Beaten by Beets **RECIPE ALERT**

I'm a week or so behind on sharing my CSA with you:

Red pepper; cucumber; beets; carrots; Sungold tomatoes; blueberries

As you can see, this week's box was a little thin. No worries: the risk of joining a CSA is that there may be weeks where you don't get loaded up with the goods, and apparently week 4 was one of those. Nevertheless, I was thrilled to find that my brother & sis 'n law weren't going to be the only ones to enjoy blueberries, as well as intrigued by all the possibilities the Sungold tomatoes could yield in terms of recipes. In the end, they were so sweet and juicy I ended up just eating them as my afternoon snacks at work. I've never eaten tomatoes as a snack before, so you can imagine how amazing they were.

One item I was a little wary of seeing yet again were the beets. For those of you keeping score, I had also received beets in the last box so now I was two bunches in. I am generally not a fan of beets except for an amazing beet dish I had at Taxim, a restaurant I visited in an earlier post. Either Taxim's chef did something really well or my taste buds were changing.  In any case, the beets from my CSA were waiting patiently for me to use them and the first bunch was getting a little old. Without the Taxim recipe available to me, I needed to be creative.

I searched online and found a recipe for Roasted Beets with Oranges that incorporated mostly ingredients I already had in-house, such as my lovely homemade red wine vinegar, and logged glowing reviews that included multiple variations on "I hate beets but I loved this recipe!" I took that to be a good sign. I promptly invited my boyfriend over, ran to the store to grab the appropriate missing items, and got ready for a culinary adventure.

That is, however, until I read the recipe more carefully. To be clear, I generally peruse recipes thoroughly before committing to them, but for some reason in this case I managed to skip over the section that said I needed to roast the beets for an hour and a half first, and then after assembling the final dish I had to let it marinate for another hour. The two of us are absolute pros at eating dinner at ridiculously late hours-- sometimes it's almost breakfast, it seems-- so suddenly this dish seemed an impossible task.

What to do? It was after 7pm, I hadn't started to cook yet, and the options were looking bleak. I just didn't have a go-to recipe in my repertoire like I do for the vegetables I actually enjoy on a regular basis. At that moment, my eyes wandered to my cookbook shelf and I slapped my forehead.

Towards the beginning of the Au Naturale journey, but before the winter frost had begun to thaw, I swung by a shuttering Borders bookstore and ravaged what was left of the cookbook section. One of the two books I treated myself to was in anticipation of signing up for my first CSA: it's called Eating Local, published by Sur la Table. It's designed for the farm box subscriber in mind, and instead of being organized by dish or meal it's organized by main ingredient. So when you get a mess of, oh, say, beets, and need to know 4 different ways to use them up, you can just turn to the beet section. Even more fun, it features profiles of small, independent farms from all over the country, the kind of farms I choose to support and encourage all of you to support, too.  After buying that book I spent many a lazy night curled up on the couch, eagerly reading it from start to finish.

I grabbed the book off the shelf and to the beet section I went! While looking for a recipe that did not necessitate another run to the store, I found a recipe for Golden Beet and Buttermilk Soup, which was surely a sign: what an excellent way to use up the rest of the buttermilk leftover from the strawberry basil muffins! The only other changes were substituting green onion for chives (as I didn't have any); adding an extra clove of garlic (because we love garlic); and our beets were red instead of golden. If you happen to have the option of using golden beets I strongly recommend it. Using the red, the resulting dish was not physically unlike the bright pink of borscht:

Reactions-- and how I used the remaining beets-- after the recipe. Yep, I'm going to make you work for it:

Beet and Buttermilk Soup:

Ingredients:
1 pound beets, golden or red (weight without greens, about 3 medium beets)
1 large clove garlic, sliced
3 cups buttermilk (I used low-fat)
1/4 cup chopped fresh chives, or 2 tbs chopped fresh dill, plus more finely chopped for garnish
1 TBS sherry vinegar or white wine vinegar, or more to taste
kosher or sea salt


Directions:
1) Preheat the oven to 375. If the beet greens are attached, remove all but 1/2 inch of the stem. Reserve the greens and stems for another use. Put the beets in a baking dish, and add water to a depth of 1/4 inch. Cover tightly with a lid or foil and bake until a knife pierces them easily, 45 to 55 minutes. When cool enough to handle, peel the beets.


2) Cut the beets into quarters. Put the beets, garlic, and 1 1/2 cups of the buttermilk in a blender and puree until smooth. (You can use a food processor but the results will not be as smooth.) Add the remaining 1 1/2 cups buttermilk, the dill, and the vinegar and puree again. Season to taste with salt. Transfer to a covered container and chill well.


3) Taste before serving and adjust the seasoning. Serve in cups or bowls, garnishing each portion with a sprinkle of the chives.


So-- my thoughts?  Meh. Although I do appreciate that beets are quite easy to peel. I was expecting to wrestle with them like one often wrestles with peeling inconveniently shaped foods. I know what you're thinking now: "Really?? 'Meh?' Then why did you even bother to post the recipe?" Right?  I decided to post because my fantastic and honest boyfriend, who is ambivalent about beets and generally dislikes cold soups (there goes my gazpacho plans), thought this was really quite tasty. So for all you beet lovers out there, this soup is probably right up your alley.

Alas, though, yesterday I found myself in a quandary with the remaining beets that were beginning to get a bit long in the tooth. I decided to go for the original beet and orange salad- I had the ingredients, I needed to redeem myself from the chocolate cupcake I snagged off the Evil Bar of Doom, and I kind of didn't care that I might not eat dinner until 10pm... which ended up being the case. In addition to the fact that I am a slow cook-- so when a recipe says it will only take a half hour, I know that I'm in for a full hour-- I hadn't had a night home all week and the long time in between steps allowed me to get some things done, such as finally unpack from last weekend's trip (more on that in the next posts).

I would rate this one as refreshing and summery, and not too bad. And it's very colorful. I liked it better than the soup.  But still kind of a "meh".  I otherwise wouldn't post this recipe with a "meh" rating, but hey, this is going to be my first and last post dedicated to beets. After just two beet-centric cooking adventures, I'm pretty sure I'm done with them for good.

Roasted Beet Salad with Oranges and Beet Greens
(thanks to Epicurious for this one)

• Ingredients:
• 6 medium beets with beet greens attached

• 2 large oranges
• 1 small sweet onion, cut through root end into thin wedges
• 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon grated orange peel

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F. Trim greens from beets. Cut off and discard stems. Coarsely chop leaves and reserve. Wrap each beet in foil. Place beets directly on oven rack and roast until tender when pierced with fork, about 1 hour 30 minutes. Cool. Peel beets, then cut each into 8 wedges. Place beets in medium bowl.

Cook beet greens in large saucepan of salted boiling water just until tender, about 2 minutes. Drain. Cool. Squeeze greens to remove excess moisture. Add greens to bowl with beets. Cut peel and white pith from oranges. Working over another bowl and using small sharp knife, cut between membranes to release segments (or just carefully pull them apart with your fingers. Add orange segments and onion to bowl with beet mixture. Whisk vinegar, oil, garlic, and orange peel in small bowl to blend; add to beet mixture and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour. Serve.

Bakin'! **Recipe Alert**

There are generally two types of people in the kitchen: cooks and bakers. I tend to fall into the cook category. In many ways it can be less time consuming, but the fun of cooking is that it also allows for improvisation: Suuuure, let's throw a little more garlic in there. Baking, on the other hand, is an exact science. You have to measure out everything perfectly or else your product is sure to be a failure.

That being said, I enjoy baking now and again, and I've noticed over the past few weeks the baking bug had hit me hard. At first I craved the idea of making zucchini bread from my CSA box but then the zukes stopped coming and my eye began to wander for something new to do. Also, being committed to making the most out of the bounty I had at my fingers, as I mentioned two posts ago, a new idea took hold in my mind.

I have had this recipe for strawberry orange muffins for a few years that I absolutely love. Moist, sweet and delicious, with an almond streusel topping that had a grainy brown sugar crunch, just the thought of having one made me eager to make them again. However, the great thing about this recipe is that it offers a slightly more savory variation in a strawberry basil form.  Considering I had a ton of basil just waiting to be picked, I thought it would be an excellent time to try it. Blueberries had come in the last CSA box (hooray!) and I was tempted to use those, but strawberry season is ending soon so I wanted to take advatage of the remaining available market berries before they disappeared. And in fact, the final strawberries left were a wild variety, smaller and slightly misshapen, a little more tart, but delicious nonetheless. And their small size saved me a few minutes of chopping. Hey, it's the little things that make me happy. And look how little they are!

The nice thing about this recipe, for those of you who, like me, are not necessarily bakers, is that it is fool-proof and doesn't take very long. I even had most ingredients in my cabinets already so I didn't have to shell out much at the store, keeping in line with the goal of spending less on my groceries.

I enjoyed this both at room temperature as well as warmed with a little market butter.  If basil in your muffin doesn't sound like your cup of tea, I still highly recommend going for the strawberry orange version, which is refreshing with the combo of sweet and citrus. It's fantastico!

Recipe below my beautiful artistic photos:

Strawberry Orange/ Strawberry Basil Muffins
** yields 12

Ingredients

rt

• 3 tablespoon(s) almonds
• 2 tablespoon(s) all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup(s) all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoon(s) brown sugar
• 1/2 cup(s) brown sugar
• 3 teaspoon(s) freshly grated orange zest, divided (see Variation)
• 1/2 teaspoon(s) salt, divided
• 2 tablespoon(s) canola oil
• 1/4 cup(s) canola oil
• 1 cup(s) white whole-wheat flour or whole-wheat pastry flour 
• 2 teaspoon(s) baking powder
• 1 teaspoon(s) baking soda
• 3/4 cup(s) nonfat or low-fat buttermilk
• 1/4 cup(s) orange juice
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon(s) vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup(s) (about 8 ounces) chopped fresh or frozen (not thawed) strawberries

---

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Coat a 12-cup muffin pan with cooking spray
2. Process almonds, 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 1 teaspoon orange zest, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a food processor until finely ground. Transfer to a small bowl, drizzle with 2 tablespoons oil, and stir to combine.
3. Whisk the remaining 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, and the remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt in a large bowl. Whisk the remaining 1/2 cup brown sugar, 2 teaspoons orange zest, and 1/4 cup oil in a medium bowl with buttermilk, orange juice, egg, and vanilla extract until well combined. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients; stir until just combined. Add strawberries; stir just to combine. Divide the batter among the prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle with the almond topping, gently pressing into the batter.
4. Bake the muffins until golden brown and a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool for at least 5 minutes more before serving.
   
   Variation: For Strawberry-Basil Muffins, omit orange zest and use 1/4 cup additional buttermilk in place of orange juice. Stir in 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil with the berries in Step 3.

With All Due Respect to Jennifer Aniston

I am terrible with timing. I am late to everything, as much as I try to plan to be on time. The only exceptions to this are for business meetings and getting to the airport, mainly because the fear of missing my plane, no matter where I am going, is enough to shoo me out the door when needed.

But alas, I am human, and every once in a while I don't quite get it right, including the other day on my way back home from Miami. The Miami airport is an annoying one to navigate, especially when you have to deal with returning a rental car, and it's the only time in my life where I arrived at the airport and was relieved to find that my flight had been delayed. After locating my gate all the way at the end of the terminal (don't you ever notice that your gate is always the furthest one away? Who are these lucky people whose gates are right outside of security?) and being informed by the gate agent that we still had another 10 or 15 minutes til boarding began, I took a deep breath and went in search of food.

I was over finding something Au Naturale. It was 3:30 PM and I hadn't had anything to eat since 8:30 AM. I needed protein and carbs and no grease, the memory of being surrounded by the Beautiful People still fresh in my mind... although you may be happy to know that on the third day, a new poolside waitress was more than happy to take my order. Huzzah! I found a nice little bakery and sandwich shop, picked up a pre-made sandwich and a bottle of water, and finally took a breath. I was going to make it home after all!

My choices for water were pretty varied, considering most airports contract with only one or two bottled water companies for your selection. Not here. I had my choice of a shot-glass sized bottle, which would have never lasted the 3-hour flight; a mega bottle, which would have been way to annoying to fit in my seat-back pocket; and the midsized bottle of Smart Water. So Smart Water it was.

I have always been wary of special claims made in the bottled water market. "Ours tastes better!" (Shouldn't good tasting water taste like nothing at all?) "Ours is from the purest underground streams in the world!" (They all say that. How many of those streams actually exist?  And is the water collected by exotic yaks, too?) Smart Water, as they so aptly disclose in the actual name of the product, is supposed to be smarter than all the other water out there. I didn't know water had brains! Or is water like jellyfish, without brains but somehow knowing exactly when to sting you? I do know that Jennifer Aniston swears by it and consequently is their spokesperson.  I am also confident enough in my own sexuality that I can openly admit that I think Jennifer Aniston is incredibly hot. I've seen enough pictures of her in  string bikinis in Mexico or somewhere similarly tropical. If I can look even half as good as that when I'm 40, I'll be happy. So I might be willing to pay attention to something for which she is shilling in the way of nutrition.

I didn't really have a chance to study my bottle of Smart Water until I got on the plane. In fact, it didn't even occur to me to stare at the ingredient list (I'm still amused by ingredient lists in water) until after I looked at the one of the protein bar my Miami co-worker generously gave me before I fled to the airport. The ingredient list on that sucker made me shudder. So on a whim, I turned the water bottle around and was surprised to find that in addition to "vapor-distilled water", there was added calcium chloride, magnesium chloride and potassium bicarbonate.

Whoa! Scary word alert!  Why does my water need additives?  I did know that Smart Water was supposed to have added electrolytes, so were these things the components of the electrolytes? I also know enough that recognize that calcium chloride is a type of salt... so I was also drinking a form of saltwater.  Hmm.  It is intriguing that Smart Water is made in a lab by innovative scientists who apparently create mini-clouds and  then make them rain, ostensibly directly into the bottle, hence the "vapor-distilled" claim. The idea is that this water is simply cleaner than what you're going to get out of a stream, yak-collected or not. I will say that the water tasted great, which to me means it tasted like absolutely nothing at all- just what I wanted.

I tried to do all of my regular research to look into what these things were and why they were in my water, but all I could find was other people looking for the same information, also in vain. Even my go-to website for debunking claims, eatingrealfood.com, didn't even have a single entry on designer waters. I double-checked the Gatorade ingredient list and it overlapped a bit, even though Gatorade is not exactly lacking in the sugar and additives department.  In the end, the story of electrolytes and exactly how many we need, how many we naturally produce, and getting the balance right is actually a tricky one. It comes down to that electrolytes are good for us. And if you are someone who works out a lot, or runs marathons, keeping a supply of something like Gatorade or Smart Water around is indeed a good idea. But let's be honest: most Americans probably don't need the extra boost from something as specific as Smart Water as we don't, as an overall society, work out a lot. Then again, we drink a lot, and those electrolyte-laden drinks are supposedly great in the way of hangover prevention. Sooo... maybe we do.

So, my apologies to Jennifer Aniston and her rockin' bod, but I don't think I'm going to subscribe to the Smart Water craze anytime soon.  My Brita and a waterbottle is enough for me (and better for the environment, natch). Perhaps when I am completing a strenuous workout while nursing a wicked hangover, on the road and away from my Brita, I will choose the Smart Water. But not all the time, Jen. Not all the time.

A Lazy Saturday Post

It's hot out. Quite hot. And a bit sticky, too. Otherwise known as Chicago in mid-July, for those of you loyal readers who are not from around here.  Despite the cold, wind, and snow that we are known for, we also do get quite a bit of heat and humidity.  The city was built on top of a swamp, after all.

Despite all this, I am still sitting on my deck with a cool glass of water before the sun bathes me with all of it's force.  As I just got back last night from the endless roadtrip that was New Orleans and Miami in July, it's just more of the same for me.

I don't have much to write about-- actually, that's not true, I've got a couple of posts swimming around in my head-- but staring at the wild craziness that is actually my hard-working Earthbox I decided I'd share an update with you. After all, I haven't posted a pic since Week 3, I think? This may be Week 6 or 7.  Actually, let's share 2 pictures:

This is my crazy growth of madness, doing well as one of my lovely neighbors nursed it while I was gone. The arugula is out of control; and quite literally so, as once a branch begins to flower, its leaves are too bitter to use.  Here it is after I took a hacksaw to it:

Now you can see the pepper plants in clearer view.  I am absolutely amazed at how much my peppers grew just while I was gone. They are taking a bit of a beating this summer.  First, you may notice that they are hanging all haphazard-like. This is due to some crazy psycho storm that apparently rolled in last Monday and lasted all of about 5 minutes, but packed 75 MPH winds that wreaked havoc all over the greater Chicagoland area. My parents lost power for 4 days, but luckily, all the damage it did to my place was to push the plants over sideways. They are straightening up again a bit on their own, but also due to their sheer size I may need to find some stakes to help prop them up.  The yellow pepper plant in the back and middle is sort of the dwarf of the group. Early on it never wanted to stand up straight, so the roots took hold sideways and sideways it has remained ever since. It's budding, but not getting enough light, so we'll see how well it does.

Speaking of buds: every plant at this point has a bunch of white flowers which excites me to no end! Many of them, though, are turning brown and wilty and falling off, which I understand is due to too much nitrogen in the soil. Alas, this being an Earthbox, I don't think there is much I can do about that. I also notice that since my trip a bunch of the early flowers are missing, but I'm willing to blame that on the storm. Luckily, new ones continue to grow, and two on the green pepper plant are already turning into peppers! Aren't they cute?

The final problem, and certainly a major one, is that somehow an entire civilization of whiteflies has infested the whole Earthbox. These are teeny-tiny white bugs, about the size of dirt specs, that attach themselves to the undersides of the leaves and suck the life out of your plant. In fact, you can probably tell that many of the leaves are droopy and not very firm because of the blight. I bought an insecticide that is safe to use on herbs and veggie plants and have been playing the role of (ex)Terminator, which seems to be effective. However, I need to do it more often: one of the problems with whiteflies is that just one can lay hundreds of eggs, so if even one of them survives my massacre they will come back in full force. In any case, the plants are hanging on, so I will just step up the frequencies of the plant spraying and hope I eventually get them for good. As an aside- I realize that using this insecticide somewhat makes my plants no longer "organic". I don't care. I know what I'm putting on them and they're still mine, and when I finally pick and eat them they will still be fresher than anything I buy anywhere else.

Finally- don't forget about my herbs! As usual, they are thriving on my deck:

I need to start harvesting the basil like mad, so I see some pesto in my future. Sadly, the parsley has attracted the whiteflies too- but only the parsley. Strange, but I'll take it.

As I stare at my urban garden, my creative cooking juices are beginning to flow again. Tomorrow is another CSA box pickup day, and I have a shortened week ahead of me as I'm traveling again (this time for fun, though!). Let's see what the harvest will bring...

Forward Thinking with the Beautiful People

I had this big plan: each week I would take a picture of my CSA bounty, post it here, list the foods, and then describe in excruciating detail what I used them for.  I cannot take credit for this idea as I saw it on another blog.  Hey- I admit my plagiarism.

The first week I succeeded moderately.  Although I somehow mysteriously erased the photo of my first box, you still got the recipe for the kohlrabi empanada filling.

Week 2 I took the pic but never posted it.  Oops.  Here, look at it now!
 

garlic scapes, tomatoes (various varieties), summer squash, red pepper, beets, zucchini, pickling cucumbers, kohlrabi, carrots


And yet I have no recipes for you.  Between trying to use up both that week's harvest as well as the abundant leftovers from a successfully rockin' 4th of July before I had to leave for yet another business trip, I developed a bit of a Chef's Block. Trying to find ways to use up all that food quickly was overwhelming! Eventually I dumped a cacaphony of random ingredients into a shopping bag one night and hauled them to the boyfriend's place for the ultimate blind cooking adventure.  The adventure was a success, but we missed a very important step: writing down what we did.  Oops again. It involved tofu and spice. It was yummy.

For Week 3, otherwise known as This Week, I donated my farm box to my brother and sister-in-law as I was going on the road for a whopping 7 days, so I don't even have a pic to share. Of course first thing Sunday morning I demanded to know exactly what they got, and was rewarded with a text that they had received a typical selection of greens, tomatoes, peppers, and blueberries.  Blueberries?!?!  Drat!! Why must I go away when fruit finally shows up in my box? Oh, think of all I could have done with them... besides eating them straight out of the box, of course.

And that, right there, got me thinking.  Granted, I've only had 2 weeks to experiment, but have I really been exploring fully what I can do with my CSA? Must the tomatoes and peppers only be used in a stir fry or salad? No, of course not- and I knew that already, really.  But brilliant ideas such as making zucchini bread out of the gorgeous zukes always came right when I had no time and even fewer proper ingredients with which to bake. Considering I have yet to find a vaccuum sealer with good reviews that doesn't cost $400 (so I can save some produce for winter), I've decided that I need to actively use my produce more creatively and, just as importantly, with more foresight.

Beyond the creativity, using my best ingredients with more foresight has two added benefits, as I see it. First, it prevents me from buying too much extra in the way of groceries. I need my staples, sure, but why do I still find myself in the produce aisle of Whole Foods every week when I am also picking up a personalized produce aisle from Iron Creek every Sunday? I noticed that my grocery budget has skyrocketed tremendously since my Au Naturale life began and perhaps using my CSA more prudently will help me keep my costs down.

The second is the ever-present Health Thing, in the simple way of helping me watch both my funky stomach pains and my waistline. Between some amazingly decadent 4th of July dessert treats and succumbing to the Dark Side-like power of the Evil Bar of Doom (Oh yes, I admit it. I am ashamed! Banish thee thy accusatory looks!) I haven't been feeling quite... myself.  It also certainly doesn't help that I'm currently sitting here pondering and writing all this at the pool deck of my hotel in Miami Beach.  I'm surrounded by Beautiful People.  I mean, really, I should just give up now and go eat a package of twinkies. Even the pool waitress won't come take my drink order. For the second day in a row.

But in any case (wow, that was quite the pity party, was it not?) I may go wrap myself in a towel, order a cocktail (elsewhere), take a cue from my friends at Eating From Scratch, and do some pre-emptive menu planning.  Granted, it will be a little hard considering I don't know what will be waiting in my box this Sunday. But it should help me exercise some creative juices in the meantime, which sounds utterly more fun than hanging around this pool deck for a waitress who is pretending I don't exist.  At least until tomorrow, I hope.

Kohlrabi Success, Empanada Failure **RECIPE ALERT**

In my last post I mentioned how excited I was to receive a kohlrabi in my farm box, simply because I had absolutely no clue what a Kohlrabi was.  Suddenly it was my immediate mission to find a recipe that utilized it properly.

Backing up- do you know what a kohlrabi is, loyal readers? Simply put, it's part of the cabbage family, available early in the summer, and looks like those big red bouncy balls with a handle that you sat and bounded around on in gym class in elementary school.  Except it's much smaller. And greener. And has long kale-like leaves growing out of it. Sooo.... really not at all like a bouncy ball. It tastes somewhat broccoli-like but very juicy. I'm not a broccoli fan, but I did enjoy snacking on the raw kohlrabi.

What I was most surprised about is that the main edible part of the kohlrabi is the bulb and not the leaves.  You can eat the leaves of course, but most recipes call for the root as the main ingredient.  It's a good thing that I verified which part to use, or it would have added to the hilarious disaster that was the following meal.

Anyhoo, search around I did until I found what looked to be a spectacular recipe for kohlrabi and squash empanadas.  I didn't have squash, but I had the zucchini from the CSA box, so an appropriate substitute was made.

Everything from there on out ended up being somewhat of a disaster. I managed to almost slice any number of my fingers off multiple times. I rolled out the pastry dough for the shell onto a non-floured surface and realized my mistake too late, resulting in a huge mess. We almost set the house on fire by accidentally putting wax paper into the oven.  And when transferring the beleaguered empanadas to a new pan, we succeeded in squishing them into unrecognizable shapes.  By the time we sat down to eat, it was more like an empanada stew/pot pie mess than artistic half moon pockets of deliciousness.  Seriously, if you were there to watch it and didn't know better, you would have assumed that I never set foot in a kitchen in my life.

That being said... the filling for the disaster pods was absolutely spectacular, and that is the recipe I share with you below.  Note that we did not add radish to ours, but i think it would have been nice.  Use this filling for whatever recipe suits your fancy, or as a side, or whatever. I'm not really sure what to call it on it's own.  If you have the desire to do the full empanada she-bang, you can find the recipe here. Straight from the Farm looks like a great blog I might reference again for recipes. Just not for empanada ones.

Kohlrabi and Zucchini... Filling?

3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 inch of ginger, peeled and grated
2 medium kohlrabies, peeled and cut into small cubes
1 large zucchini, cut into small cubes
2 large scallions, both white and green parts, finely cut
1 radish, minced (optional)
1 T. extra virgin olive oil
1 T. butter
salt and pepper to taste
dash of freshly grated nutmeg


In a medium skillet, heat oil and butter over medium heat.  Add garlic and ginger to brown.  Add kohlrabi cubes, a pinch of salt and some pepper. Toss well and cook 3 or 4 minutes until kohlrabi are softening a bit.  Add zucchini cubes and continue to cook for 4 more minutes.  Add scallions, radish, nutmeg and another pinch of salt and pepper.  Mix well and cook for one minute before removing from heat.  Set mixture to this side to cool.

Fun With CSAs

I finally did it.  A bit late, yes, I know but blame it on the too busy/traveling/sleeping/other miscellaneous bad excuses.  I am officially an investor in a local farm!

While I believe the majority of my loyal readers know what the heck I'm talking about, let me do a quick break down for those who may not: CSA stands for "Community Supported Agriculture". Basically what that means is that you buy upfront a "share" of a local farm of your choosing and each week that farm packs up a box of goodies, based on whatever is ready for harvest, for you to take home.  The benefit for the farm is they get guaranteed financing at the start of the season for their operations, and the benefit for you is that you are guaranteed uber-fresh (as most of your box is picked within a day or so of your delivery) produce each week.   Depending on the farm, you can buy vegetable shares, fruit shares, meat shares, and even cheese. The risk is that as an investor, you share in both the successes as well as the challenges.  If it's a rough summer weather-wise, you may not get quite the bounty you were expecting. But it's a risk well worth taking.

I had been debating doing a CSA since last summer, but as I live by myself I was always worried that it would be too much food for me to go through in a week and I would waste good food and good money. But since the beginning of my Au Naturale-ness, I've seen CSAs in a new light.  It's a way for me to fulfill all my goals: buying locally, super-fresh, legitimately organic, and I know exactly where my food comes from.  I was also excited to try some of the more random and exotic offerings I've heard so much about from friends who are CSA veterans.

Part of my delay in choosing a CSA is that there were just so many to choose from! I asked around for suggestions but the only ones I received were either sold out or delivered too far away to be picked up.  My procrastination did help me narrow my choices, though, because many CSAs were sold out by the time I got around to choosing one. In the end I settled on Iron Creek Farm, a certified organic farm from Indiana which promised a bounty of produce and even some fruit (something I desperately wanted).  They deliver every Sunday to my farmer's market, making it convenient to pick up. And I've bought regularly from their booth at the market in the past, loving their heirloom tomatoes.

Last week was the first box of the CSA, which to my delight included a couple of tomatoes ranging from red to orange to yellow (they use greenhouses, why they can offer tomatoes so early), zucchinis, a pickling cucumber, 2 different lettuce mixes, a yellow pepper, and a kohlrabi.  I was super-jazzed for the kohrabi, because I had absolutely no clue what it was.  Cooking adventures awaited!  I diligently took a picture of my bounty, but sadly it got erased from the camera so I can't show you here.  However, I will tempt you with a picture of the yellow and orange tomatoes I prepped for their use on the grill:

I supplemented my farm box from other booths at the market, including a carton of garlic scapes.  Again, no clue what they were or what you use them for, but I was excited to find out.

The biggest dilemma I've had in my first week has come back to that original question: would I use all that produce in a week? I've found some creative recipes, yes, but today is Saturday, with my next box due to be picked up in a mere 24 hours, and I still have leftovers.

So in comes part 2 of my plan for my CSA shares: saving some seasonal produce for later use.  I bemoaned having to buy tomatoes from South America or California or wherever throughout the winter and salivated over the return of my precious market.  The best way to enjoy the market year-round, I decided, is to save some of it's offerings.  I can't think of anything better than pulling out some preserved tomatoes or strawberries for when the snow is falling.  What that means is that I am now on the hunt for a great vacuum-sealer, as most things in my freezer, try as I may, get freezer burn.  I think it's worth the effort and expense. Loyal readers- any suggestions?