Week Three of Wonderfulness

So last Wednesday we got our third CSA box. Time flies - I can't believe we've already had three! This box included some really yummy treats, including some that were brand new to us:

• Red leaf lettuce 
• Green butter lettuce  
• Walla walla onion  
• Red gold potato
• Bunched baby white turnips
• Italian parsley
• Baby bok choi
• Fennel
• Tayberries

Tayberries are a cross between raspberries and blackberries. I'd never had them before and they were so sweet and delicious! I wish we could get more of these!

The lettuce we'll be using in salad along with some additional lettuce we got at the Farmer's Market. We're actually overwhelmed with lettuce since we caught the Farmer's Market at closing and they loaded us up with a 'buy 1, get 1' deal. Some of the onion will probably also end up in salads to keep them interesting

Nothing else had concrete plans when we first received it. Next post will describe what we've done with it all (so far!) and my confusion with our turnips...

Skewers, Zuchini, Pesto and more!

A note... Tina's computer battery and power cord have both died which put a slight delay in our blogging (along with particularly busy work weeks for both of us). The next three posts will hopefully catch everything up and we'll get back on track! 

The latest endeavor that I (Bearclaw) went on was doing something with our remaining onion, garlic, basil, zucchini plus some of extra veggies that we picked up at the Farmer's Market.

With the beautiful weather we were experiencing, I decided to do a bit of grilling and took the onion and garlic combined with other remaining veggies and skewered them, seasoned them with salt, pepper, olive oil, and some spice to add a touch of kick.

Then since we had a lot of Zuchini, I went ahead and bathed them in salt and pepper and wrapped them in foil and placed them in the grill.  They turned out to be delicious.

The final thing I made was a pesto using more of the garlic, fresh basil, almonds (instead of pine nuts), parmesan cheese, and olive oil

It has been quite a week of delicious food. Look forward to the weeks to come.

From Tina: I was in charge of the fava beans and the arugula. The fava beans are actually a bit of work. You have to peel them twice. You open up all the seed pods to remove the beans, plunge them into boiling water for a minute, throw them into an ice bath, and then actually pop the outer layer of skin off. You end up with this: 

The fava beans were destined for a dip we were SO excited to try but unfortunately they got slimy pretty quick and late nights meant we couldn't get to the grocery store to buy missing ingredients. Alas, in full confession, these beautiful fava beans landed in the compost :(

However, my other task was using our arugula. I put an ask on Facebook for ideas and got TONS of great recipes and suggestions. I can't wait to get more arugula to try them all! Ultimately, I went with Dianne's suggestion to fold it into pasta. I made a cream sauce and added some mushrooms for the Farmer's Market to make a meal that lasted us much of the week. SO fantastic!

Box o' Green

Today we picked up our second week box complete with:

• Romaine lettuce
• Bunched arugula
• Sweet slice cucumber
• Basil (genovese)
• Fava beans
• Fresh garlic
• Rainbow lacinato kale
• Zucchini
• Strawberries

BC and I are co-tackling the list. We'll be using the lettuce, cucumber, and strawberries in salads. I'll be finding fun recipes for the fava beans (a new one for me to cook), kale (something other than kale chips), and the arugula (first up on the cooking schedule because it goes bad quick). BC will be working on using our garlic, zucchini (including additional zucchini we got at a Farmer's Market Sunday), and the basil (apparently genovese is the best for pesto so probably a fun new pesto recipe!). Can't wait!!

RAR!!! (Radishes, Artichokes, and more Radishes!)

So on Sunday we did quite a bit of cooking with two of the veggies we don't use very often:

Radishes! Even though they're not (normally) my favorite, they're quite pretty!

And cute little baby artichokes!

I'm really not a big raw radish fan and BC wasn't too familiar with them so we were looking for ways to cook them, bake them, or otherwise combine them with other foods. We found two awesome recipes that highlighted the radishes in different ways. I'd definitely try both again!

The first was a lovely recipe by Martha Stewart found here. It was a feta and radish dip that she suggested pairing with pita. We decided to use a fresh baguette instead and thought it was an excellent decision. The dip was excellent, though it really masked the flavor of the radishes.

The feta and radish dip with baguette! Delicious on a warm afternoon!

For our second recipe we wanted to highlight the radishes just a little more so we went with a more straightforward recipe. A quick Google search brought us to a wonderful blog and a great roasted radish recipe. These two ladies have a great blog and absolutely gorgeous photos! Apparently, roasting the radishes lessens their slight bitterness. I think we added a little too much olive oil, (hence the slightly shriveled look), but the end result tasted delicious!

 

Not the prettiest but absolutely yummy, even for someone who doesn't love radishes!

To end the night we tackled the baby artichokes. These were brand new to both of us. Our experience with artichokes is eating them stuffed, mostly as a a way to enjoy delicious breading with butter! So baby artichokes don't have a choke (the inedible, fuzzy, silky, middle part) so they aren't quite as challenging to prepare. You do still have to do a little work to get them ready for a recipe. I found a perfect guide to trimming baby artichokes that walked me through the whole thing!

You start by taking off all the dark green outer leaves, removing the stem, and trimming the dark green leaves on the base:

 

From there you can add them to any recipe, like this truly delicious one! It's a delicious sauté that really spotlights the flavorful taste of the baby artichoke. I'm so bummed we won't have any more in our box for this week - I might just have to go get more at the Farmer's Market!

The artichokes were mixed with olive oil, garlic, onion (one or our Walla Walla's!), green onion, and a little pinch of Herbes de Provence!

The final product was one of the best 'stir fry' type dishes I've had in a long time!

We've had a great week so far enjoying of veggies and cooking new recipes! We've still got some garlic left to use as well as a little bit of salad greens and cucumber. We did accidentally let a couple of our carrots get soft, but, other then that, so far so good! YUM!

New Potatoes

Today we decided to have a little weekend breakfast starring our new potatoes.  Recently Tina had what she considered to be the best breakfast home fries she has ever had and Bearclaw accepted this as a challenge to try and recreate them without having even seen them. He used the new potatoes with some cheese, walla walla onion and spices. Although he did not achieve heavenly status yet, it is clear that we are moving in the right direction. Here is a shot of the final product for this morning's delicious breakfast potatoes.

Our First CSA Box

Today was the big day, our first CSA box!! We pick up our box about 20 blocks from where we live (so convenient!). We can pick up anytime between 2-8pm each Wednesday and Groundwork Organics even offers a couple weeks of 'vacation credit' if you know you're going to miss a week!

The pick up spot is actually just a yellow house in our neighborhood. You drive up, head around the side of the house, grab your bin, and cross your name off the list.

The unopened box

All the fruit and veggies!

Once we had our bin we headed home to unpack this weeks goodies which included salad mix, cucumber, carrots, red radish, Walla Walla onion, new potatoes, fresh garlic, baby kale mix, artichokes, and strawberries! 

We've never eaten baby artichokes before (just the fully grown ones) so that will be new for us. We're also not big radish fans so we're excited to try some new recipes (besides, everything seems to taste better when you've made it yourself!). 

For tonight, we decided to make use of half our kale and cook up some delicious kale chips. We've eaten kale chips before but never made our own!

Finished "chips"!

We made half olive oil and sea salt and half olive oil and Dinosaur BBQ Cajun spice from Tina's home town of Syracuse, NY!

If you want to make them yourself it's easy:

Quick and easy kale "chips" adapted from several different recipes 

- Preheat oven to 330 degrees
- Wash and thoroughly dry kale
- Trim the stems off the kale. If any of the stems are particularly thick running into the leaf of the kale fold the leaf in half along the stem and trim off the stem with a sharp knife.
- Tear kale into evenly sized medium pieces. They'll 'shrink' in the oven so don't make them too tiny and keep them even so the little ones don't burn.
- In a large bowl, gently toss with a little bit of olive oil. Use just enough to lightly coat.
- Then add salt, seasonings, or anything else you think would be delicious!
- Space evenly on a nonstick baking sheet lined with parchment paper and cook for about 6 minutes.
- Check often - the difference between underdone kale chips and burnt kale chips is only about 30 seconds!
- Enjoy!

Tomorrow we'll be enjoying fresh salad with onion, carrot, and cucumber - can't wait!

Welcome to the World of CSAs!

Food. Portland, Oregon is a mecca for foodies who have a thing for sustainable, delicious, fresh food. We are lucky enough to have a mix of cheap food (often made locally at one of dozens of food carts around the city) as well as fancy high class delicious food prepared by world class chefs. We also have dozens of farmer's markets sprinkled throughout the city and suburbs offering an array of fresh fruits, veggies, cheese, meats, etc. 

After living in Portland for almost four years and becoming regulars at our local farmer's markets my husband Jon and I finally decided to take the plunge and commit more completely to fresh, local foods. In other words, we've ordered a CSA!

What's a CSA? (We didn't know either...). It stands for Community Supported Agriculture and it's a way for anyone to support their local farmer. Local Harvest gives a great explanation of the basics of a CSA and a little of why it's nice for a consumer and for a farm. Essentially, you pay a set cost upfront, therefore investing in the season and the crops, and you receive produce chosen by the farm throughout a season. 

Like I mentioned, Portland is a wonderful place to do this. We looked at over 50 possible CSAs that deliver in the Portland area. After hours of sorting through prices, (costs ranged from $200-$750 for 20-40 weeks of produce), pickup locations, farm principles, etc we finally chose a CSA and mailed in our registration and payment!   

We went with Groundwork Organics Farm because of the length they had been running a CSA program, their price, their variety of last year's produce, their pick up location (so close to our house!), and their values listed on their website! 

SO! Here we go! The following posts will show our progression of having our first CSA. Our goal is to document our basket each week (we get them every Wednesday), how we use the veggies, possibly some key recipes, and any awesome experiences or challenges. 

It's our hope that it will give other folks considering a CSA a sense of what our experience was like and help them to decide if a CSA might be right for them. We're excited to try new food, incorporate more veggies in our diet, eat in-season, and enjoy really fresh food! We also hope this will serve as a fun reflection on our experience and help us decide whether a CSA next year will be right for us.

Somewhere in here (maybe August?) we are also planning to try a 100 mile food challenge.... but much more on that later! Questions? Comments? Let us know!