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

Week #7 ends with a recipe I didn't screw up

I signed up for the CSA Wednesday 5-7pm pick-up at my local Hen House grocery store, however I never make because I take a class that gets out at 7pm on the nose.  And trying to rush there between work and my class often means the food is partially cooked in the backseat of my car before getting home. Week #6 I was running even more late than normal and so I called Hen House.  To my delight, I was informed they were willing to pack my CSA items and let me pick it up after my class, and willing to do that every week going forward.  How awesome is that?!?  Since they are expecting me around 7:15pm, I feel like I get the ROYAL treatment when I actually get to the store. By the time I picked up Week #8 (my 3rd after class pick-up) the cashier (Matt) knows me by name. More on Matt to follow...

CSA Hen House Week #7

So why is this important? Week #7 came with 2 items (acorn squash and Swiss chard) I had never cooked before, and when I mentioned this at the checkout counter at Hen House they found me a Swiss Chard recipe to take home and try, courtesy of Simple Recipes.  Turns out, I really like Swiss chard!  Every recipe I found for acorn squash required brown sugar, which I had none so the end result was rather bland, but easy to grill with the medallion filets we ate.

Roughly chopped, fresh Swiss chard 

Swiss Chard Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 large bunch of fresh Swiss chard
• 1 small clove garlic, sliced
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 Tbsp water
• Pinch of dried crushed red pepper
• 1 teaspoon butter
• Salt

Method

1 Rinse out the Swiss chard leaves thoroughly. Remove the toughest third of the stalk and discard. Roughly chop the leaves into inch-wide strips.
2 Heat a saucepan on a medium heat setting, add olive oil, a few small slices of garlic and the crushed red pepper. Sauté for about a minute. Add the chopped Swiss chard leaves. Cover. Check after about 5 minutes. If it looks dry, add a couple tablespoons of water. Flip the leaves over in the pan, so that what was on the bottom, is now on the top. Cover again. Check for doneness after another 5 minutes (remove a piece and taste it). Add salt to taste, and a small amount of butter. Remove the Swiss chard to a serving dish.

 

Almost ready to eat!

 

I added more crushed red pepper than a pinch.  I guess that's the New Mexican in me.  Once prepared, dinner was served.

(blurry photo didn't reduce scrumptiousness of meal)

Coming soon, using the potatoes and onions from Week #7 in combination of Week #8 to create my best CSA dinner yet.

Cheers,
Sarah

      

Camping Essentials

How to make good use of the CSA variety?  Go camping with friends in Missouri (#downthebigpiney)!

Combining Week #6 and Week #7 we were set to enjoy beef hotdogs  with hot n' spicy pickles from Good Natured Farms and a deliciously juicy cantaloupe. Yummy!

Freshly diced cantaloupe makes breakfast better!

Cheers!
Sarah

Kate's Week 8! Potatoes & Peaches

 Here's our week 9 bag just a wee bit late. As you can see we've got lots of onion and potatoes with an acorn squash thrown in there, so what'd we make? A veggie saute with a bunch of different stuff included. It was delicious as side dishes to our black bean burgers.

Potatoes are one of my all-time favorite veggies, so I'll probably be eating them in a multitude of ways. I'm really looking forward to some mashed potatoes. So simple, but so tasty too. 

We finished off the night with a peach crisp of sorts. It was made with oatmeal and agave syrup instead of sugar, so tasted a bit different, but man, once those peaches get baked, they sure are good. Nice and juicy.

I have a feeling I'll be eating more of it with a dollop of vanilla ice cream on top. 

-Kate

Kate's Week 7

This week's bag looks a little smaller than normal, but that's because we swapped out the bison for extra peaches & eggs. What does this mean? It means there are peaches ALL OVER THE PLACE! That's definitely not a bad thing though, because there is nothing quite like fresh peaches. 

Of course everyone think of making peach pie when peaches are in season, but there are all kinds of good things one can make with peaches. I was looking at the Bader Peach website (http://www.baderpeaches.com/recipes.php) and saw a recipe for Crockpot Peach Dump Cake & Deep Fried Peaches. Two forms of cooking peaches I have never even thought of, but with all the peaches we have, we might have to start experimenting. I'll keep you posted how it goes.

As far as those eggs go, there's nothing quite like them. Did you know there is a little "tweet" from the chickens in each carton of eggs? 

This week's says:

"Good morning! The last few days turned out to be a lot more sunny after we had around 6 inches rainfall. Yesterday we were just able to attack some weeks in our organic corn & soybean fields before it rained again! The chickens run outdoors when it is not raining. Our three children enjoy watching them & so does our dog. We made a big batch of strawberry jam yest. - our favorite! See ya later!"

- Kate

Creativity, no. Deliciousness, yes!

CSA Week #6

Week 6 came with more items that I am familiar with, and buy on a regular basis...phew.  I am quickly learning that Farm To Market is spoiling me because their bread is superior to anything I normally buy.  I make a sandwich for lunch almost everyday, and for the last 6 weeks those sandwiches could consist of 2 slices of bread and I'd be one happy girl.

Simply Delicious!

With familiarity comes staple cooking.  I didn't have to get fancy or look up a recipe online.  I simply seasoned the sirloin steak from Week 4 with garlic salt, black pepper, and a little Lawry's seasoning and broiled it in the oven.  For perfection, I should've used a tenderizing hammer on the meat before broiling it because it wasn't as tender as it would've been on the grill.  Add a spinach salad dressed with Week 6 tomatoes and cucumbers, and voilà dinner is served!     

Lesson of the week: you don't have to be Julia Child to eat delicious food.  You might just need to buy better quality products.

Cheers!
Sarah

Veggie Fajitas

This week we decided to chop up the zucchini & onion from the CSA and throw it in a skillet to make veggie tacos. I mean what's better than locally-grown veggies as the center of the meal? No meat in this concoction, but we did add in some black beans & peppers. It was spiced up with cumin and ready to go.

I shredded up the colby cheese from the CSA, then chopped up the CSA-provided napa cabbage and tomatoes as garnish. Also grabbed an avocado from the store, as it is one of my favorite components to fajitas. Couldn't forget the salsa to top it all off! 

Threw some refried beans on the side and the meal was complete. Pretty simple, extremely tasty & a great use of lots of veggies.  

-Kate

Kate's Week 5 & 6!

I'm behind on posting, but also because I'm behind on cooking. Here's what our week 5 looked like:

Hot dog! We grilled those up on the 4th of July. 

We still haven't figured out what to do with the pickling cucumbers yet. The obvious answer would be to, well, make pickles, but we're not real sure how to do that, so they might go on salads instead. 

Week 6 looked a little something like this. 

So there's a theme here. Hen House really wants us to eat blueberries. Good thing we make green smoothies every morning with the little guys. I even talked Dave into trying smoothies to use up all of his blueberries.

I'm super pumped about more cheese, because, well, I love it. We haven't had the colby yet, so even better.

The cabbage and onions are a switch up from the previous weeks, so we'll find something delectable to do with them. Seems like there might be some cabbage rolls in the near future?

I'll keep you updated.
-Kate

Week 4...and we cooked!

Week 4 brought some AWESOME! 

 

Week 4 CSA

When you get Farm Fresh sirloin meat, I think it's best to make something where the meat is takes the center stage. What better than Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches! Dave sliced up the onions, yellow bell pepper and jalapenos and sautéed them in a chipotle olive oil.  Then added the Farm Fresh meat to get deliciousness.  Top it off with chipotle white cheddar cheese and BAM.  Add thyme and rosemary home fries and it's dinner time. 

Dave's soon to be famous Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich

I couldn't let Dave take all the credit this week, so it was time to put my thinking cap on and come up with a plan.  As I was prepping for our weekend float trip, I began to envision a weekend outdoors: fire pit, the sweet smell of nature, camping under the stars, burgers, brats, and COLESLAW! It just so happened that I had an entire cabbage and cucumber from CSA in the fridge.

Paula Dean's The Lady's Coleslaw (sub cuc for gr. onion)

In recent weeks, Ms. Paula Dean has taken some heat for inappropriate language, but being from the south one can't deny the woman can cook.  I went with The Lady's Coleslaw, substituting cucumber for the called for green onions because that's what my CSA bag had.  The end result enough coleslaw to feed half the campsite!

Would I make this recipe again? Yes, but next time I'd use 1/2 the called for sugar...it wasn't as tangy as I like my coleslaw to be.

I'm taking Week 5 CSA off because of July 4th, but I'm excited what Week 6 will bring.

Stay hungry!
Sarah

Week 4 - Around the World Asia to Switzerland to Cuba

 

Kate picked up Week 4 for me and I found myself a bit overwhelmed with squash and greens!  The first night I decided to use up those two zucchini and some of those Asian ingredients I bought last week to make zucchini fritters, conveniently a recipe straight out of this month's Bon Appetit. www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2013/07/zucchini-fritters

I threw in some fresh chives and cilantro from my garden and fried them up in the sunflower oil from Week 1.  Dipping sauce included rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, and red pepper flakes.

 Tuesday night, I made a quick impromptu summer pasta dish with (believe it or not!) only ingredients I already had.  This included onions, cherry tomatoes from last week, corn, white beans, chopped up Swiss chard from this week, and a splash of white wine.

Topped my plate off with fresh basil from the garden.  Yum.

  
I gave Andrew the roast to cook to his own delight and he chose a Cuban pot roast from this recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/ropa-vieja-in-a-slow-cooker/ with Cuban style yellow rice: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/cuban-style-yellow-rice/

I can't take any credit for this one aside from pouring the water in the pot to cook the rice.  All Andrew!  And it was delicious. 

Also, no Cuban meal would be complete without mojitos!

Happy eating!
Michelle