Wool!

Here is What I have been busy with recently. 2 Fleeces from Misty Meadow Icelandics. The grey is Elizabeth and the white is Ina. Local fleece (20 minutes away)! I haven't really felt like blogging recently. Cooking from CSA shares has become very routine, after 2 years, and while still fun and interesting it is just one part of an increasingly busy life. Between work and family and making x-mas presents, blogging falls by the wayside in favo of three word facebook updates. We'll see if this blog will continue or not.

Food

Tortilla tonight, the Spanish omelet, using the potatoes and onions from harmony valley and Larry Shultz eggs. This will be accompanied by Harmony Valley salad greens with completely non-local, Trader Joe's raisins and almonds and a dressing made from ingredients that are about as non-local as one can get. Oh well. Dinner last night was local cabbage (from my sister's garden) braised with Italian Sausages made in the Wedge deli, Harmony Valley garlic and onion, and Italian Wine.
Yummers, and very good the next day for lunch too!
Tomorrow is cream of celery soup with Harmony Valley celery and onions, cedar Summit milk, and non-local chicken broth from Trader Joe's. This will be accompanied by bread from the Wedge bakery, pastureland butter, and cherry tomatoes from my sister.

The food of Summer

We have been enjoying the CSA vegetables very much this year, but are used to the routine of writing menu's, and planning to use them all from from the experience of last year. One of the fun things, though, is finding new things to do with them!
Our favorite new discovery this year is a bean and potato salad that was included in one of the weekly newsletters from Harmony Valley. It is simplicity itself, and we tweaked it a little bit to provide my new favorite lunch bag delight!
It is simply this:
Boiled potatoes sliced thinly
Blanched beans in 2 inch lengths
dill
chives
red wine vinegar
Dijon mustard
olive
salt and pepper
kalamata olives
tuna

Simply combine the potatoes and beans with a dressing made of the herbs, spices, mustard olive oil and vinegar and chill.
Pack in lunch containers with a handful of olives and half a can of tuna.
Sort of an almost Nicoise.

Revisiting old favorites is also wonderful and words cannot describe the joy of proper cucumber salad again:
Mix paper thing cucumber slices and
chopped onion with the following dressing:

2T vinegar
4T water
2t sugar
1t salt

combine and let sit at room temperature for 20 minutes or more
serve with freshly ground pepper.

back to basics

It's been a while...my apologies to anyone who reads this.
We have been having a busy summer, and this, the second year of the CSA, is so routine by now it is not such an exciting thing to blog about. Everything has been lovely this year, and delicious. The only thing we are having a hard time using is the Fennel. We will be trying a recipe from the 'Cooking For Two 2009' issue of America's Test Kitchen's Cooks Illustrated-Chicken with Fennel and Tomatoes. I am actually looking forward to it, it seems very light and yet delicious.
The fruit share of the CSA has also been fantastic!

CSA redux, Health and Thrift

We began our usual routine of CSA pickups last Thursday and a welcome beginning it was! I missed the fun of getting a surprise each week the newsletter hit my inbox, and the discipline of making a menu around what we have rather than what we want.
Last week we got:
parsnips
Ramps
Spinach
Rhubarb
Black heart radish
sunchokes
Burdock
Sorrel
Chives
Red Twigged dogwood withes (For beauty...they make a magnificent modern statement in a white crock)

We have eaten the ramps and spinach in a wonderful savory pie which was our favorite recipe find from the Harmony Valley Farm website...but we have made our own after making it several times.
Last night we had chicken simmered with saffron and sunchokes....nice enough, but a little bland. Tomorrow night we eat a sorrel vichyssoise and Wednesday we have a quinoa and radish salad with salmon.
The parsnips and burdock will have to wait until next week for inspiration or desperation to strike.
I have begun to make a gallon of milk in to yogurt every two weeks and that seems to be just enough for Z and I to share.
Our CSA routine was made easier since we broke down and bought a used car-a hard decision to make but my father is not in great health and it is necessary for us to be more mobile than we can be relying totally on public transportation. The purchase of the used Subaru Legacy Outback, even with the fantastic deal my mother gave us, has required a return to the most rigid thrift and I am so thankful the CSA started when it did!

Spring like weather

The sun and warm temperatures are so welcome after the sudden Arctic blast we had. I had a lovely walk to brunch with a friend. I am really looking forward to the farmer's markets opening up again and to the CSA starting up. I have to wait another month and changes till then, though, and that is hard. I have noticed that when we cook and eat whatever we want (those four or five months that it is too hard to get local food to really make it worthwhile, for us at least) that we eat pretty crappily. Junk food and frozen meals from trader joe's which we love, but which are not the healthiest. It is very easy to get spoiled from our standard diet of local, fresh and mostly organic foods. Somehow salads and vegetables, no matter if they are organic or not never taste as good as those we get in the summer from the CSA and from local farms. I have never really tasted the difference before, but I do now and can't wait for freshness!

Goulash = delish

I made a traditional Hungarian Goulash the Saturday from Sauveur Magazine. It was fantastico and I must say I was proud to introduce Z to this hitherto unknown (for him) delight. Once again the Le Crueset saves the day and is re-affirmed as my favorite kitchen toy