Po-TAY-tow, Po-TAH-tow, Tow-MAY-tow, Tow-MAH-tow

German Butterball Potatoes

As I mentioned in my most recent post, last week's box contained:

• Green Beans
• Spigariello
• German Butterball Potatoes
• Yellow Onions
• Tomatoes
• Strawberries
• Summer Squash
• Mixed Sweet Peppers - Mix of young tender sweet Romanian, Cubanelle and Green Pimiento peppers

I had been in China the prior week and didn't have much energy immediately on my return; however, early this week it was a joy to have this food on hand. Such gorgeous produce. Sadly, the strawberries and the spigariello did not make it, but the rest has been or will be put to good use.

Tomatoes

It is tomato season here in California, so all that's needed is a knife and some good salt.  My favorite is Maldon Sea Salt, which you see pictured above. I simply sliced the tomatoes, drizzled them with white balsamic vinegar, and sprinkled them with salt. Beautiful.

I steamed the potatoes with some broccoli and tossed both with a mustard butter made from PIC Dijon mustard. Again, beautiful and so simple.

The green beans found their way into Sichuan-style green beans. Again ... beautiful and simple.

This week was a good reminder of how amazing food, in season, can be served all by itself. For the zucchini, onions, peppers, I'm planning a veggie fajita with fresh salsa from the tomatoes, jalapeños, and tomatillos from tomorrow's box:

• Bull's Blood Beet Greens
• Celery
• Summer Squash
• Chantenay Carrots
• Jalapeno Peppers
• Monica Tomatoes
• Tomatillos
• Strawberries
• Red Leaf Lettuce

Locavore: Eating Seasonally

Purple Kohlrabi

Finally some time!

My schedule settled down this week and I finally found some time to think about food. This week's box contains:

• Purple Kohlrabi
• Lettuce
• Spring Onions
• Rapini
• Red Radishes
• Erbette Chard
• Fennel
• Broccoli
• Strawberries

 The viable items we still have on hand from past weeks includes:

• Broccoli
• Radishes
• Onions
• Red Cabbage (from 4/11 and 3/21!)
• Carrots
• Green Garlic
• French Breakfast Radishes
• Red Chard

Unfortunately we composted turnip greens, soup celery, red romaine lettuce, Portuguese cabbage and some little gem lettuces.

Having the time to think about food is not the same time as having the time to cook a good meal. First, there's deciding what to cook. Then there's shopping. Then there's cooking ... you get the idea.

When I picked up the box yesterday, I decided to go with what we had on hand (which wasn't much) and just work with it. We ended up making an adapted version of Martha Rose Shulman'sbroccoli risotto, adding sun-dried tomatoes and skipping the parsley; we were able to make use of the broccoli and some of the onions and green garlic from this week and those prior. I also started a batch of sauerkraut, using up the cabbage from 3/21 and 4/11 and the purple kohlrabi from this week's box.

For dinner tonight, we made Swiss chard stuffed manicotti (an adapted version of the Swiss Chard Stuffed Shells recipe from CHOW) served with a green salad. This meal made great use of the Erbette chard from this week's box and the red chard from 4/4 as well as the lettuce and onions from this week's box and green garlic from weeks past.

We now have rapini, radishes, fennel, and strawberries left. My plan is to pickle the radishes, eat the strawberries out of hand, make roasted fennel tartines for dinner one night next week, and to serve the rapini sauteed along side some to-be-determined main course.

Two main themes over the past month: time and eating seasonally and locally.

The trick on the time theme is knowing what is perishable and eating it first, then taking steps to preserve the food you don't have time to deal with right away. Lots of options for preservation, but my go-to solution continues to be Evert-Fresh bags; they really do buy you time.

On eating locally, the trick is starting with what you have and finding ways to make it interesting. All this takes is a quick inventory, a bit of research, and of course, time.

Preserving Food: Just Getting By

This week's box contained:

• Thyme
• Broccoli
• Little Gem Lettuces
• Red and Purple Radishes
• Onions
• Couve Tronchuda (Portuguese Cabbage)
• Arugula
• Red Cabbage
• Rainbow Carrots
• Red Romaine

Unfortunately, this too was a time constrained week. I ended up picking up the box at 10:30pm (well after the cut-off time) and depositing it directly in our refrigerator. Honestly, just picking it up felt like an accomplishment.

I'm sad to say the box sat unattended as delivered. We composted everything but the broccoli, radishes, onions, cabbage, and carrots.

Preserving Food: What to Do When You Don't Have Time

This week's (Week of April 4th & 5th) box contained:

• Broccoli 
• Soup Celery 
• Lettuces (Little Gem and Lola Rosa)
• Calcot Onions
• Turnip Greens
• Green Garlic
• French Breakfast Radishes
• White, Purple and Orange Carrots
• Frisee (curly endive, a variety of chicory) (traded for more carrots)
• Red Chard

It was the first full week of the Spring quarter at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and I just didn't have the time to get creative or to cook all this food. So what to do?

My first step was figuring out what would last and packaging it to last in Evert-Fresh bags. Before storing, I trimmed off the perishable parts, mainly the greens on the radishes and the green tips of the onions and the green garlic. After that, we made a fine salad with the lettuces and paired it with baked carrot oven fries. Everything else this week was carry-out or going out!

Uova da Raviolo (Ravioli with an Egg Inside)

I'm at Stanford University this year participating in the Sloan Master's Program. This week, my cohort went to Washington, DC and New York, NY to meet with a variety of public and private sector leaders. As a result, I was not home to pick up my CSA share. Also as a result, I was able to try some amazing food at restaurants in both cities.  Two in particular are worth mentioning: Founding Farmers in DC and SD26 in NYC.

Founding Farmers specializes in locally sourced, well prepared food and is owned by a cooperative of farmers.  The menu offered a wide range of choices and the food was excellent.  SD26 is an upscale, modern Italian restaurant with a "high tech" feel that begins with the decor and continues through the iPad based wine list. The food was good, and not surprisingly, pricey. One dish stood out as interesting and exceptional: Uova da Raviolo.

Uova da Raviolo is essentially a big, single ravioli filled with a soft-boiled egg nested in truffled ricotta. Turns out Mario Batali has a recipe for this dish posted on the Food Network's site, so I gave it a go. The process was easier than expected. The only tips I'd share are:

• seal the ravioli with an egg wash and let them sit after sealing so the seal can cure,
• go heavy on the salt to compensate for the egg yolk, and 
• make these in the fall so you can use fresh white truffles vs. preserved

You can see my step by step process here. The SD26 Uova da Raviolo looked like this:

In terms of dealing with the box this week, I simply offered it to friends to enjoy. If they share what they do with the contents, I'll pass it along.  This week's box contained:

• Broccoli
• Lamb's Quarters
• Hearts of Little Gem Lettuce
• Baby White Turnips
• Hamburg Parsley
• Erbette Chard
• Yellow Chantenay Carrots
• Red Beets
• Red-Bearded Scallions
• Arugula

Produce from a CSA Share

Big, somewhat eclectic box this week. This is a great example of what it's like to get your produce from a CSA share.

The way it generally works for us is:

• Watch the "What's in the Box" list.
• Start thinking about what we'll do with the food.
• Pick up the box on Thursday.
• Plan a few meals in which to enjoy the harvest.
• Decide what else we need for the week.
• Head to the grocery store.

What's really different here is where you start. With a CSA, you have to start with what you have on hand or risk wasting food.  Without a CSA, you start with what you want to eat and buy what you need. Given that each week involves some planning, I find having a list of ingredients to work with simplifies the process. Admittedly though, some weeks are simpler than others.  This week, for example, includes some interesting items. It's also a lot of food:

• Raw Peanuts
• Spring Garlic
• Gold Turnips
• Yellow and Purple Carrots
• Green Mustard
• Kale
• Red Bearded Scallions
• Red Cabbage
• Cilantro
• Arugula

For dinner last night we made Green Garlic Risotto from The New Cook's Tour of Sonomaby Michele Anna Jordan, served along side a green salad with Dijon vinaigrette and a long time favorite, Baked Carrot Oven Fries from Heidi Swanson's 101 Cookbooks blog. The spring garlic, yellow and purple carrots, and red bearded scallions were gone in a flash.

Some of the remaining ingredients (raw peanuts, turnips, and mustard greens) remind me of the South, where I lived for nearly a decade. For these I'll take my inspiration from Bryant Terry's Vegan Soul Kitchen for Spicy Goobers and a batch of Roasted Turnips and Shallots with Turnip Green Soup. Our turnips came without the greens, so substituting mustard greens in their place.

The cabbage will replenish our sauerkraut supply and the cilantro (which came with its roots intact) will be replanted.  The arugula from this week and last week will become Arugula Pesto. The kale will just have to wait...

First Box of 2012 Season

This is the first week of our 2012 CSA season and our fifth year as subscribers. We've learned a lot and eaten a lot of amazing food over the past 5 years, all of it documented on this blog.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Through this model, consumers like me purchase a share of the produce to be grown by a farmer during the upcoming season.  You pay in advance, helping the farmer fund their business and receive food from the farm at regular intervals throughout the season, sharing in both the risks and the rewards. You typically pick up a box once a week at a location convenient to you. With produce in hand, you're all set.

It's both fun and frustrating to participate.  On the positive side, you receive amazingly fresh, healthy  food, you get to try new things, and have the opportunity to build a relationship with the people who grow your food.  On the negative side, it can be a challenge to keep up with the amount of food and to be creative when you receive the same thing several weeks in a row or receive something you simply don't like. All things considered, it's been a fantastic experience.

You can learn more here:

• What is a CSA?
• Getting Started with a CSA
• Find a CSA in Your Area

This week's box contains:

• Little Gem Lettuce
• Soup Celery
• Yellow and Orange Chantenay Carrots
• Red Bearded Scallions
• Arugula
• Red Chard
• Red Radishes

Some of you know I am not a lettuce fan and often end up sending it right to the compost pile. This week though, I'm actually glad to see it. I've been on a mustard kick for the past few weeks and the lettuce gives me a chance to dip into a new jar of PIC Moutarde Forte.

To say that I love this mustard would be an understatement. It's tough to find, but well worth the effort.

With dijon mustard as the starting point, our menu tonight will include:

Red Radish Canapés (radishes)
Salad with Dijon Vinaigrette (lettuce, red bearded scallions)
Mushroom and Barley Soup (soup celery, carrots, arugula, chard)
Fresh Sourdough Bread

...which leaves us with a second bunch of radishes.  I plan to try a radish and sesame soy noodle salad from Ching-He Huang at the BBC.