Menu a la Week: 3/29/09 - 4/3/09

This should be a relatively easy week. Hopefully. Time to use some of the spices we bought in Tangiers. I must admit, I hope the saffron we bought is really saffron. I have no real taste reference. It could be red-dyed tea for all I know.

Menu 3/29/09 to 4/8/09
Sunday March 29, 2009
Roast chicken breast, couscous with Moroccan saffron(!), and sauteed green beans

Monday March 30, 2009
Red pepper soup with grilled cheese

Tuesday March 31, 2009
Late work night

Wednesday April 1, 2009
Chicken stir fry with asparagus

Thursday April 2, 2009
Soup (perhaps red pepper) and tossed salad

Friday April 3, 2009
Chicken stir fry or pizza

Menu a la Week: 2/15/09 - 2/20/09

I'll make this as brief as possible. At the end of a long weekend I still have laundry, work, writing, and cleaning to do.

Menu 2/15/09 to 2/10/09
Sunday February 15, 2009
Pork loin with mustard rub, smashed potatoes, and tossed salad with balsamic vinaigrette

Monday February 16, 2009
Red lentil soup with parsley and shallots

Tuesday February 17, 2009
Pork loin with mustard rub and smashed potato pancakes (see fri-ta-toe recipe)

Wednesday February 18, 2008
Evening out...no dinner at home

Thursday December 11, 2008
Red lentil soup and tossed salad

Friday December 12, 2008
Soup and salad: red lentil soup and pork loin panini with goat cheese and fig spread

Menu a la Week: 12/8/08 - 12/12/08

Okay, this won't be a straight copy of last week. We have some turkey needing attention and that tomato pasta soup just doesn't seem to end. It's yummy, but this is getting ridiculous.

Menu 11/23/08 to 11/28/08
Monday December 8, 2008
Tomato pasta soup (AKA kitchen sink soup) and tossed salad

Tuesday December 9, 2008
Turkey Tetrazzini

Wednesday December 10, 2008

Tomato pasta soup and tossed salad

Thursday December 11, 2008
Turkey Tetrazzini

Friday December 12, 2008
Butternut squash ravioli and a tossed salad

Menu a la Week: 11/30/08 -12/5/08

Three days later and we're still recovering from Thanksgiving dinner. My mom, as always, cooked an amazing meal: turkey and gravy, stuffing, green beans with garlic and lemo, and dessert (jumbo chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream). "Bob" and I made the mashed potatoes and tangy cranberry dipping sauce. Both turned out great. The best part was Friday: turkey sandwiches on rye with plenty of mayo (Hellmann's...which reminds me: they still haven't answered my last query!) and another of mom's gigantic homemade chocolate chip cookies. I could use another sandwich and cookie right now, but there's nothing of the sort Chez moi et "Bob."

This week continues our efforts to clear the decks by getting through our food in the freezer. We're eager to make some new soups as well as a whole bunch of winter favorites: tomato sauce, meatballs, lasagna and/or raviolis, braciole, meatloaf, roast chicken, pot pies (yay!), and a lovely pork loin, along with the occasional foccaccia pizza and panini. I also want to try my hand at cassoulet and beef bourguignon. Though we aim to get through most of our soups and such, our ample supplies of frozen pesto and butternut squash ravioli will likely last us most of the winter.

Tonight we'll be making yet another dent in our neverending supply of Kitchen Sink Soup. Fortunately, it's a particularly tasty soup, so eating it ad nauseum isn't actually nauseating. We'll also be topping our salad with my first attempt at parmesean peppercorn dressing (which, like everything this past week, features a lot of mayo).

Menu 11/23/08 to 11/28/08
Sunday November 30, 2008
Tomato pasta soup (AKA kitchen sink soup) and tossed salad with parmesean peppercorn dressing

Monday December 1, 2008
Pasta with pesto and a tossed salad

Tuesday December 2, 2008
Tomato pasta soup (AKA kitchen sink soup)

Wednesday December 3, 2008
Chicken stir fry

Thursday December 4, 2008
Butternut squash ravioli and a tossed salad

Friday December 5, 2008
Chicken stir fry

Menu a la Week: 11/23/08 - 11/28/08

A short week (Thanksgiving) deserves a down and dirty menu. We've still got plenty of goodies in the freezer, including herbed crepes, pesto, butternut squash ravioli, and plenty of soup. Despite all those welcome choices, I still can't wait for turkey!

Menu 11/23/08 to 11/28/08
Sunday November 23, 2008
Tomato pasta soup (AKA kitchen sink soup)

Monday November 24, 2008
Herbed crepes with ricotta (topped with a fresh plum tomato relish) and a tossed salad

Tuesday November 25, 2008
Tomato pasta soup (AKA kitchen sink soup)

Wednesday November 26, 2008
Butternut squash ravioli and a tossed salad

Thursday November 27, 2008
Thanksgiving

Friday November 28, 2008
Leftover turkey sandwiches (if we're lucky!)

Menu a la Week: 10/11/08 - 10/17/08

Today's dinner will be...nothing. We went to a surprise birthday party today (happy 4oth Glenn!) and ate our fill of burgers, fries, and cake.

Since we've been cooking like crazy and the freezer's full, it's time to empty out the backlog of dinners and make some room. The from-scratch cooking this week will be very limited. I noticed that the first six vegetables I listed from this week's CSA shipment (potatoes, celery, tomato, oregano, parsnips, and onions) suggested their very own soup! "Bob" will be making it on Monday or Tuesday.

Tomorrow I'm going to pick the last of the Roma tomatoes. There's a bunch of them and they're all green. With the frost coming and the sun not shining as long as it had, there's really no hope that they'll ever turn red, so I'll be using them in a recipe calling for green tomatoes. I'm leaning towards making a green tomato pie (the recipe I plan to use is from Everyday Citizen which is publishing a bunch of "end of the harvest" recipes). There are also recipes here: http://southernfood.about.com/od/greentomatoes/Green_Tomato_Recipes.htm

Menu 10/11/08 to 10/17/08
Saturday October 11, 2008
Birthday party food

Sunday October 12, 2008
Soup and salad

Monday October 13, 2008
Squash and potato torte

Tuesday October 14, 2008
Potato and parsnip soup and salad

Wednesday October 15, 2008
Stuffed peppers

Thursday October 16, 2008
Bob's summer squash?

Friday October 17, 2008
Pesto with pasta and salad

A Little Behind and a Big Ass...

That's how I find myself weeks after my trip to Russia and England, specifically: a little behind (on the blog) and a big ass (both figuratively, for cooking way too much last weekend, and literally, for eating too much too).

Though the blog has suffered for posts in the last few weeks, let me assure you, we’ve been picking up our produce from the CSA and cooking. Two weeks ago, "Bob" made a wonderful Kitchen Sink Soup out of everything and anything that looked like it was hanging around too long (including, homemade chicken stock from a carcasse in the freezer, carrots, onions, a can of beans, a can of diced tomatoes, a swiftly decomposing squash, some rigatoni, and some whole wheat spaghetti). Then, last Thursday (October 2) at the CSA, “Bob” took home quite a few things: carrots, radishes, escarole, butternut squash, melons (not ripe), tomatoes, romaine lettuce, some herbs (oregano and marjoram), a few small eggplants, some green peppers, and corn.

Because I was a little homesick for some home cooking, and a wee bit overambitious, we overdid it with our cooking for the weekend: stuffed peppers, lentil and turkey sausage soup with escarole, homemade butternut squash ravioli (with homemade semolina pasta), herbed crepes with tomato sauce, and eggplant caviar (from a Chocolate & Zucchini recipe). I still can’t believe I fit everything into the freezer by the time we finished on Sunday (I made a bit more room by donating our long-frozen, and none-too-popular spinach pie to Iz's dog Kiki).

I’ve also updated the “in season” list to the left. It’s like September never happened.

The Menu a la Week for October 2 through October 10 went something like this:

Menu 10/2/08 - 10/10/08
Saturday October 4, 2008
Kitchen Sink Soup

Sunday October 5, 2008
Eggplant caviar for lunch
Pasta patches leftover from ravioli making and selected butternut squash ravioli not suitable for freezing

Monday October 6, 2008
Greek-style stuffed peppers and tossed salad

Tuesday October 7, 2008
Lentil soup with Italian sausage and escarole and a tossed salad

Wednesday October 8, 2008
Herbed crepes with ricotta, green bell pepper, and spring tomato sauce and a tossed salad

Thursday October 9, 2008
Lentil soup with Italian sausage and escarole and a tossed salad

Friday October 10, 2008
Eggplant caviar (for snacks)
Lentil soup with Italian sausage and escarole and corn on the cob

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

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

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.

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

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

Menu a la Week: 7/26/08 -7/31/08

Here's the menu for the week. There's a few blanks to be filled in, but I'll do that by Monday. There's also no "real" dinner for tonight. We had take-out (Wendy's) because we were busy with chores and I was rushing to get a jewelry project done too. I hope to post the dill potato salad recipe by tomorrow (hint, hint "Bob").

While working on the jewelry project in my basement, I was listening to NPR (WNYC). I heard a story on Marketplace Money about a California family that has suddenly found itself in dire straits (house foreclosing, no income, savings gone, going to the food pantry). The husband and wife were both in the real estate lending industry when the market there went south. What struck me as odd is that making soups and freezing leftovers were such a new way of cooking for the wife (her mom is instructing her on how to cook frugally). I guess, for me, I've always frozen some things, perhaps not as compulsively as now, and soups and stews just seem like a good idea for winter cooking (not just for when you're poor). She also mentioned canned vegetables. Honestly, I'm not a fan of most canned veg, but tomatoes and beans (kidney, etc.) and sometimes even corn often hold up pretty well. I guess I see it as sad that exercising commonsense is seen as something to only do when you've fallen on hard times; otherwise, when money's flush, waste away!

Menu 7/26/08 - 7/31/08
Saturday July 26, 2008
Grilled chicken and dill potato salad and salad with Caesar dressing

Sunday July 27, 2008
Wendy's :-)

Monday July 28, 2008
Chicken panini and potato salad

Tuesday July 29, 2008
Meatloaf and Bob's summer squash

Wednesday July 30, 2008
Cole slaw and hot dogs

Thursday July 31, 2008
Beets and ?

Menu a la Week: 7/19/08 - 7/24/08

Yeah, yeah, I was supposed to have this ready on the new, menu-posting night, Thursday. But, it looks like I'm still on the old schedule. Just like vegetables, you can't force some things (namely me) to be ready before their time.

I'm looking up recipes for Swiss chard, and I've discovered something. Way too many vegetable recipes either call for sauteeing in olive oil and adding crushed red pepper flakes OR roasting/blanching/baking/sautee-ing and topping with parmesean cheese. Not that I have anything against cheese, but finding (or creating) truly novel and delicious recipes for veggies is quite a task. That's why, this week, some of our favorite new recipes will be featured again. Nothing like the tried and true.

This week we'll try and use up some of the chicken we've stowed in the freezer (either grilled or roasted) as well as that can of tomatoes we opened up for the summer squash and red pepper recipe from last week. For lunch today we'll have the broccoli and cauliflower. Lunch tomorrow will have to be the squash torte (not that there's anything wrong with that). We also have to use up the rest of the potatoes (they're making eyes at me) and all that beautiful dill from the CSA (it was an amazingly beautiful bunch). Perhaps a small dill potato salad is in order!

Menu 7/19/08 - 7/24/08
Saturday July 19, 2008
Sugar snap peas with ginger and previously grilled chicken

Sunday July 20, 2008
Italian turkey sausage dinner with pasta or potatoes and a red-leaf lettuce salad with broccoli and yellow squash

Monday July 21, 2008
Swiss chard, either with tomatoes or candied ginger (thanks Mariquita Farm) and chicken

Tuesday July 22, 2008
Chicken panini and dill potato salad

Wednesday July 23, 2008
Italian turkey sausage dinner and pasta with salad

Thursday July 24, 2008
Bob's summer squash recipe (or some other squash recipe) and whatever's left over from the week

Menu a la Week 7/12/08 - 7/17/08

In an effort to get through the CSA vegetables faster—since the amount we're receiving is, errr, growing—I've decided to create the week's menu on Thursday night so that we begin to use the "new" vegetables as soon as possible (Friday). Consequently, this week's menu (waaaayyy below) ends on Thursday. Next week's menu will begin on Friday. The sooner we start cooking the new vegetables, the less the chance there is that they'll wilt and/or rot.

Today, I took care of all the basil I had culled from the pot. I cut some on Thursday because the potted basil was getting a bit tall and bushy and I don't want the plant to turn "woody." I also had some leaves preserved in Kosher salt in the freezer from a couple of weeks ago (I discussed the source of my inspiration, Kalyn's Kitchen, in an earlier post here, but I also found a more comprehensive basil preservation discussion at http://www.apinchof.com/preservebasil1106.htm).

The total amount was perfect for my usual pesto recipe. I didn't have to add any salt because of the salt-preserved basil (let that be a lesson to you: Don't use this method for preserving basil unless you need the basil in a recipe that also calls for salt).

Basil Pesto
Serves 8+

1 1/2 cups of packed basil
1/4 cup grated Parmesean cheese
3 cloves of finely chopped garlic
1/4 to 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Directions
1. In a food processor, process basil and garlic until coarsely pureed.
2. Add grated Parmesean cheese and puree further.
3. Add olive oil to top of food processor (if it has a hole in the top) so that it streams into the bowl. Process so that it becomes a thick mixture.
4. Process in salt and pepper to taste.
5. Use on pasta or freeze.

I used these directions to freeze it in an ice cube tray for future use. Important tip learned: After filling the cubes with pesto, cover the ice cube tray with plastic wrap (pressing down on the tops of the pesto-filled cubes) so that no oxidation occurs (preserving the green color of the basil). After they froze for about 5 hours, I popped them out of the tray (actually, "Bob" did), wrapped them in plastic wrap, then put them all in a large freezer bag.

After making the pesto, I made the kohlrabi slaw, using the recipe for Kohlrabi with Apple Salad and Creamy Mustard Dressing. We had the "slaw" for lunch and it was light and delicious, although the 1/2 cup of heavy cream makes me wish I had used plain yogurt or some other low-fat alternative. I thought there weren't many recipes for kohlrabi, but after I committed to the slaw recipe, I found this page on Chow.com.

For dinner, aside from 2 bottles of wine, we had grilled chicken and sugar snap peas (from last week's CSA delivery).

Sugar Snap Peas with Ginger
Serves 4

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon finely chopped peeled fresh ginger
1 garlic clove, minced
3/4 lb sugar snap peas, cleaned and "stings" removed
1/2 cup water
Soy sauce
Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions
1. Heat oil in a large pan over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking
2. Saute shallots, ginger, and garlic for 1 minute.
3. Add peas and stir for about 2 minutes.
4. Add water and simmer, stirring occasionally for about 2 minutes. The peas will still be crisp.
5. Season with soy sauce and pepper.

Menu 7/12/08 - 7/17/08
Saturday July 12, 2008
Grilled chicken, sugar snap peas with ginger, and kale with cannelloni bean leftovers

Sunday July 13, 2008
Turkey meatloaf (?), herbed peas and carrots, and salad with radishes

Monday July 14, 2008
Summer squash and grilled chicken

Tuesday July 15, 2008
Squash and potato torte and spinach with red onions

Wednesday July 16, 2008
Grilled chicken, broccoli and cauliflower with lemon dill herb butter sauce, and salad and radishes

Thursday July 17, 2008
Squash and potato torte and salad with radishes

Menu a la Week 7/5/08 - 7/11/08

We've deciphered most of the vegetables we got this week. Some were a little tougher to identify than others, especially, the kohlrabi. I really thought it was a turnip. It's not. It's a member of the cabbage family (just like our friend broccoli). I think we have a bunch of mustard greens too. I have no idea how to cook them, though I did find a ton of recipes for mustard greens with ham hocks. "Bob," regrettably, does not really like ham (specifically, smoked versions). I found just a single recipe for mustard greens with beef; we'll be making it tomorrow.

There will also be lots of salads this week. The two heads of lettuce (red leaf and Forellenschluss romaine) are absolutely gorgeous, and they're humongous. I've never seen lettuce this large at the supermarket.

Menu 7/5/08 - 7/11/08
Saturday July 5, 2008
Green salad with homemade vinaigrette

Sunday July 6, 2008
Stir-fried beef with mustard greens

Monday July 7, 2008
Meggyleves soup and salad with dried berries and raspberry vinaigrette

Tuesday July 8, 2008
Grilled chicken and sugar snap peas with ginger and garlic (scapes)

Wednesday July 9, 2008
"Kale" and canelloni beans

Thursday July 10, 2008
Grilled chicken and kohlrabi and apple salad with creamy mustard dressing

Friday July 11, 2008
Herbed summer squash and potato torte with parmesean

Note: Please visit the Restaurant Widow blog (I've also linked to it above). There's a lot of information there about kohlrabi plus an interesting recipe for kohlrabi pickles.

Menu a la Week 6/28/08 - 7/4/08

Yes, the menu's a bit late, but ever since half the vegetables got destroyed I've been winging it. Sunday night we had the last of the scape pesto. Instead of pasta we served it with brown rice because we didn't have enough pasta for three and we had a surprise dinner guest (Iz!). Quite honestly, though tasty, the rice wasn't delicate enough to let the pesto's bright taste truly shine. To round out the meal, we had a crudite of carrots, celery, and scallions along with the Universal Salad Dressing.

Tonight: turkey meatloaf (from the freezer, still tastes outstanding!) and another crudite, plus some cucumbers that have been marinating along with red onions in balsamic vinegar.

No dinners are planned after Wednesday. Thursday night we're going to see a play (Sam Shepard's "Kicking a Dead Horse" at The Public Theater) and Friday is the 4th so something somewhere will be grilled. Since we're down a bunch of vegetables, we're going to be making do with some leftovers (chicken) and some surprises (sour cherries from Iz's backyard).

One more important note: I'm still trying to figure out how to calcuate the E-Co$t of meals since we're now using our CSA vegetables. Since they're not priced by the vegetable, do I go with the going price at the supermarket? Do I just divide the CSA cost per week by the number of vegetable types? When I decide on a method, I'll start posting the E-Co$t again. I plan to start posting the dollar figure along with the recipe...just like the nutrition information (yes, I haven't posted that in awhile either).

Menu 6/28/08 - 7/5/08
Saturday June 28, 2008
Ginger-garlic bok choy stir-fry and some cheese and crackers

Sunday June 29, 2008
Garlic scape pesto with brown rice and crudite with Universal Salad Dressing

Monday June 30, 2008
Turkey meatloaf, crudite with Universal Salad Dressing, and cucumbers and red onions with balsamic vinegar

Tuesday July 1, 2008
Chicken panini with kale (crispy, roasted, or sauteed)

Wednesday July 2, 2008
Meggyleves (sour cherry soup)

Thursday July 3, 2008
A night out at the theater

Friday July 4, 2008
Happy 4th of July!

Oh No, What a Disaster!

We got our latest CSA share on Thursday. Not much again: about 8 radishes (though they were quite large), some bok choy, curly endive, a large bunch of kale, escarole, and a head of Boston lettuce. Now, there's even less.

This afternoon I discovered bits of green glass in the refrigerator. Two bottles of sparkling water froze and blew up in the back of the fridge. The water soaked the bags filled with our vegetables and then re-froze. A lot of the vegetables (escarole, lettuce, and endive) were ruined. A few, but not all, of the radishes were also frozen. That leaves us with kale, bok choy, and radishes.

There is a silver lining though. "Bob" made us our garbage can composter today. After hemming and hawing about this for weeks (buy a new one or try and get one off of Freecycle or Craigslist?, make it out of metal or plastic?, are plastic garbage cans safe or should we buy a foodsafe plastic container?, and so on), we decided to go the plastic garbage can route. We have plenty of these cans on hand since we do a lot of home projects and use them for hauling and storing renovation and landscaping materials. After a quick viewing of this "how to" guide on About.com, "Bob" made the composter. Then he filled it with various "green" and "brown" materials. Last week I trimmed the wisteria so we had plenty of green material. Plus we had a huge cardboard box that he ripped up, so that took care of the brown.

Afterwards, "Bob" rolled it around the yard and then put it on the cement base he had made for our long-deceased rain barrel (it was plastic as well and the seams burst one year; the composter now fits perfectly on this old base).

What else can be composted? We can throw our chipboard products in there, and I read that you can put junk mail in as a brown material too. I didn't toss in the stems, branches, and leaves from my rose bushes because they had a lot of black spot on them. Though I think the compost will get hot enough to kill the fungus, I really don't want to push my luck just yet.

After we thought the composter was done for the night, I discovered the destoyed vegetables. We were able to fill up the can that much more. Paper towels went in there too as well as some coffee grounds, egg shells, and some vegetable ends I'd saved up in the fridge for this occasion. Remember, you can't throw everything in a composter (dog and cat waste and meats are verboten).

These sites provide a lot more information on the ins and outs of composting:

Everything you wanted to know about plastics and composters:
http://www.fakeplasticfish.com/2007/08/compost-tumbler-solution-to-potting.html

The About.com video that we watched for making our bin:
http://video.about.com/greenliving/Homemade-Compost-Bin.htm

The metal versus plastic debate:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nwgardens/321517_smith30.html

You shouldn't use dog waste in your compost, but you can compost the stuff on its own to keep it out of the trash:
http://www.plantea.com/dog-waste-compost.htm

Another garbage can how-to:
http://www.ehow.com/how_16876_make-compost-bin.html

A source (free) with a list of other sources (not free):
http://www.idealbite.com/tiplibrary/archives/scrap_happy

Making compost tea:
http://www.kitchengardeners.org/

The EPA's guidelines; hopefully, in the future, we'll be able to trust this agency again:
http://www.epa.gov/composting/by_compost.htm

One of the best, most comprehensive composting guides I found online:
http://www.compostguide.com/

Menu a la Week: 6/21/08 - 6/27/08

It's a day late, but what follows is this week's menu (and what happened last week).

Recap: Friday night we had nothing for dinner since we both had big lunches and Thursday night my husband had oatmeal and raisins since I went out drinking for the departure of a colleague to grad school (Bye Sarah! See you soon for cocktails).

Since the broccoli head from our first CSA share looked a bit wilty, we started with that first. ("Bob" passed on the offer of broccoli leaves since he couldn't think of anything to do with them; I've since learned you can use them like kale and as a base for broccoli soup). About a third of the broccoli florets was used for last night's salad. We also had one of the frozen chicken pot pies (and it was fine without the egg wash, just not as glistening and pretty).

Since we didn't get through all of our frozen foods last week, we'll have more things to choose from in our freezer this week. With all the planting we did yesterday, there wasn't much time to cook anyway.

This week, we'll have to get through the broccoli (easy) and the scapes. What are scapes, you ask? A green flower from the garlic bulb. These shoots emerge from the ground and are ripe for harvesting for about 2 to 3 weeks. Check out The New York Times article on scapes that was published last week.

There are so many English peas, that they'll be coming out of our ears by Friday. As for the spinach, I know what not to make with it. I also have some new ideas on how to prepare it. For lunch Friday, I had a great Indian spinach dish (I believe it is called palak paneer). Now I'm on the hunt for a good recipe for it. I already have a good semi-Italian spinach recipe, and, of course, spinach will be incorporated into our salads. Armed with four or more recipes/uses, we should be able to get through all the spinach they throw at us.

By the looks of this week's menu, we'll be needing plenty of ginger. In searching around for various pesto recipes (Gail needed some basil/pesto advice), I came across this blog: Kalyn's Kitchen. This post talks about freezing basil but I also noticed that she freezes ginger root. I didn't know that could be done.

My freezer is going to be jealous of hers. Hers is so much better looking.


Hers
vs.

Mine

Menu 6/21/08 - 6/27/08
Saturday June 21, 2008
Chicken pot pie and salad (with broccoli and red leaf lettuce and mustard vinaigrette)

Sunday June 22, 2008
Garlic scape pesto with pasta and salad

Monday June 23, 2008
Ginger chicken and broccoli stir fry with brown rice

Tuesday June 24, 2008
Chicken and palak/saag paneer

Wednesday June 25, 2008
Scape pesto and green salad

Thursday June 26, 2008
Turkey meatloaf and herbed English peas and carrots (with garlic scapes!)

Friday June 27, 2008
English pea Asian chicken soup (or some other English pea soup)

Menu a la Week: 6/14/08 - 6/20/08

Now for a very special menu. The freezer is overstuffed so it's time to clean it out. The best way to do that is to eat through as much of the frozen food as we can (including that ice cream in the upper right-hand corner). So, no new cooking for this week. To make this week even easier, we won't be home for dinner every night.

Our first CSA delivery is scheduled for this week. Rumor has it there will be lots of lettuce.

Menu 6/14/08 - 6/20/08
Saturday June 14, 2008
Turkey sausage with toast

Sunday June 15, 2008
Father's Day (eating out!)

Monday June 16, 2008
Turkey meatloaf and vegetables (or salad)

Tuesday June 17, 2008
Macbeth play (dinner out)

Wednesday June 18, 2008
Spinach pie and salad (dinner all by my lonesome)

Thursday June 19, 2008
Chicken pot pie and salad

Friday June 20, 2008
Asparagus soup and salad