Josh is growing bell peppers on the deck for the first time ever and they are coming in quite nicely, as evidenced by the photo below of the biggest pepper we’ve got going so far. So in preparation for the deliciousness to come, I thought I’d post a few of my favorite recipes for utilizing bell peppers….
Bell Pepper and Feta Pasta Toss
French Market Meatloaf (this is my favorite meatloaf recipe, btw)
This week’s farm share brought in some great goodies: most notably, our first bulb garlic! Yay! Also more Swiss chard and kale and bulb fennel, which we donated to family/friends, kohlrabi, broccoli, bok choy, new potatoes and chives.
Kohlrabi is an interesting little plant that I’ve wanted to try before but never bothered to purchase. It’s a small, hard cabbage with a texture similar to a cabbage heart but very faint in flavor. We used it, the potatoes, 2 cloves from the bulb garlic and the cabbage from last week to make tonight’s dinner…
Grilled NY Strip Steaks with Basil-Thyme Pesto Potatoes and Sautéed Cabbage and Kohlrabi. Continue reading
So I was extremely ticked when Josh brought home this week’s farm share on Tuesday because it included three of my favorite vegetables of all time: cabbage, potatoes (red skin!) and broccoli. Not only are all three of those foods extremely tasty, they’re also versatile and very healthy.
Cabbage is not only low in calories but is rich in iron and sulfur and contains phytonutrients, works to protect the body from free radicals that can damage the cell membranes. 
Broccoli, which is also a member of the cabbage family, is loaded with Vitamins C and A, iron and fiber and even calcium. And small potatoes are moderate in calories and nutrient dense, particularly when it comes to Vitamin C, potassium and iron. And they’re delicious. What’s not to love? (By the way, a lot of information about various vegetables, their production and their nutrition can be found at HowStuffWorks. Neat!)
Well tonight I put two of those vegetable goodies to use–potatoes and the cabbage (don’t worry, broccoli, your time will come). They went together for a very simple dinner of citrus chicken cabbage wraps and grilled potatoes with thyme.
I like meat. That’s about all there is to it. Sure, I go vegetarian from time to time and that’s fine, too. But I like meat. Like steak. Steaks are good. Satisfying on a primal level.
Josh doesn’t really like steak too often. Opposites attract, right? But after having a good steak at a wedding we went to recently, he decided that maybe we should start having steak more often. Jackpot! Sure, I said, trying to contain my gleefulness, whatever you like. So of course, the first thing to do when experimenting was to conduct a bit of research and educate ourselves on the various cuts of meat and how they are best cooked. This site came in handy for that. The next was to go shopping. Which we do almost every day anyway.
So we’re standing at the meat counter in Whole Foods, staring at row upon row of red fleshy goodness. Now, Josh and I aren’t overly crazy about organics. In terms of dry goods, I rarely care. In terms of produce, some organics are more important than others–and local always takes precedence anyway, which is why we get a lot of our produce in the summer from our CSA. But when it comes to meat and dairy, we’re pretty selective and tend to go for free-range, grass-fed, antibiotic free when given the option. So anyway, we’re standing at the meat counter, chatting with the butcher (who we find out lives in our apartment complex, handily across the street from said Whole Foods, how awesome is that) and Josh picks a cut of meat. And he picks ribeye. Of course. Because if there’s a way to a man’s heart, it’s a ribeye steak.
Now, I believe in letting the natural flavor of good quality meat shine through, and that great steak is best when kept simple, so that was my plan tonight. I prepared the meat as simply as possible and Josh picked just a simple side of mashed potatoes to go along with, and we (well, I) washed it down with a bit of his homemade root beer. Below is the recipe (more or less, I’m terrible at measuring when I cook) for our delicious meal tonight. Also, yay I finally charged my Nikon camera to get decent pictures! Continue reading
Tonight, it’s just me and the dog. Josh is at a Computer Society meeting; he’ll be having dinner there. So I get the rare opportunity to make dinner just for me.
Being that I’ve almost always had roommates, or ended up cooking for get togethers, I’m used to cooking for a lot of people. When it got to be just Josh and me, I had to adjust a bit to cooking for only two, and occasionally on nights like this, I get to relearn how to cook for just one.
Well originally I thought I’d make myself a nice pesto pasta with chicken meatballs (cough), because after all, my basil plant needs cutting down and besides, it’s a rainy night and pasta is usually good for those. But after lunch it occurred to me that really, I just wanted some pizza. So I figured I’d make my own. Continue reading
It’s farm share day! As mentioned before, every Tuesday we get a new delicious delivery of delectable delights (alliteration is fun!) and produce from Needle-Lane farms, delivered to one of my newest favorite specialty stores, Morgan and York.
This week’s box contains:
So this is the 4th week of our farm share deliveries. Josh and I decided last fall that this year, we wanted to partake in a CSA on the recommendation of some of Josh’s coworkers. Lucky for us, there are several farms in the area, and all over Michigan. In fact, there aren’t just produce CSAs, but meat ones too. However, this year, we stuck with just a produce CSA (after all, we don’t have a storage freezer, so there’s not a lot of room to store extra meat yet). We looked around and settled on Needle-Lane Farm in nearby Tipton, MI.