Back at it.

It's not that I haven't been making food with the CSA products because I sure have. We had some amazing spaghetti squash with homemade marinara. We've been eating lots of apples and potatoes and just this morning I had scrambled eggs with a potato/onion hash on the side. I've even got a cute pumpkin on my stairs outside courtesy of my CSA, but I haven't posted in a while. It's been two weeks since our last CSA, but I still have lots of CSA products left. 

I had some squash that I got a while back that I decided to use tonight. I have lots of homegrown tomatoes also, so I just cut up the squash, tomato and potatoes and put it on top of sauteed onion and garlic. I topped it with some of the farmhouse white cheddar cheese and baked for about an hour. It was quite yummy. 

Now that CSA is over, it's going to be a while til the next post, but there's still local foods to enjoy, so I may be back once in a while to chronicle that fun too. 

-Kate

Chicken or Beef with your local stir-fry?

After volunteering on Saturday for First Hand, Michelle and I were a bit on the hungry side.  When we opened up her fridge it was amazing because everything LOCAL!  What makes a delicious stir-fry? Great produce, which is just what we had.   



 

Checklist:
1. Onions
2. Poblano peppers (courtesy of Michelle's home garden)
3. Red bell pepper
4. Squash (the yellow kind)
5. Tomatoes
6. Sirloin steak

Stir-fry is so easy.  Start with olive oil, onion, fresh garlic (if you have it) and sauté.  Then add the poblano peppers, then the meat.  Season the meat to your liking and cook until almost done.  Add all other vegetables except tomatoes and cook covered for 2-3 minutes.  Add the tomatoes for a final minutes. Put on top of rice and you've got dinner.

Delicious!

This meal was so awesome I made it again on Sunday substituting chicken for beef.

Cheers,
Sarah

Experimenting with Patty Pan Squash

Hen House CSA Week #11

Until I received my CSA Week #11 I had no idea what a Patty Pan squash was.  It is possible that I have eaten one before, but I don't recall the particular shape so chances are that I haven't. 

This yellow Patty Pan squash is vibrant in color



How do you cook Patty Pan's? I had experimented with Acorn squash a few weeks back and decided it can't be that much different, and it wasn't.  Dave found the Overstuffed Pattypan Squash recipe on Food Network's website but decided to nix the lima beans.  I used fresh thyme from Dave's herb garden.  Word to the wise, fresh herbs are more potent than dried...so use less!  I would definitely make these again with, of course, less thyme.

 

Prepping the Patty Pan squash by gutting the innards

Finished Product

Along with our Patty Pan squash we grilled a sirloin steak and Andy's candy corn (not pictures) from CSA.  I still had potatoes from a few weeks back and decided we should finish those off too.  I chopped them up and cooked them in a skillet with olive oil. onions, fresh garlic, and 3 Hatch green chilies. Magnifico!

 

Cheers!

Sarah

Sarah's Week #9

Let's being by recapping what items were included in my CSA Week #9:

Hen House CSA Week #9
 

2 8oz. All Natural Beef Boneless KC Strip Steaks
6 Ears of Andy's Candy Corn
1 Seedless Yellow Watermelon
3lbs. of Red Tomatoes
1 Eggplant
1 Pint of Blackberries

I took the yellow watermelon to a friend's house for Sunday dinner and when she cut into it she gasped thinking it was no good.  Yellow?!? Needless to say, yellow watermelons are not commonly displayed at the grocery store.  We don't think of them as a variety like yellow bell peppers.  But they do exist and are tasty if you can ever get your brain to stop feeling confused!

How do you eat 3lbs of tomatoes? When they are red succulent delights from Good Natured Farms in Missouri it's pretty easy.  Several nights in a row I chopped them up, poured a smidgen of Chipotle infused olive oil on them, sprinkled a dash of salt & pepper and WHAM, mouth-watering side dish.

Step 1: Season KC Strips with Penzey's Northwoods Fire Seasoning

 

 
Step 2: Prior to grilling your KC Strips, put your ears of corn on the grill in their husks for sweet and tender corn.

Step 3: Prep the tomatoes a smidgen of Chipotle infused olive oil, and a dash of salt & pepper

Why is this picture upside down? No idea!

Step 4: Enjoy!

I love simple, yet delicious dinners.

Cheers,
Sarah

 

The Goods

I originally thought this blog would be easy.  How hard would it be to post pictures and write about food.  I love food! Yet it's been weeks since I've posted.  What's more is that I've even fallen behind on posting the pictures of my weekly goods on Instagram. So here's the goods...

Hen House CSA Week #9

Hen House CSA Week #10

Hen House CSA Week #11

The Mother Load - Hen House CSA Week #12

I feel so much more accomplished now that these have been posted! :) Up next, what I actually did with all this food.  Stay tuned.

Sarah

Baked Eggplant Parmesan

I'm behind on weeks. I'm not sure how it happened, but the last few weeks we've gotten eggplant. In our experience, there are only so many things one can do with eggplant. There was an eggplant frittata involved, that I didn't get a chance to eat, but I heard it was delicious.

This week we decided to make baked eggplant parmesan. For appetizers though, we used up some of the ginormous cucumbers we got in the CSA bag and made some little cucumber on party rye open-face sandwiches with dill on top. I searched cucumber recipes and aside from using it for greek salads with tomatoes, taziki sauce and pickles, there isn't a whole lot out there.

I am not a huge fan of frying food in oils, so instead I decided to bake the eggplant. I sliced it up, salted it to pull out the bitterness, washed the salt off and then patted the eggplant try. Then I egged and panko breadcrumbed the slices and baked them at 375 for 15 min on one side, flipped and baked for 10 min on the other side. Then layer the red sauce, eggplant & cheese and bake at 475 for 15 minutes. With some angel hair pasta on the side, whoa tasty.

Peaches, Shatto butter, cucumbers, ball squash and eggs rounded out this week's CSA, so more culinary experimentation is ahead.

-Kate

Week #8 tops the charts

Here's to Matt, the young cashier at Hen House located at 6900 W. 135th Street in Overland Park! It was time for me to pick up Week #8 and as soon as I approached the checkout stations, he said with a smile "Let me go get your CSA stuff." Wow, what service!

I knew what I would be receiving for Week #8 and when he came back with only one bag I began to wonder how he fit all the goods plus an entire watermelon in only one bag. Hmmm... 

3 lbs of peaches - check
1 lb ground bison - check
1 dozen eggs - check
1 loaf of Whole Wheat Bread - check

Where's the watermelon and bell peppers? Matt to the rescue! Not only did he bring back the missing items, but I even was given an extra dozen eggs for the trouble. 


Hen House CSA Week #8

Knowing that I had onion and potatoes from Week #7 and 3 ready-to-eat bell peppers this week, I found an AWESOME stuffed bell pepper recipe. I made some slight variations to the recipe like substituting bison for beef and only using 16 oz. verses the called for 24 oz.  I sautéed the onions in olive oil before cooking the meat, and I add the salt, pepper, and a mad dash of cayenne pepper to the meat while it was cooking instead of afterward.

I left the skins on the golden Yukon potatoes and made creamy mashed potatoes as the side dish, seasoned with a dash of salt and pepper.   

Voilà! Dinner is served!

This meal was savory and delectable.  Dave even called it 'baller' which is saying a lot because that terms is used for only the creme dela creme.

What's next...figuring out what to do with 2 dozen eggs!

Cheers,
Sarah