST...you can't put off deciding until April.

We plan on rejoining our CSA again this year. For you faithful readers from last summer, I'm sure you're not surprised as my blog devolved into "local produce, all the time" for a month or so there as I got so overly excited about the whole thing. I'll try to have more balance this summer, though no promises!

Anyway, I thought I'd share my "pros and cons" list for anyone on the CSA fence. These are *my* pros and cons...some of you may think my pros are actually cons, or vice versa :) So take it for what it's worth.

Pros of a CSA:

• Supporting local farming (and all that goes with it, such as more sustainable agriculture, green space in the area, ability of farmers to grow a diversity of vegetables, training new farmers, etc.)
• Getting a lot of veggies, especially varieties I haven't tried before.
• Potential environmental benefit (I'm not convinced about fuel savings for shipping, and on a totally personal level, we drive A LOT further to go to the CSA than to the supermarket. I know that's not the same as a truck driving from California to MA, or a plane flying from South America, but I do kind of feel like my own personal contribution to fuel savings is at least partially offset by the long distance we have to drive to the CSA).
• Okay, here's a true environmental benefit: little to no packaging materials. Sometimes we'd pick things into a reusable pint container, or use a plastic veggie bag, but most of it goes directly into a reusable grocery bag with absolutely no packaging at all. There's also no food refrigeration storage costs as it goes right from the field to us!
• Giving my kids a better understanding of where food comes from and how it is grown.
• Getting organic (or in our case, organically grown but not certified organic) vegetables.
• This is personal to our specific CSA, but I love that our CSA is big into hunger relief efforts on a local level.
• Eating healthier. We ate a lot more veggies and vegetarian meals during the summer.
• The fun of the you-pick component. I mean, there's one local farm that charges $8 a person just to get on their farm to pick strawberries (you have to pay for the strawberries on top of it!) We got to do the picking for free each week, which was the boys' favorite part. B-man especially loved picking basil (I think because he was totally entranced with the fact that there was PURPLE basil!), and N-man would sometimes be willing to try a bite of something in the field (husk cherries were a hit!). Going to the CSA pick up was an event each week...a fun activity for the boys that I felt really good about. We'd also sometime pack a picnic dinner, or bump into some friends with their twins. It wasn't just an errand to go to pickup, but something fun for the family each week.
  

Neutral facts about a CSA:

• Expense: I was suprised to find there was little, if no, difference in cost. I thought we'd save money, and we certainly did on vegetables. But we made up for it in other weird ingredients I bought to try new recipes. I also became focused on sourcing many other local (or local-ish) ingredients, which became especially spendy for meat (which we cut way back on, so I probably didn't spend any extra on meat than before), and cheese (which I bought a TON of, and is probably responsible for a large portion of the additional food expenses ;)
• Getting the boys to eat more vegetables/try new foods: Yeah, this didn't work at all. They loved to pick things like fava beans, or green beans, or edamame, but they still didn't want to eat it! Oh well, they were no worse off than before!

Cons of a CSA:

• The long drive to the pick up
• Having little control over what, how much, and when you'll get things. For example, I think over the whole summer, we got THREE zucchinis. Three, that's it! How is that possible, when zucchinis are the poster child for summer plenty? And we got pretty sick of the endless non-zucchini summer squash (though I'm missing it now!) Sometimes we got too much of something, sometimes not enough.
  
• Food acquisition and preparation took a huge portion of my time during the CSA...there was little "convenience" food. By the time the CSA was over, I was a bit desperate for a frozen pizza. During the CSA, I never wanted to waste any of our food by using up a meal on something that didn't require me to use any CSA ingredients.
• The inherent risk of a CSA, in that you pay a flat fee and then get a share of the harvest, which may be small if it's not a good year (this past year wasn't great here due to the excessive rain, though I still felt like we got a fair amount for the price).
• Having to pay a lump sum up front before the growing season begins. Sure, it's nice in July, August, and September when you've already paid, but you still need to have the cash upfront.
• Being tied to specific pick-up times. The CSA we joined is one of the more convenient in that you don't have to pick a specific pick up date/time...you can show up during any of the pick up times available during the week. But even with that allowance, it's still far less convenient than a supermarket where you can pop in at pretty much any time of the day or night! For example, morning pickups would have worked best for us, but our CSA only offered late afternoon/early evening pickups so I always had to fight the afternoon rush hour.
  
• You pay for the whole season, even if you're going to be away on vacation and miss a week or two. Last year we were able to plan our travel around our CSA, but I doubt we'll be able to again this year (it's funny, since we don't even "vacation" officially, but we do take advantage of the summer to visit family).
• Did I mention the phenomenal amount of cooking and prep work? I even had to spend a lot of time looking for recipes for vegetables I'd never tried before, or new ways of preparing familiar veggies.
• The weather doesn't always cooperate...we picked up in extreme heat and extreme wet (including one insane day where we got COMPLETELY soaked just walking for the car to the pick up stand, so we decided to pick green beans despite the torrential downpour. We were, without exaggeration, as wet as we would have been if we had just jumped in a swimming pool!)
• Sometimes, especially the weeks when TK didn't come with me, it was hard to corral the boys. I mean, the farm was safe and there were always kids running around, but some weeks I spent more time trying to keep the kids entertained/away from trampling the plants/in eyesight than I did picking up the veggies!
  

As I said at the beginning of this (LONG) post, I loved our CSA and we're almost sure to do it again this year (I have nightmares about getting shutout...in fact, I have to call tomorrow if our sign up info isn't in today's mail). But I don't think a CSA is for everyone.

Who do I think would enjoy a CSA?

• People who would view large (or small) amounts of different vegetables, which you may never have used before, as a fun challenge rather than a terrible burden.
• People who are excited at the possibility of new and unusual varieties of vegetables. It's not just heirloom tomatoes you'll get, but odd varieties of squash, and different colored cauliflower, unusual cabbage, etc.
• People who have the time and inclination to commit to a weekly supply of fresh veggies. It gets a bit overwhelming, let me tell you, when you're barely finishing up last week's pick up and it's already time to go get some new stuff!
• People who don't have extensive vacations planned over the summer. If you're going to be away every other week, it's not worth it!

Going to farmers' markets are a great option, either as an alternative to a CSA, or in addition to the CSA. I still shopped at farmers' markets plenty this summer, though often for things like eggs and cheese, or to supplement our veggie pick ups (like if we only got one small eggplant, and I wanted to try a recipe that needed more eggplant). For people who don't want the commitment of time, money, or quantity that a CSA entails, shopping the farmers' markets is probably the better choice.

And for those of you still relying on the supermarket for veggies in the summer, I encourage you to check out your local farmers' markets...you'll be surprised at how much more delicious fresh vegetables can be!

Potato Pancakes, Apple Compote, and Zucchini Brownies

While summer's bounty is at an end, I completely love the flavors of fall. Here are a couple of recipes to keep you cooking local through October:




Potato Pancakes

This recipe is based on the recipe for potato pancakes in The Joy of Cooking. I've made some slight changes.

Ingredients:

5 medium potatoes, peeled, washed, and coarsely grated (about 2.5 cups coarsely grated)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten (may need 3 eggs)
1 tablespoon finely grated onion (I almost always use about 1/2 teaspoon onion powder instead. A cheat, I know.)
2 tablespoons flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
Vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

Peel, wash, and coarsely grate the potatoes. Then place handfuls into a dish towel and wring out excess water. Place the potatoes into a large bowl. Mix with the remaining ingredients (except the vegetable oil).

The resulting mixture should be kind of liquid-y: mostly potatoes, but definitely some liquid that settles to the bottom of the bowl. If the mixture seems dry, add a third egg. This is a very forgiving recipe. Sometimes I only use 2 cups of potatoes, sometimes I use more like 3 cups. Sometimes it's pretty liquidy, sometimes it's more dry. It always turns out yummy, though!

Cover the bottom of a large skillet with approx 1/4 inch of vegetable oil. Heat over medium high heat until hot. (As a tip, you can use a wooden chopstick to test the oil. When the oil is hot enough, bubbles should form around the tip of the wooden chopstick when you dip it in the oil. You can then use the chopstick along with a spatula to help flip the pancakes).

Drop spoonfuls of potato mixture into the hot oil. Use the back of the spoon to spread the mixture out thinly. The thinner your pancakes, the crispier they will become so flatten them according to your preference (very thin if you like crispy pancakes, thicker if you like them less crispy). Stir the potato mixture in the bowl between each spoonful you add to the pan so that the liquid doesn't just settle to the bottom of the bowl.

Fry until browned on the bottom, flip, and fry until the other side is browned. Remove to paper towels to drain.

These are delicious served with sour cream, applesauce, or the apple "compote" I'll include below.

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Apple Compote

This isn't really a compote, but I'm not sure what to call it. Maybe a warm, extremely chunky applesauce?

Ingredients:

5-8 apples
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons water (or more)

Directions:

Peel the apples, and then shave chunks off directly into a large saucepan. Add a couple tablespoons of water, and place over medium low heat. Add the cinnamon and sugar and heat until warm and softened, about 15 minutes. This is another forgiving recipe. Cook it longer over a lower heat, though you will probably have to add more water if it starts to dry out. Cook it a really long time, and it'll keep getting more and more like applesauce.

The flavor and consistency of this is dependent on the apples used. I like to use a variety of apples. In the picture above, I used Macs, Jonagolds, and Mutsus, the varieties I picked earlier this week.

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Okay, and dessert is really a summer dessert, that I've been meaning to post for a few months. But keep it in mind for next summer when those zucchinis are once again overflowing the crisper drawers!

Chocolate Zucchini Brownie Cake

I follow the linked recipe exactly and it turns out so amazingly. One of my friends has also make it subbing applesauce for the oil, and said it was still very good. My only complaint about the recipe is that they call it brownies. It's really more like a cake in my opinion. Whatever it is, it's delightful!

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Last note: I made this meal for my Pass the Plate meal. You can see the part of the plate, which I put the potato pancakes on. KitchenAid is selling platters to raise money for breast cancer research. The idea is that you buy a plate, register it online, then cook something for a friend or family member. Then they cook something and pass it along to someone else, who passes it to someone else, etc. Everyone registers the plate online as they pass it, and every time it gets passed, KitchenAid donates $5.

It was really fun to do, and such an easy way to help raise money for breast cancer research!

Apple Peach Blueberry Pie

Quick, it's that magic time of year when you can get fresh, local apples, peaches, and blueberries. And there's nothing better than Apple Peach Blueberry Pie.

I created the recipe for Pi Day this past year, expanding upon my mom's delicious apple pie recipe. And let me tell you, while I loved this pie in March, it's a million times better with ingredients fresh off the tree!



Here's my recipe for Apple Peach Blueberry Pie:

Ingredients:
6 to 8 apples (I like to use a variety of types, larger sized apples. If you use small apples, peel more like 10 to 12)
2 or 3 peaches
2/3 cup of blueberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons of butter (optional...I almost always forget it!)
2 pie crusts (make your own or buy from the refrigerator section...I won't tell!)

Directions:

Peel apples and peaches and thinly slice into a large bowl. Add blueberries, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir gently to coat and let sit for at least ten minutes.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Place bottom pie crust into pie plate. Add all of the filling. Cut up the butter and dot around on top of the filling. Top with second pie crust. Cut vents in top.

Place aluminum foil around the edges of the pie to prevent burning. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove aluminum foil and continue baking an additional 10 to 20 minutes until the pie is nicely browned.

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For all you locals, we went to Parlee Farms to pick fruit. They are reasonably priced (we spent $39 for a peck of stone fruit and a 1/2 bushel of apples...over 30 lbs of apples, peaches, nectarine, and plums!) And, it's a lot of fun for kids with a hay ride out to the orchards, a small farm animal area, and a hay maze. They also have a nut-free bakery. It was such a joy to be able to buy a cookie for my son with nut allergies. And if that's not enough, they even had local fall strawberries in their farm stand. Local strawberries! In September! Yum.

Figured I'd pass along the recommendation since we had such a great time!

Pickles and Baba Ghanoush

True confessions time: I don't like cucumbers. At all. I mean, I don't even like them to touch my real food. Their icky flavor invades everything it touches. Yuck. But I love pickles. Oh, the hidden depths of me. So, when I saw the post on Boston Dish about making pickles, I figured I'd give it a go. I used the recipe she linked as my starting point, and made just a few changes.

Ingredients:

4 medium sized cucumbers (I only had regular cukes, no pickling cukes)
1 Tablespoon pickling salt
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
3/4 teaspoon celery seed
1/4 teaspoon tumeric
2 or 3 sprigs of fresh dill
2 cloves garlic
1 serrano pepper

Directions:

Thinly slice cucumbers and place in a large bowl. Add salt, mix, and place in the refrigerator for 90 minutes to 3 hours (no need to be exact...I forgot about mine!).

Place cucumbers in a colander and rinse under cold water, then return to the bowl.

Peel and crush garlic cloves. Cut the serrano pepper in half and remove seeds.

In a medium saucepan, place all remaining ingredients (except the cucumbers). Bring to a boil over medium heat and stir until all the sugar dissolves. Take my advice and do not put your face over the boiling vinegar. And if you do, certainly don't take a big breath. Just my two cents, based on hard-learned experience!

Pour the boiling vinegar mixture over the cucumbers. Cover, refrigerate, and wait around 24 hours. Then voila! Magic occurs, and those cucumbers have become pickles! Keep refrigerated and eat within 2 weeks. Or 5 days, if you're us.

These pickles were surprisingly good. I took them to a picnic, and overheard a couple of elementary school kids talking about how good they were. And how sweet they were. These pickles are pretty sweet, which isn't a big surprise given the huge quantity of sugar in the recipe. The longer the pickles sat in the fridge, the more sour they became. So if you don't like very sweet pickles, you may want to give it a few days before you try them.

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On an unrelated note, one of my favorite eggplant dishes is Baba Ghanoush. However, I've never been able to find a recipe that is anywhere near as good as our favorite, which sadly is from a restaurant in Atlanta. Not exactly some place we can just pop in when the urge takes us. So in my ongoing quest to find a great Baba Ganoush recipe, I tried one from The Figs Table by Todd English and Sally Sampson. I was intrigued by this recipe as it included mint, an ingredient I never thought to try in Baba Ganoush. I made a few minor changes to the recipe:

Ingredients:

4 Chinese Eggplants
Olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons tahini
Juice of one lemon
8 mint leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
minced scallions, lemon zest, and additional olive oil for garnishing
Pita bread

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prick egglants all over with a fork, then rub with olive oil. Place on a cookie sheet, and roast in the oven, turning once, for approximately 30 minutes (until soft...depends on the size of your eggplant). Remove from oven and allow to cool for about 10 mintues.

Peel the garlic cloves and throw into a blender (or large food processor if you're lucky enough to have one. My mini just didn't seem up to the challenge of four eggplants!). Cut then ends off each eggplant, cut a slit down the side of each eggplant, and peel the skin off with your fingers. Add the flesh of the eggplant to the blender. Add the tahini and blend until smooth. You'll have to stop and use a rubber spatula to mix the ingredients around from time to time.

Add the lemon juice, mint leaves, salt, and pepper, and continue blending (and stirring when necessary) until the mint leaves have been completely incorporated.

Chill covered in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

Remove to a plate, drizzle with a small amount of olive oil, and garnish with scallions and lemon zest. Serve with pita bread for dipping.


We enjoyed this recipe, although it still didn't quite live up to our restaurant favorite. The mint was a very interesting addition, and this worked just fine with Chinese Eggplant (the original recipe called for one regular eggplant). While this was good, though, I'll probably keep searching for the elusive "perfect" Baba Ghanoush.

Minty Lamb Meatballs

We picked up some ground lamb from Stillman Farm, and some mint at the CSA. Hmm, mint, lamb, let me look around for a recipe. And boy, did I find a good one: Lamb Meatballs. I followed the recipe pretty closely, just skipping the food processing step as that seemed too fussy for me. Oh, and I omitted the olive oil. Do you know how fatty ground lamb is? I certainly didn't need to add extra fat to fry it!


It's not a huge surprise, but the flavor of the lamb and the mint went together perfectly. And the sauce was a perfect accompaniment. It was really outstanding. TK ate a phenomenal quantity. If we're being honest, so did I :) Even N-man enjoyed them.

Corn and Tomato Salad, Zucchini Cookies

It's hard to believe, but I think I'm finally getting sick of corn on the cob. We've been eating it nearly every day for almost a month, and I'm just starting to look for recipes besides shuck-heat-eat. One of my girlfriends had mentioned she made a corn and tomato salad, but couldn't remember the recipe. So I just winged it. I mean, corn, tomatoes, what else does it need?


I guess I thought of a few more ingredients!

Ingredients:
3 ears corn
20 or so cherry tomatoes
10 leaves of basil
Splash of olive oil
Slightly larger splash of balsamic vinegar
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

Shuck corn, removing all corn silk. Boil the corn for about 2 minutes. Place in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking and cool them down. When they are cool, cut off the kernels (be careful, the corn may be hotter near the cob). Put the corn kernels into a bowl.

Cut cherry tomatoes in half and add to the bowl with the corn.

Mince the fresh basil, and add to the bowl. Splash in some olive oil and balsamic vinegar, add a few cracks of pepper and salt, give it a stir, and you're done. If you have time, let it sit in the refrigerator for at least an hour to let the flavors develop. Or just eat it right away.

We all enjoyed this, although I wasn't that happy with the visual appeal of the dish. Our corn from the CSA was very light this week, nearly white without any sprinklings of yellow. And we had picked mostly golden cherry tomatoes at the farm (I rooted through the salad to get some of the few red cherry tomatoes in the picture above). The balsamic vinegar almost made the light colors look muddy. I don't know, this is all aesthetics...it tasted just fine. But if I was making it again, I'd look for yellower corn and redder tomatoes. Or I'd try a red wine vinegar instead of balsamic. It needs something to brighten up the colors of the dish to match the bright, fresh flavor. Let me know if you figure it out!

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This week I also made the chocolate chip zucchini cookies mentioned in Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I followed the recipe exactly, so I won't reprint it here, and I have to say while they were okay, I was a bit disappointed. The cookies were very soft and cakey, no crunch at all, no matter how long I cooked them (well, within reason. The recipe called for 10-15 minutes cooking, I went as long as 20 minutes with one batch. Still very soft).


They were okay, but nothing special. If I was going to make baked goods from zucchini in the future, I'd probably stick with zucchini bread. And if I felt like adding vegetables to my cookies, I'd probably stick with oatmeal carrot chocolate chip cookies.

But I include this here in case you want to give it a go for the novelty of the recipe, or because you're making all the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle recipes, or just to steer you away if you were on the fence. But as I said, they weren't bad. I mean, it used a whole bag of chocolate chips. How bad could they be? And at the very least, my boys are eating them as fast as I'll let them. Hey, it counts as a vegetable, right?