Farm Share Goodies: Stinging Nettles
Oh yeah, you read that right.
Our farm share started up again–finallly! One of the best days of my year is the day that I can start picking up our produce box from Needle Lane Farms. This year has the added bonus of us being able to pick up our box at the Depot Town Farmer’s Market in Ypsi on Saturdays, which I love, being that I love a 1 minute drive or 10 minute walk from Depot Town. Love. It. Also, I appreciate local organizations giving local love to Ypsi.
So yeah, last Saturday was a banner day. Not only had we just come back from our trip to Alaska, but I was all geared up to make my own food and the arrival of the farm share was the culinary equivalent of choirs of angels heralding the dawn. Well, close anyway. I was prepared for the usual late spring suspects: the garlic scapes, the radishes, the lettuces, the rainbow colored Swiss chard. But once again, Needle Lane blew me away and introduced me to something I had never even considered being a possibility:
stinging nettles. Read the rest of this entry »
Strawberries are just little red mountains
I have been to the mountaintop.
No, really. I just got back this weekend from a cruise to Alaska and I really did stand on top of a mountain. Not a very tall mountain, mind you, and it’s not like I was climbing up it, huffing and puffing with my faithful sherpa, Hodgkiss, a few patient yards ahead of me, doing all the real work. No, I was very comfortably ferried up there by bus, 3300 feet up into one of the most beautiful landscapes anywhere.
So yes, Alaska was fantastic. I was looking forward to it (I wanted to see whales—and did!) and it did not disappoint. I mean, who knew that me, Little Miss Sunshine who is always either in front of a computer or iPhone screen, could enjoy being completely wifi-free in the frozen northwest? Although I will be honest…it wasn’t exactly “frozen.” Well, parts of it were. We did see the Sawyer Glacier and that was pretty frozen, as you can imagine.
But the rest of the time, we were blessed with 70 degree, sunny weather. And the highlight? Part of me (the cheeky part) wants to say that it was seeing a street performer dressed as Darth Vader playing the violin.
It’s been a busy spring. So busy that I’ve fallen behind in my Recipe Experiments. But there’s one thing I never fall behind on:
Glee.
Yes, it’s true. I’m a Gleek. A huge one, too. But I’m not alone. There’s many of us. We are legion. We are loyal. And we love to throw Glee parties and drink mojito slushies. In fact, we had one such occasion this past Tuesday at the house of my fabulous friends, Brian and Rita. We had a potluck dinner, complete with chicken marbella (delicious), quinoa (delicious), homemade bread (delicious), a corn-feta salsa (supremely delicious), more potato and corn chips than is probably healthy, homemade wine, the mojitos (of course) and these zucchini sticks.
Chase signed up to be the taster for this particular recipe experiment and he approves. I’m in fact going to order a stamp that says “Chase Approves” and use it accordingly. Seriously. Well maybe not seriously. But maybe seriously. How much do stamps cost anyway?
This was a Parmesan zucchini recipe that I found originally on Cooking Light and then adapted a bit. It makes a good appetizer, crunchy, delicious, and in there underneath the awesomeness and the bread crumbs is a vegetable. So that counts towards your daily 5. Just FYI. And these are in fact so easy that I just prepared the parts of the recipe at home, brought it all to Brian’s and then assembled and baked them there. About 5 minutes of prep, 20 minutes of baking and that’s all there is to it. Read the rest of this entry »
Well Ain’t That Some Fancy Corn
The children of the corn give this two thumbs up
It’s officially summer here. It’s sunny, it’s 80 degrees at 11am in the morning, my farm share is starting next week (!) and my husband can barely stand to go outside. Yep, officially summer.
Every summer I seem to have a meal that I make on a regular basis, far more than anything else. When I was 15, it was grilled chicken and rice. Like every day of summer vacation. Last year, it was hamburgers. I seem to be coming into my groove when making burgers now. It may sound weird, but ground beef brisket is the way to go, mixed in with a bit of ground pork if you’re of a mind, topped with a good flavorful cheese and onions that have been diced and cooked in butter with some dried herbs, and some guacamole. But this year, this year my summer is apparently going to be embodied by simple evening meals of some good old grilled beef hot dogs and sausages. Simple, quick, tasty, easy…perfect for hot weather, heavy on the sodium but light on my wallet. But sometimes I feel the need to kick things up a notch and instead of slaving over an elaborate main dish, I instead serve the sausages simple and grilled (with some onions and peppers, of course) and pair them up with an awesome side dish instead. Enter the corn. Read the rest of this entry »
My Favorite Frijoles
I have been inspired. By a delicious, delectable, delightful dish from Edible Aria: frijoles rojas. Now, this wasn’t by a long shot the first time I’d seen this dish but the pictures looked soooo good I could not resist. I know what you’re thinking: Lauren, dear, you are so magnificent. How do you ever find all of these tempting treasures? Oh, I shrug with a nonchalant sweep of the hand, I just stumble upon them. I love Stumble. I find so many fantastic things there. The internet is my vast, giant cookbook and Stumble is my faithful page-turner. Or something like that.
Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, right. Beans.
So I needed something to make for dinner. We had some tortilla chips leftover from Saturday…or Sunday…or one of those. It’s all kind of blurred together now. Anyway, I also had cheese, tomatoes, rice and some Spanish chorizo in the freezer, leftover from a trip to Eastern Market. I’d found the frijoles recipe a few days earlier and figured…that’ll work. Read the rest of this entry »
Leek Onion Rings
Looking for something to do with the leeks from your farm share? Already tried the uber-delicious French leek gratin? Looking for something casual to eat alongside that BBQ beef sandwich? How about onion rings? Well I guess that’s leek rings. I tried them tonight (alongside a bbq beef sandwich), adapting a recipe from Alton Brown. Pretty good! Crunchy, light onion flavor, quite good. I forgot my camera at work though, so sorry…no pics just yet.
Leek Rings
3 quarts peanut or canola oil
12 ounces leeks, cleaned and trimmed of outer leaves
1 1/2 cups milk or cream
1 large egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus additional for seasoning
2 tsp black pepper
Preheat the oil in a heavy pot over medium-high heat to 375 degrees F.
Slice the leeks into 1/2-inch wide rings, separating the layers out a bit.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the milk and the egg. In another medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, black pepper and 2 tsps salt. Divide the flour into 2 separate, shallow dishes and place the milk and egg mixture in a third.
Going 1 small handful at a time, dip the rings first into the first flour mixture, then into the milk and egg, and then into the second flour mixture. Working in batches, fry the rings for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes, or until golden brown.
Remove the rings to a cooling rack set inside a half sheet pan and allow to drain for 2 to 3 minutes; sprinkle with salt and serve.
Tonight, I made gratin de poireaux and steak aux champignons.
First, I love the word “champignon.” It is one of my all time favorite French words, along with “l’ananas,” “raplapla,” and “pamplemousse.” A champignon is a mushroom. The others are pineapple, wiped out, and grapefruit, respectively. I mean, come on. These words are fantastic. And the only thing better than a great dinner is a great dinner with a kick-ass name.
Take “gratin de poireaux.” It sounds so much fancier when you say it that way, rather than just “leek gratin.” And it’s more fun to eat, too, especially when you’ve got a nice, French-inspired tablecloth down, some pinot grigio and a buttery croissant. Oh and steak. Cooked in cream. Because we can.
For those of you who aren’t as taken with French things as I am (five years of French class in high school and college will do that to you), then just read the following words: bacon. onions. butter. potatoes. goat cheese. steak. mushrooms. cream. wine.
Now that I have your full attention, I will continue.
We got a good box from the farm share this week—purple potatoes, squash, peppers, a giant head of celery and even a giant one and a half pound tomato that I have fondly named Big Al (after my svelte but otherwise impressive grandfather):
To use up some of the potatoes and squash, as well as some of our own deck-grown red bell peppers and some frozen ground sirloin, I figured we could make ourselves a quick and tasty lunch of quesadillas–beef and cheese ones for Josh (manly quesadillas) and vegetarian ones for me (I’m feeling a tad delicate today). Inspired by a recipe I have stored away from Bon Appetit for potato, greens and goat cheese quesadillas, I figured…hey, why not?
I call this a non-recipe recipe because..well, I don’t have any real exact measurements here, and you can substitute pretty much any of the ingredients that you like. It’s more of a method/idea suggestion kind of article today. Read the rest of this entry »
I got a fantastic little kick out of my farm share this week: potatoes.
Sounds boring, I know, and to the average person, it probably is. After all, I’ve gotten potatoes from the farm share before. But these potatoes were purple. And while I knew they existed, I had never actually had one in my kitchen before. It was magical. There were just a few, snuggled in with the standard white skin ones we normally get. A few shining, purple nuggets just waiting to be savored. I cut them open and the inside was every bit as beautifully violet as the outside.
How freaking cool is that? Read the rest of this entry »
Green Goddess Potato Salad…
…for when those ribeyes you grilled just aren’t fatty enough.
The inspiration from this came from FoodTV’s 5 Ingredient Fix, during an episode of which the host made a side dish called “Green Goddess Rice.” Josh and I decided to grill steaks tonight and were thinking of a side dish. He ingeniously suggested using up some of the couple pounds worth of redskin potatoes we got from our farm share this week. I thought, hmmm. Rice, potatoes…both starches, right? Sure. Let’s just make a potato salad with green goddess dressing instead.
So…that’s what I did.
I steamed a bit over a pound of redskin new potatoes. I figured the steaming would be good, as it would retain the most nutrients from the potato skin, which I would then liberally coat with a layer of fat. Mostly healthy fat, though…right? Right…? Yeah. Anyway. Recipe below! Read the rest of this entry »
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