Menu a la Week: 8/24/08 - 8/30/08

I'll be making pickles again tonight. That'll finish off the cucumbers, and some dill I had tucked away in a Pyrex dish lined with paper towel. Tonight's stir fry should finish up most of the vegetables.

Some other weekend updates...The compost bins are looking good. Still no homemade soil but I think the first barrel is getting there (left) and the second barrel is still relatively new:

The tomatoes are also looking great. The romas are much more abundant than the Rutgers. According to my friend Louise, I was supposed to pinch them back; if I had, I'd probably have a lot more tomatoes on the way. Now the Rutgers plants are bushy, instead of fruit laden. Luckily I planted two of them.

Menu 8/22/08 - 8/30/08
Sunday August 22, 2008
Vegetable stir fry with lime-hoisin sauce over brown rice

Monday August 23, 2008
Soup du jour with slaw (cabbage, fresh fennel, and carrot)

Tuesday August 24, 2008
Tuna salad sandwiches and salad

Wednesday August 25, 2008
Chicken pot pie and salad

Thursday August 26, 2008
Soup du jour and salad or sandwich

Beautiful Blogs

I found a few new blogs that I'm adding to the "honor roll" to the right.

The Delicious Life
run by Sarah J. Gim who also runs the incredibly beautiful

Tastespotting
which is where I spotted the following

Will Work for Food

The Repressed Pastry Chef

and

The Daring Bakers' Blogroll

I Bought Too Many Dishtowels and Other Horror Stories

I admit it: buying housewares is a weakness. I should just avoid stores like Fishs Eddy (and the occasional foray to Williams-Sonoma) altogether. But Gail finally agreed to go to Fishs Eddy and see what all the fuss was about. She bought a few juice glasses and a lasagna baker; everything in her basket was on sale so she spent less than $20. Meanwhile I bought two small Central Park-themed oval dishes, a little bowl that should be perfect for mixing small batches of vinaigrette or other dressings, and six new Hall bakers (this adds to those that I bought back in May). For the sake of pot pie enthusiasts everywhere I will evaluate all the bakers (there are four different styles) when the weather turns crisp enough to make a long hot day in the kitchen seem like a treat.

The bakeware was on sale and a bargain compared to the four dishtowels I bought. I couldn't help it though: one was Alice in Wonderland themed (like a platter I already have), another was blue (matching my kitchen) and had the alphabet printed on it, and the other two were topical and instructive: one lists "Cooking Temperatures" and "Measurements" and the other "Cold Storage" temperatures for foods in the fridge and freezer. The Alice towel and the blue alphabet towel were super soft--suprisingly so because they're made of bamboo fiber. For those keeping track of my spending (people like Gail) they were $10.95 each. The other two towels were more pricey, but they're educational...so they're entirely worth it.

A car accident, a missed CSA shipment, plus some wrestling with the Russian Consulate and my Accounts Payable Department rounded out this week quite nicely. Because it's related to work, the Russia-AP story has no real bearing on this blog (except for my availablity and mood), but suffice it to say: even after all the problems I went through to get my Russian visa this week, my trip is still up in the air because of the current political situation between Russia and Georgia. As always, I'm praying for world peace, but at this point, my prayers are primarily for selfish reasons; with peace, I get to go to Russia, without it I have to miss the trip entirely.

The car accident: Poor "Bob." This is his second accident this summer. Both were within a mile of home (at least he's statistically correct) and both were not his fault. Our next car should be a bumper car at this rate. Because "Bob" was on his way to pick up the CSA share when it happened, he never made it. He called our organizer and left a message telling her that he'd been in an accident and that they should put aside our share so we could pick it up later (this is standard operating procedure of the CSA). Well, we drove by the organizer's house, and no shipment awaited us. They didn't even call to see how he was after the accident. I bet there was more corn this week. Darn.

So, this week's menu, which I will get to tomorrow, will not involve any new produce from the CSA. We have a few squash to eat--no surprise there--and some carrots and beets and a few soon-to-be pickles. We might even get through some of those chicken pot pies still in the freezer.

Un-Barbeque

It was a barbeque without anything actually barbequed. "Bob" and I pretended to have pulled pork while we munched on corn on the cob and yet another slaw. The cabbage, fresh fennel, and carrot slaw was colorful and quite unusual in flavor. We added peppers to the recipe (available here). We better get used to it quickly because there's about 1.5 gallons of it left.

Then there was the corn. The amazing, beautiful, delicious corn. I had two ears of the tastiest corn I've ever had the pleasure of eating. It was beautiful (not a single kernel was missing) and extremely sweet. Paired with lime butter, I could've eaten four more ears (the nerve of "Bob" not giving me one of his ears!). Considering how much we liked the corn, it's likely we won't see anymore from Farmer John this year.

Lime Butter
Serves 4-6

3 tablespoons butter (melted)
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lime juice
2-3 dashes cayenne pepper (or a dash of hot sauce)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste


Directions
1. Combine the above ingredients.
2. Spoon over cooked corn on the cob.
3. Add cilantro or other minced fresh herb if you're feeling adventurous

Some Ups and Downs

Thumbs Up: Farmer's Market Salad. We substituted gouda for the goat cheese. It would've been better with goat cheese, but gouda's still good. We didn't have any sesame seeds either, but we did add green peppers. The basil was a really nice "baby green." Honestly, this is a good "kitchen-sink" recipe. Once you've thrown green beans, potatoes, and cheese into a salad, it seems anything goes.

Also delicious: Squash Basil soup. We had a recipe via Epicurious.com for Zucchini Basil Soup (zucchini, squash, same diff) and though it wasn't very creamy, it was a nice light soup for the summer. We'll cook anything to go through all this squash; well, anything but make the obvious like zucchini bread or vegetable lasagna.

Thumbs Down: The kohlrabi and carrots was not something we'd eat again. The cooked kohlrabi was awfully fibrous. The brown sugar and raisins were good though. Because we used up both kohlrabi "bulbs" for this recipe, we won't be having the kohlrabi saute on Thursday. I guess we'll just have to starve.

Menu a la Week: 8/17/08 - 8/22/08

Let's just skip what happened the last few days.Thursday, Friday, Saturday...they came and went and the only thing we made in the kitchen was coffee. But what is summer for anyway, if not to enjoy with friends, eating out, and enjoying oneself in general--rotting vegetables be damned!

Part of this weekend's revelry was spent in the Highlands of New Jersey and lower Hudson Valley, New York. If you're ever in Warwick, New York, visit the Warwick Valley Winery for some great cafe-type food at Pane Cafe (I still haven't learned how to make accents aigu in Blogger, so just pretend that the e's at the end of both Pane and Cafe have accents. Thanks). The chef at the winery's cafe attended the Culinary Institute of America (I saw her bakery course certificates hanging on the wall).

My friend and I ordered salads with grilled chicken; both were excellent. Mine was topped with apples, pears, and grapes from the winery's orchards. "Bob" had a pizza that he deemed just "okay", which is understandable; as natives of New Jersey's workingclass town's and cities, we know from good pizza. And, yeah, New Jersey has good pizza. Brooklyn is not the only place Earth with pizza--or Italians, for that matter. My friend's fiance had a nice rib-eye sandwich. While you're there, try the large selection of wines, ciders, and liquers ($5 for 6 samples).

So, I still must answer the question: What will we eat this week? We got a lot of new produce from the CSA plus we had some leftover veg from the week before. This is what we have to work with:

2 squash
1 large bunch of basil
2 peppers +3 peppers from last week
4 ears of corn
1 tomato
1 fennel
1 bunch of carrots
2 cucumbers +2 cukes that I missed last week
1 lb beans

Add to that:
2 kohlrabi from last week
1/4 head of red leaf from last week
2 beets overlooked from last week
1 head of cabbage from last week
6 potatoes from last week

The best I could come up with is this:

Menu 8/17/08 - 8/22/08
Sunday August 17, 2008
Farmer’s Market Salad with Spiced Goat Cheese Rounds

Monday August 18, 2008
Zucchini Basil Soup
Kohlrabi and carrots

Tuesday August 19, 2008
Cabbage, fresh fennel, and carrot slaw (add peppers as suggested by one reviewer)
Corn on the cob with lime butter

Wednesday August 20, 2008
Stir fry peppers, green beans, ginger, scallions, and whatever else over brown rice
Beet and carrot salad

Thursday August 21, 2008
Kohlrabi saute

Friday August 22, 2008
What's left over? Corn? Peppers?

Snacks:
Refrigerator pickles

Eat All Your Vegetables

Let me sum up this week's eating in three words: squash, beets, carrots. For the last 3 days, that's what we've been eating. Tonight we mixed it up a bit and had green beans with garlic along with the leftover summer squash and the beet-carrot salad. We also had pickles for snacks, of course. I have two little cucumbers in the fridge that I missed. I'll have to add them to the pickle juice (I think that's okay to do, even with the cold processed type).

Pickle Update

Oh my, the pickles taste great. They're not supposed to be eaten yet, but we just had to try them.

Here's my recipe (thanks to onebadpenny's recipe at Instructables and for the how-to basics and photos). There are plenty of recipes for refrigerator pickles posted online. But this one has a distinct advantage: absolutely no cooking necessary at all.

Cold Refrigerator Pickles

2 large cucumbers
2 cups cold water
1/3 cup white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sea salt
2 teaspoons sugar
6-8 whole peppercorns
Freshly ground black pepper
2 large cloves garlic
2 sprigs fresh dill

Directions
1. After cutting off the ends, slice cucumbers in half and then, to achieve the desired spear shape, cut these halves lengthwise into sixths.
2. Peel and then cut the garlic cloves into large pieces, then smash these pieces to fully release their oils.
3. Pour the cold water into a bowl. Then stir in the salt, vinegar, peppercorns, and ground pepper. Dissolve as much of the salt and sugar as possible.
4. Fill a quart-size, wide-mouth Ball jar.
5. Pour in liquid and add sprigs of dill.
6. Refrigerate for two days (be sure to shake jar on second day).

Mixing It Up

Yesterday I made the carrot and beet salad from the Chocolate & Zucchini web site. I made it in advance so all the beet and carrot-y goodness could meld. Because we aren't the most patient of couples, we had the beet and carrot salad for dinner tonight (instead of waiting for Wednesday) along with the summer squash side dish. The carrot-beet/beet-carrot salad was absolutely delicious. The recipe is subject to a rather wide variety of interpretations; I mainly used the basic ingredients proffered by Clothilde: beets, carrots, olive oil, dijon mustard (Maille), balsamic vinegar, pepper, sea salt, and Tabasco sauce.

Now I have to completely reconsider our entire menu for the week. This week's cooking/eating is starting to look like this:

Monday: Carrot and beet salad and summer squash side dish
Tuesday: Green beans with garlic and a green salad
Wednesday: Kohlrabi saute and carrot and beet salad (if any left over)
Thursday: Kohlrabi and carrots and stir fry cabbage with green peppers

I'll probably kick myself for saying this, but I really hope we get more squash and kale. I want to try my KCMO friend's kale salad recipe and this zucchini soup recipe from Epicurious.com is also tempting. As always, the reader reviews on Epicurious are a must read; they offer some revealing criticisms and smart revisions.

Doh!

I forgot the potatoes! We have several potatoes from the CSA. They may, or may not, make a guest appearance for dinner this week. Since I'm undecided, I won't bother adding them to the week's menu.

Uncooked Cukes

Those cukes are now on their way to becoming refrigerator pickles. I picked a recipe that didn't call for any cooking at all.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Refrigerator-Pickles---Quick-n_-Easy/

One word of caution: I had more liquid than jar space in my Ball jar, so I had to pour some out (if you use a gallon-size ziploc-type bag, this shouldn't be a problem). Since all the salt (and maybe even sugar) couldn't have dissolved, I added a few flakes of sea salt on the top. I also made sure the whole peppercorns made it into the jar.

Menu a la Week: 8/10/08 - 8/15/08

So many vegetables to eat through, so little time This coming week we're reluctant vegetarians again (largely because we have leftover veg from last week). We'll have to bring salads to work to ensure that we get through the lettuce. If we don't get to the latest batch of green beans by Thursday, I may either blanch and freeze them (I think that's the best way to preserve them) or maybe make a soup. I plan to make refrigerator pickles out of the two small cucumbers we have.

After a bunch of evening plans derailed last week's menu, we have dinner plans for tonight too. So the menu really doesn't start until tomorrow night.

Menu 8/10/08 - 8/15/08
Sunday August 11, 2008
Dinner with the folks

Monday August 12, 2008
Green beans with garlic with the neverending summer squash side dish

Tuesday August 13, 2008
Stir fry cabbage with green peppers and a salad on the side

Wednesday August 14, 2008
Carrot and beet salad with kohlrabi saute
(there's also some nice kohlrabi recipes here, especially one for a traditional kohlrabi in bechamel sauce with nutmeg)

Thursday August 15, 2008
Kohlrabi and carrots and whatever else happens to be laying around

Salads and Sides

Als usual lots of plans late in the week kept us from adhering to the menu (movies and John Hiatt at the State Theatre in New Brunswick; "Bob" and I were some of the oldest people at Wall-E and some of the youngest at the concert). We did finish up the pork though and I had the rest of the carrot soup for lunch yesterday.

So what's left? Quite a bit of our usual summer squash side dish (the one with tomatoes and peppers). As for all the unprepared vegetables we have: green beans (though we almost had them Thursday night), 2 cucumbers, 2 kohlrabi, 3 beets, 1 bunch of carrots, 2 squash, and a bit of lettuce. Add to that this week's CSA share: green beans (yup, again), red cabbage, green peppers (2 small), cucumbers (2 small), red leaf lettuce, beets (3), bunch of dill.

This can only mean one thing for this week's menu: lots of salads and side dishes.

Ay, There's the Rub: On Ham-let and Other Midsummer's Night's Meals

Sunday, we had roast pork loin with a dry rub along with the summer squash recipe. A word to the wise: make sure the ratio of summer squash doesn't overwhelm the rest of the vegetables in the recipe. It's tempting to do this because chances are you have a ton of squash to get through, but it tends to make the recipe less appealing. For the record, I'm also finding that using a few canned Italian plum tomatoes in the recipe really works a lot better than some less-than-juicy nearly-in-season tomatoes from the supermarket.

The pork was easy to prepare (since "Bob" did it all). He says the nearly 2-pound pork tenderloin was rubbed down with kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, and dry mustard and roasted for 2 hours at 350 degrees.

Monday we had a special guest (Iz!) and a new cole slaw recipe. I made paper-thin panini: a slice and a half of Swiss cheese, a few very thinly sliced pieces of pork, and grainy mustard on rye bread. I slathered the olive oil on the press and the pan, warmed both of them over a medium flame, then added the sandwiches to the pan. In a matter of 10 minutes (don't forget to flip the sandwich once and apply pressure to the press every so often) I had a pair of delicious sandwiches. "Bob" meanwhile prefered to have his cheese and meat on dry toast--his British DNA wins out over every once in while.

The cole slaw recipe we used was from this page of the Seasonal Chef web site. I've copied it below, but I would suggest that you perhaps halve the sugar amount. It was pretty sweet. Yes I know that "sweet" is in the recipe's name, but still, exercise some caution. The vegetable oil was not gross, which I had feared it would be.

Tonight we skipped ahead: hot dogs, cole slaw, and some leftover summer squash. Tomorrow we'll have the pork with a side of green beans..

Sweet and Tangy Cole Slaw

1 cabbage, finely shredded
1 medium red onion, quartered and thinly sliced
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 cup vinegar
2/3 cup vegetable oil

Directions
1. Combine shredded cabbage with sliced onion.
2. Combine remaining ingredients and bring to boil.
3. Pour over cabbage and toss.
4. Cool, then refrigerate.

Curried Carrot and Apple Soup

I love curry. "Bob" loves carrots. We both like apples. With this soup, we're both very happy. We adapted this soup from The Ultimate Soup Bible (2005, 2006, Anness Publishing Ltd.). For the record, adding croutons makes us ecstatic.

Curried Carrot and Apple Soup
Serves 4

2 teaspoons olive oil
1 tablespoon curry powder
1-1.25 pounds carrots, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 green apple, chopped
3 cups chicken stock
Salt and ground black pepper

Directions
1. Heat oil in a large pan and cook the curry powder for 2 to 3 minutes on high heat.
2. Stir in the carrots, onion, and apple; be sure to coat all with curry powder.
3. Cover the pan and reduce the heat to low. Cook for about 15 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Stir occasionally.
4. Transfer mixture to food processor. Add half of the stock and process until smooth.
5. Return this mixture to the pan and add the remaining stock.
6. Bring the soup to a boil and season to taste.

Menu a la Week: 8/2/08 - 8/8/08

I was out last night, so "Bob" dined solo: salad and pasta with Parmesean cheese. We didn't get around to making the beets from last week, so we'll have to use them up very, very soon. We'll try and fit salads (all that red-leaf lettuce) in all week, if not for dinner, then for lunch. We're also going to give my mom 1/2 of the green beans. We could freeze the extra, but it's better to share the bounty.

Menu 8/2/08 - 8/8/08
Saturday August 2, 2008
Carrot soup and croutons and green salad

Sunday August 3, 2008
Lunch: Carrot and beet salad
Dinner: Summer squash and pork loin

Monday August 4, 2008
Cheese panini, cole slaw (new recipe), and carrot soup

Tuesday August 5, 2008
Pork loin and green beans with garlic (this recipe from C&Z looks good)

Wednesday August 6, 2008
Cole slaw and hot dogs or hamburgers

Thursday August 7, 2008
Kohlrabi and carrots and pork loin

CSA Take

All the vegetables from this week's CSA delivery look beautiful because "Bob" got to the latest (there have been three) pick-up site earlier than usual.

Here's the haul from the CSA this week: three onions; two each of kohlrabi, cucumbers, and squash; one head each of radicchio and red-leaf lettuce; one pound of green beans; and one bunch each of carrots, dill, and basil.

It's our first delivery of cucumbers, carrots, and green beans, and I finally get to try the farm's radicchio (or is it endive? "Bob?").

Catch Up and Ketchup

I'll have to make this recap of the past few days quick: Wednesday night we had cole slaw and hot dogs (I had mine with the best hot dog mustard ever: Kosciusko spicy brown), "Bob" had his with Dijon mustard and ketchup.

More cole slaw and ketchup was had last night. I had just the cole slaw and Bob had the last bit o' turkey meatloaf with a smattering of ketchup. Bob's cole slaw recipe was excellent. And with the red onion and carrots, quite colorful too. Though we finished the first batch, there's still sliced onions and cabbage, and shredded carrots in the fridge ready to go for a second batch. We're debating dressing it differently. Perhaps with a mainly vinegar-based dressing.

Colorful Cole Slaw
Serves 6

1/2 head cabbage
2 carrots
1 red onion sliced
1/4 c. white wine vinegar
1/2 C. Hellman's low-fat (or is it reduced?) mayonnaise
2 pinches of Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons sugar

Directions
Slice as thin as possible the head of cabbage and red onion. Grate the two carrots. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Season to taste.