Japanese turnips

A member asked how to cook the white Japanese turnips in this week's box.  Japanese and Chinese turnips can be used interchangeably in recipes.  They differ in form factor (size and shape), but their tastes and textures are very similar.

Try this Daikon soup recipe I posted in 2009.  Although I did not mention it in the recipe, you can save the turnip greens, wash and chop them, and add them in just before serving.

Turnip (and beet and radish...) greens are nutritious and delicious so I hope you are using them in your cooking.

Penny made a soup with her white turnips and greens in the past.  See the lovely picture.

Panko Wax Beans

I don't like wax beans.  I don't like their color, and they don't have much flavor--they seem like a wasted opportunity.  But we got a box of wax beans in our last CSA box, and I can't see letting them rot away without at least trying to eat them.  So I coated them with cornstarch, egg, and panko flakes, and fried them up, like I sometimes do with cauliflower or green beans.  Not bad; I definitely ate them all without complaint. 

PS--I believe this is the 100th post at the Adams Middle School CSA blog.

Radishes on the Grill

 We got some big, beautiful radishes in the CSA box this week.  Big, like they almost looked like red potatoes.  But they were definitely radishes.  I don't love the taste of a raw radish, except in small amounts, shredded into a sandwich maybe.  So, I tried an online recipe for cooking my radishes on the grill (we were grilling other vegetables anyway).

It was certainly easy to prepare.  This is the packet before grilling:

raw sliced radishes, bits of butter, snipped dill, salt, and pepper, in foil

And this is the packet after grilling:

cooked sliced radishes, right off the grill

 Cooked radishes are very mild in flavor, and benefit from extra spices and herbs; and next time, I'll probably add some garlic.  But it's a nice side dish, and a colorful change of pace.

Winter CSA soup

Farmer Tanaka sounds almost apologetic in his weekly newsletter/blog.

I know some of you may be getting a little tired of the cool season crops, but soon the season will be changing. The weather has cooled off to enjoy those soups and casseroles that you can make with the great winter veggies!

Actually, I never tire of a bowl of soup and some crusty bread.  I found this boule at Trader Joe's.  After crisping it in the oven at 350F, I cut a circle at the top, hollowed out the inside and ladled in the soup.

This was a real "clean out the fridge" type of soup. I made chicken stock with the carcass of last week's roast chicken. Then I added two sausages, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, radishes, broccoli stems (with the tough outer skin removed), potatoes, a can of diced tomatoes and herbs from the garden.  I also threw in some precooked, frozen and then thawed kidney beans. 

My energy analysis differs from the green lantern's analysis.  I buy beans dry from the bulk bins at Whole Foods or Sprouts and then cook them in a Fuzzy Logic Rice Cooker* on the "brown rice" setting.  Rice cookers use less energy than stove-top cooking--and this one is especially frugal with energy.  Moreover, the timer setting let's me presoak the beans overnight and cook them late in the afternoon the next day so they are ready for me when I get home from work.  I always cook more than I need and store the leftovers in one-pint portions. 

Take advantage of kitchen thermodynamics; cool the beans on the counter (to warm the kitchen in the winter, or cool them outside during the summer), then move them into the freezer.  Thaw them ahead of time in the refrigerator.  Your fridge is the ice box and the beans are like any other block of ice.  In effect, you are recapturing the energy that went into freezing the beans.  Cooking dry beans in bulk and freezing for later can be much more energy (and cost) efficient than using canned, pre-cooked beans.

* You can buy the Fuzzy Logic Rice Cooker at an excellent price at the Marukai cooperative store in Gardena.  You need not be a member to shop there and the sales tax supports our local community.  If you must buy it online (at a higher price), may I suggest that you first go through the Redondo Beach Library site before clicking on the amazon link?  This way, our community may not get the sales tax, but at least the library will get a share.

Sea creature?

Is this a cuttlefish?



No, it's a citrus fruit called Buddha's hand!

Just one finger makes a lovely vinaigrette as shown here.

It was not in your CSA box.  But, I share my hyperlocal garden bounty with other area gardeners.  Right now, my Meyer lemon tree is groaning under the weight of many lemons.  I traded a few for this Buddha's hand.

I can't use the entire thing, so I am offering up chunks of this to other CSA participants.  Email me if you would like some.  I also have Meyer lemons, rosemary, oregano and bay leaves to share.

Better yet, drop by the Adams Middle School Wellness Fair this Saturday, January 21, 2012 from 10:00AM to 1:00PM  at (where else?) Adams Middle School.

I will be there.  Stop by to say hello and pick up some hyperlocal Buddha's hand, Meyer lemons, rosemary, oregano and bay leaves!

Fried Green Tomatoes

Way back in October, Farmer Tanaka lamented that, when the weather turns cold, tomatoes will remain green forever.  I wrote him that I want to find green tomatoes in my box this winter.  He obliged and subscribers received some in our boxes today.

All recipes has a recipe for Best Fried Green Tomatoes.  It's very similar to Crazy Aunt Purl's Fried Green Tomatoes.  But I prefer the CAP link because she provides step by step photos.

Stuffed Pattypan Squash

The little green UFOs in the CSA box two weeks ago? Pattypan squash. They're lovely, but we got a lot of them, and one of the best ways to use a lot of something is to stuff them. It's easy, and it's pretty (if you're a visual eater). The stuffing can be almost anything you like or have handy. I'll show you how I made this batch:

1. Wash the squash.

2. Cut the stem end of the squash so it's flat to sit on the baking pan. Then hollow out the other side; don't worry about the hollow being pretty, it'll be hidden. Keep the pieces that come from the hollow space! If you cut through the bottom, don't worry, just replace the piece that fits in the space best.
3. When you have them all hollowed out, place on a cookie sheet:

4. Now make the stuffing. This time I combined leftover rice, 2 chopped jalapenos, cream cheese, shredded cheddar, four small CSA tomatoes, cumin, some garden herbs, and the chopped bits of squash that came from the hollowing out step. But you can stuff them with anything, really! Look around online, there are plenty of ideas. Mix up the stuffing, and scoop it generously into the squash on the cookie sheet:
Bake the stuffed squash in a 350 oven until the squash is tender and the filling is warm through and melty--probably 20-25 minutes for this version. I broiled a little at the end to get a little hint of browning on top...

If you have leftover stuffing (I did), it works just as well to stuff a zucchini or a bell pepper. I had two of these with a bread roll for a very happy lunch today, and the rest we'll have tonight at dinnertime.

What to do with basil

A subscriber asked for some suggestions on how to use the basil that came in last Thursday's box. 

• You can use it in sauces and soups.
• Snip off the end of the stem, put the cut ends in a cup of water and store them in the refrigerator with a plastic bag over the leaves, just as you would store cilantro.

Here are a few recipe suggestions.

Tomato-cucumber salad:

• chop some tomatoes* and cucumbers*
• dice some sweet onions*
• chop some basil leaves*
• (optional) add minced garlic 
• (optional) add cubed mozzarella aka home-style cheese (the kind you buy in a ball)
• season with red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste
• * all items contained in last Thursday's box! 
• I would have added a photo of this salad, but our family already demolished it.

Bruschetta:

• pre-warm oven on the broil setting
• set a rack right under the broiler element (or use a BBQ)
• chop tomatoes, onion and basil leaves
• mince garlic 
• add olive oil
• mix
• season mixture with salt and pepper and let steep for 10 minutes
• brush sliced bread with olive oil
• put bread under the broiler for 1-2 minutes
• remove bread from the oven
• cut bread into serving-size pieces (if needed)
• top with tomato-basil mixture

Antipasto platter:

• slice beefsteak tomatoes and mozzarella
• arrange on platter with (optional) salami or proscuitto
• top with chopped basil
• drizzle olive oil over platter

White bean spread (especially fast with a food processor):

• process a few garlic cloves
• add basil leaves and pulse
• add cooked white/canneloni beans and olive oil and pulse
• stir in salt and pepper to taste
• serve over bread

Sweet and Savory

Take the small melon from the CSA box (left). Add another melon from Trader Joe's (right).
Cut open the CSA melon for a colorful surprise. Cut both into cubes.
Put them on a bed of lettuce, add chopped red onions (also from the box). Sprinkle with balsamic vinegar and you have a sweet and savory summer salad.

Zucchini Season!

We've been seeing a lot of zucchini in the boxes lately--want a recipe for using a lot of them at a time? We make zucchini bread, of course, but here's a savory casserole that's great for brunches, or make it as a light summer dinner with salad.As I've said, I'm not a recipe person in general, and everytime I make this it's a little different, but this is the basic idea:

You have three layers--crust, cheese, and zucchini. The crust layer can be made with a tart dough, or puff pastry squares, or even canned crescent rolls for convenience. Whatever you choose, press that into the bottom of a 9x13 casserole dish.

The cheese layer is based on ricotta. I use about a cup of ricotta, and mix it with sauteed onions and garlic (from the CSA box!), garden herbs (right now we've got an abundance of sage, rosemary, some oregano and some thyme), maybe a tablespoon of dijon mustard if it's handy; add an egg if you want. (Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't--it's a heartier dish with a little egg.) Maybe add some grated cheese, maybe add some citrus zest, as you like. Spread your cheese mixture over the crust layer.

The top layer is zucchini. I usually slice up several at a time with the food processor, so I'm not sure exactly how many were used here--probably two is about right. Sliced thin, layered all across the cheese layer. The one pictured above has about a cup of cheddar and some paprika sprinkled over the zucchini, but you can also just sprinkle with a little olive oil or parmesan.

Bake about half an hour, until it looks like the crust is cooked, the egg is cooked, the cheese is melted and a little browned. Serves well warm or chilled.

Do you Recipe View?

Google Recipe View debuted this week. I typed in Golden Beets and found a recipe for Farfalle with Golden Beets, Beet Greens, and Pine Nuts. It was so delish, I ate seconds.

Chinese Broccoli

Ever wonder how they make that delicious Chinese broccoli dish served in dim sum tea rooms?  Make some tonight with the Chinese broccoli that came in today's box.

Bring a large pot of water to boil while you wash and trim the broccoli.  Then blanch the broccoli in the boiling water for 5 minutes, or until it is tender-crisp (the leaves are tender and the thickest part of the stem is just slightly crisp).  Drain the broccoli and put it on a serving dish.

You can drizzle oyster sauce* directly on the broccoli.  If you worry about the sodium, thin the oyster sauce with up to 50% hot water or broth before pouring it on top of the greens.

It's that easy.

* I buy oyster sauce from 99 Ranch Supermarket in Gardena.  But you can also find it at any Asian market or larger general supermarkets.  If you make the trek out to 99 Ranch, check out the fresh noodle aisle.  You can buy blocks of turnip cakes to round out your dim sum feast at home.  Slice the turnip cake into 1/2" thin slices, pan fry to brown on each side, then serve with soy sauce, vinegar and chili sauce.

Another bowl of CSA goodness

So here's something easy and satisfying to do with some of your CSA veggies, especially as the weather cools down...

Chop up some cabbage, carrots, and green onions, and anything else you like in soup. Put them in the crockpot with a few tablespoons of green curry paste and enough broth to cover. Crockpot all day (or overnight). When the veggies are tender, add a little coconut milk if you like (or not), and salt if you like (or not). Cube some firm tofu (or meat if you want) and fry in a pan with a Tbsp or two of olive oil. Serve soup over rice, and top with the fried tofu.

What's in the box? And how do I use it?

We picked up some new subscribers this month and the most common concerns are, "What's in the box and how will I use it?"

We prefer to be surprised. But people who are better organized than our household may look ahead at Farmer (Glenn) Tanaka's blog. He posts a weekly entry about doings on the farm and updates the list of what MIGHT be in your box this week. If you follow the blog regularly, you notice that weather and insects sometimes change his plans at the last minute.

This is what might be in your CSA box for the week of November 1, 2010:

SMall box might have: Carrots, Baby Maui Onions, Potatoes****, Broccoli or Squash or Cherry Tomatoes, Lettuce or Salad Mix, Fuji Apples***, Fuyu Persimmons*.

Large Box might additionally have: Sweet White Corn, Chinese Cabbage (Napa), Grapefruit**.

This is what might be in your CSA box for the week of October 25, 2010:

Small box might have: Green Beans, Carrots, Sweet White Corn, Romaine Lettuce, Broccoli or Spinach, Our Strawberry Jam (prepared with our strawberries by Kerry at Julian Jams in Julian, California) and Sweet, Juicy Fuji Apples***.

Large box might additionally have: Napa Chinese Cabbage, Red Beets or Roma Tomatoes or Green Zucchini and Valencia Oranges*.

This is what my family received in our large box last week:

• jar of strawberry jam
• Fuji apples
• Valencia oranges
• corn on the cob
• 4 beets with beet tops
• bok choy
• quart of green beans
• bunch of medium carrots with tops
• bunch of spinach
• head of Romaine lettuce
• head of Napa cabbage

You've got your veggies. Now what do you do?

Read my prior post, The locavore's dilemma. Don't let From Farm to Fridge to Garbage Can describe your kitchen. supercook.com is another great resource. Just type your ingredient into the green search box and the search engine will reply with recipes that use it.

That sounds very good in theory. After all, who wants to waste food? But how did our family do in the 6 days since we got our large box?

• The jam went into the pantry (we have 2 open jars in the fridge that need to be used first).
• We ate the corn, apples, and half the oranges.
• BTW, you can juice the oranges and freeze them for later use. I have a stack of ziploc pint containers of orange juice, squeezed from a gift of backyard fruit from my father in law.
• The beets were scrubbed and put in a pan with water to boil. I burned them and had to throw the out. If I had paid more attention, we would have eaten them in salads all week.
  
• The beet tops, the outer leaves of the Napa cabbage and 3 carrots went into a vat of kale(less) and white bean soup. We ladled the soup into pint and quart size containers, and put some in the freezer and some in the fridge. They make great lunches at work with a small sandwich.
• BTW, we use kale, mustard greens, beet and turnip tops and Swiss chard interchangeably in our house. They are all from the brassica family. If a recipe calls for one thing, and we have another member of the brassica family in the box, we use that instead.
  
• The inner Napa cabbage leaves will be cooked this upcoming weekend into wontons and potstickers (some eaten fresh, some put up in the freezer for quick weekday dinners).
• BTW, as you wrap the wontons or potstickers, put them on a metal backing sheet. Put them in the freezer when you fill up a sheet. By the time you have the next batch on a full sheet, the first batch will be firm enough to store in a ziploc bag without turning into a single block of ice.
  
• We haven't cooked the bok choy yet, but I will be making a stir-fry of bok choy and oyster mushrooms with them.
  
• My husband will stir-fry the green beans with almond slivers. He might reserve some beans to blanche and use for salad Nicoise.
• My husband will stir-fry the spinach with garlic.
• We've used about half the Romaine for salads and sandwiches so far.
  

It looks like we have 3 more stir-fry suppers in the next week and we will easily have used our veggies all up before our next biweekly big box.

BTW, we use our rice cooker with a timer a lot. If you set the rice cooker so that the rice finishes when you get home, and you pre-wash and chop your veggies on the weekend, dinner will be ready 10-15 minutes after you walk in the door.

When I drop my daughter off for choir practice on Saturday morning, I need to swing by 99 Ranch (the mother of all Asian supermarkets) to buy wonton and potsticker skins; pork shoulder and/or shrimp, ginger, and green onions for the filling; fried tofu cubes to throw into the stir-fry and baked tofu for snacking. We stock dried Shitake mushrooms and canned Oyster mushrooms as pantry staples.

Anyone want a recipe for a salad based on the tofu strips that look like noodles?

Click on the links for recipes. If I mentioned a recipe w/o a link, and you want me to post the recipe, leave a comment.

Also leave a comment if you are interested in a CSA field trip to local ethnic markets. 99 Ranch, Marukai and Market World (Taiwanese, Japanese and Korean) supermarkets, can be bewildering to the uninitiated. But they are great local food stores for vegetarians and flexatarians. Marukai promises that all of their meat is antibiotic-free, and their prices are much lower than Whole Foods.

Lastly, if you would like to learn how to wrap wontons and potstickers this weekend, leave a comment.

Inventory and recipe idea for July 15

Penny wrote that her large box contained, "kale, eggplant, tomatoes, basil, oranges, grapefruit, lettuce, carrots, green beans, avocados, and four cobs of corn."

Sounds like it is time to make baba ganoush, a middle-eastern eggplant dip.  Here's a recipe and you can  buy tahini at both of the middle eastern markets near Neighborhood Grinds (the NE and SW corners of McKay and Artesia).

The locavore's dilemma

Catherine Price explores The Locavore's Dilemma: What to do with the kale, turnips, and parsley that overwhelm your CSA bin in Slate.

I left a comment there because those are the issues I am trying to address with this blog. 

For turnips, try this Taiwanese soup.
http://madisonschoolcsa.blogspot.com/2009/10/diakon-soup.html

Cilantro will keep for a month if you trim off the ends and put it in a glass of water. Put a plastic bag over the top because the leaves transpire a lot of moisture. See the picture here (but imagine a bag over it).
http://badmomgoodmom.blogspot.com/2009/10/lifecycle-of-cilantro.html
We use a few springs here and there, just like Mark Bittman suggests. It's gone before it rots.

For cabbage, my mom sautes it with a bit of pork, or we make dumplings. The potsticker/wonton/dumpling recipe is here:
http://madisonschoolcsa.blogspot.com/2010/02/make-potstickers-with-your-napa-cabbage.html  
Apples and cabbage both ripen in cool weather. You think that is why German omas braise cabbage and apples together?

We've got recipes for kohlrabi and other 'problem' vegetables.
http://madisonschoolcsa.blogspot.com/search/label/Recipes

Don't be discouraged when you start because it takes a while to get into the rhythm of using up your box.  We get deliveries Thursday afternoons.  When I get the box home, I trim and put away the produce right away.  If any of it looks wilted, I will trim off the ends and put it in a pitcher of water, cut side down, like the cilantro example above.

On Thursday, think about how you want to cook that week's contents.  Then shop on Friday for ingredients you need to complete the recipe.

[Aside: If you are clueless, post a comment on this blog or email Penny and myself.  We will post something for you.  This isn't a test a la "Iron Chef".  We are here to help you figure out what to do with your "surprise box of goodies".

Don't forget to check the Tanaka Farms compilation of recipes http://tanakafarms.com/CSA-Recipes.html.

Or type the vegetable into your favorite search engine + recipe.  E.g. type "kohlrabi + recipe".]

A couple of hours investment once a week goes a long way.

On Friday night or Saturday, I wash and chop all the vegetables from the box. We rinse lettuce, slice cucumbers, shred carrots and radishes etc for salads.  I make a small blender jar of salad dressing and boil some eggs.  I make a vat of seasonal vegetable soup and then put them into 1-2 serving containers.  I put some in the fridge and some in the freezer.  Then I move a different soup from the freezer to the fridge.  This gives me more variety.

On Sunday night, we also make a bunch of sandwiches and cut up fruit.  That way, we have everything we need to easily assemble lunches during the week.

(If I can, on Monday, I also take some pre-made soups and salads in to a friend/coworker who is caring for two terminally ill parents while working more than full-time.  I used to swap home-made soup for home-baked bread with a neighbor.  Home cooked food is one of the nicest things you can give someone.)

On weeknights, we can heat up some soup, assemble a salad or roast or steam some precut veggies.  With our rice cooker on a timer, dinner is on the table in minutes.

Kohlrabi! Squash! Grapefruit!

Plenty of new items in today's boxes--you can definitely tell the seasons are changing. Looking around for recipe ideas, I found this one for kohlrabi-squash empanadas--hey, that's two of the box ingredients right there!

CSA Comfort Foods...

Sometimes, I want a bowl of grains, with some sauteed/steamed/wilted greens and maybe some sauce or nuts on top. And it's the perfect way to make a nice bowl of comfort food from a CSA box brimming with cabbage, chard, spinach, lettuce...

Comfort Bowl #1: Cheesy Risotto (from a box), sauteed chard and cabbage, and pine nuts:

Comfort Bowl #2: Couscous with chopped cilantro, sauteed chard and onions, and peanut sauce:
What's your go-to CSA comfort food?

Kale and White Bean Soup

Alternatively, you can use the greens in a soup. 

Our family loves this Kale and White Bean Soup recipe.  We use carrots and greens from the CSA box, home-made chicken broth, cook dry beans in a rice cooker and chicken & cheese sausages from  Costco.  It's way more economical than the Whole Foods version and incredibly tasty.

We cook about 2-3 times the amount of beans required for this recipe at a time.  We store the excess beans in the freezer (after they have cooled to room temperature).  A few nights before we want to make this recipe again, we move the beans and chicken broth from the freezer to the refrigerator to thaw. 

This is very energy efficient.  A full freezer uses less energy than an empty one.  Every time you open the freezer, you let out cold air and replace it with warm air.  A full freezer will have less air exchange.

When you thaw frozen foods in the refrigerator, your refrigerator becomes an icebox! You recapture the energy used to freeze the food. 

Southern Greens

I've fielded a few inquiries about what to do with the kale and Swiss chard. Here is a delightfully simple and delicious way to prepare them. You can use both the stems and the leaves.

Wash and chop the greens (kale, Swiss chard, beet green tops) into 1" long pieces
Chop the stems into 3/4" pieces and keep those separately

1. (Opt) Saute 2 strips of bacon, cut into 3/4" pieces, or bits of ham in olive oil over medium-high heat
2. Add a chopped onion and (opt) smashed garlic cloves, saute until translucent
3. Add 1-2 (washed, peeled) carrots, diced into 1/2" pieces, saute a couple of minutes
4. Add the chopped stems and saute a couple of more minutes
5. Add the chopped greens, stir, turn down the heat and cover for 5 minutes
6. Add 1/4 Cup milk and stir, leaving lid off
7. Let the milk evaporate until the sauce is thickened (1-2 minutes)
8. Serve over rice

This has a sweet and savory flavor. You can make it vegetarian with vegetable stock instead of bacon/ham and milk. Try throwing in some nuts for protein.