The Feisty Foodie » CSA

CSA Goodies!

Feisty Foodie — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:15:02 +0000

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Essentially, one purchases a ’share’ in a local farm – much like the stock market, one then has a vested interest in seeing the farm succeed. Dividends/pay outs come in the form of produce – vegetables and sometimes fruit. Different farms do things differently; my farm happens to be also organic, and I pick up my box each week – Tuesdays for me – from a local location. Join me on this journey – my inaugural season with a CSA – as I explore the various vegetables I receive and what I can do with them to turn them into delicious happiness…
For more information on CSAs, click here. To find a CSA local to you, you can click here or for one in NYC, visit JustFood.org. I found mine by typing “Forest Hills CSA” into Google – my neighborhood name + the word CSA, and I’m sure that would work for you as well. Good luck and enjoy the fruits of your labors… har, har.

Yes, my dears, I joined the CSA again this year! There was no way I would miss this for the world; the fresh veggies, the reasonable pricing schedule (with 1/2 a share, it comes out to about $10 a week for local & organic produce), which is completely reasonable, cheap even. I have a few photos of items, though most things I’ve been making magic soup with (even in this horrid weather) or roasting (again, even in this horrid weather – toaster oven, and stay out of the kitchen while it’s going on so I don’t roast myself as well) – many of these goodies then became bento-staples. (Enter the giveaway while you’re over there, why don’t you?)

In this instance, I actually remembered to take a picture of the “cream of fennel” soup I made. Simple (and no leeks, which a lot of recipes seemed to call for):

Sautee thinly sliced fennel and thinly sliced onion together in butter.
Cook until very, very soft, but do not brown.
Toss a tablespoon or two of flour on top and stir to incorporate/coat, allowing flour to cook a bit.
Add cream or milk slowly, then let come to a small bubble (VERY small bubble) and thicken a bit.
Using an immersion blender (or you can use a regular blender if that’s what you have, but be careful!), blend until smooth.
Season with salt and pepper to taste; serve.

I added the fronds on top just to look fancy but I didn’t eat them. You can also serve this cold if you like!

This next one I’ve been posting on Facebook repeatedly as I tweak the recipe to fit what’s in my fridge. It’s perfect for the hot weather. You must have seen it on my Facebook because you’re a fan of the Feisty Foodie, right? Right? Well, why not? Anyway, the first time I posted it here and the second time I posted it here… but here are my final tweaks, I think, unless I make it one more time:

poached/cooked/cooled/shredded chicken breast (one) (you can use whatever chicken you like, or even the meat from a rotisserie chicken you picked up! just make the meat bite sized, or shredded so that it’s close in size/shape to the cabbage)
shredded green cabbage, half a head to a head depending on size (you can even buy a bag of this already shredded at Trader Joe’s)
shredded carrots (hey if you’re already at Trader Joe’s, just pick those up while you’re there, it’s next to the cabbage)
shredded radicchio for color and bitterness
dill and/or celery seed
thinly sliced onion
sesame seeds

Really, you can play around with the veggies to find a combo you like – the carrots add a nice sweetness, so when I didn’t use them, I found myself adding a little sugar to my vinaigrette to cut the tartness a little bit.

Vinaigrette:

juice of a lemon, lime, both, either, or
salt
pepper
dash of sesame oil (do NOT substitute all of your oil and only use sesame oil; sesame oil is VERY strong)
extra virgin olive oil

Whisk to incorporate. Honey or sugar can be used (sparingly) to cut the tartness if it’s too tart for you. Taste it, make it what you like! Have fun with it!

I love making quick and fast salads like so, without mayo (which can be heavy, cloying, or just icky in this horrible heat NYC is encountering currently). How do you make yours? What do you put in it? Share in the comments your quick-fast-easy meals for weekday nights that are too hot to cook!

Happy eating!

CSA Week #22

Feisty Foodie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:30:45 +0000

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Essentially, one purchases a ’share’ in a local farm – much like the stock market, one then has a vested interest in seeing the farm succeed. Dividends/pay outs come in the form of produce – vegetables and sometimes fruit. Different farms do things differently; my farm happens to be also organic, and I pick up my box each week – Tuesdays for me – from a local location. Join me on this journey – my inaugural season with a CSA – as I explore the various vegetables I receive and what I can do with them to turn them into delicious happiness…
For more information on CSAs, click here. To find a CSA local to you, you can click here or for one in NYC, visit JustFood.org. I found mine by typing “Forest Hills CSA” into Google – my neighborhood name + the word CSA, and I’m sure that would work for you as well. Good luck and enjoy the fruits of your labors… har, har.

Week 22 came fast and left me dizzy. I’d like to say I made lots of lovely dishes with the items in the CSA, but let’s face it, you already must know that I am struggling to just keep myself fed properly. I haven’t been eating. I had two exams upcoming, and a paper due a short moment after those two exams, and have not been able to cook, much less clean up after what I’ve already cooked, and then look, just to keep myself cleaned, semi-fed, and the dog, too – well… let’s just say no one is coming over to my place for a while. (As my friends will laugh, it’s not like anyone’s come over anyway!)

I couldn’t even muster up the energy to clean off my table before I took a photo. In fact I think that bowl is still in my sink :X

The one photograph I can show you – aren’t you proud?! – was from the very night I picked up my CSA. Since it contained BOK CHOI, I quickly rinsed that all clean, and threw together a quick dinner for myself – yay! Udon in a plain broth, with… yummy… these mini-pork-dumplings I found in the freezer section of my local Asian market. There wasn’t really a brand name on them, but I liked them – plain little dumplings they are – and will probably try to use them in bento sometime. If I could actually freaking find time to bento right now… since I’m living off containers of food bought on Sunday, just shoved into plastic containers for lunches throughout the week (ha! and I’ve been throwing the containers away because I just can’t deal with washing anything! oh my god).

Everything else is still in my fridge or donated to my sister/mother. Yep. I finally had to go that route.

Let’s see if I can start eating again soon… on the bright side, I’m losing a ton of weight! On the down side, I’m actually having health issues and I’ve caught myself late at night, so hungry I go and dig into the large piles of snacks around the apartment that I usually am so good about ignoring. SIGH.

Happy eating!

CSA Week #20

Feisty Foodie — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:30:08 +0000

CSA Week #20 came fast and hard this time around. I was excited to see the return of some items and some new items as well. I didn’t manage to use everything as quickly as I’d have liked, but the squash was cut in half for me, so I quickly decided to roast it on the spot. I dropped chopped kielbasa into the hollowed out center, garlic, and onions, rubbed the exposed bits of it with olive oil, then roasted it at 350 degrees for an hour or so until the flesh was nice and tender.

Mmm, it smelled heavenly. I only used kielbasa cuz that’s what was in my fridge; if I’d had Italian sausage, or something more porky-and deeply flavored, I’d have used that to greater pleasure.

I mashed everything altogether and look how delicious it looks! It smelled awesome! And it tasted awesome for lunch. Which also shows what I did with the broccoli – I roasted it, then tossed it with sour cream, crisped bacon, and onion… mmm. YUMMY!!!

While the squash was roasting, I threw a packet of the beets in with them and let those get nice and yummy too. I just snacked on these and watched one of the baseball games.

Last but not least, magic soup! Kielbasa (since I already had it, clearly), cabbage, kale, carrots, and broth… and so good. Man, I love my magic soup! It will have an entire post dedicated to it soon… and yes, this did stave off any illness that tried to take me down!

Not a bad week for my CSA, though the next few promise to be really horrible, judging by how little time I have for everything

CSA Week #19

Feisty Foodie — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:30:28 +0000

You may or may not have noticed that I skipped last week’s post about my CSA. Not because I wanted to, but because I opened up the folder where ostensibly, the photos for that week’s CSA (week #18, if you’re keeping track) should be kept, and… nothing. I don’t know what happened. I look at that list and don’t really know what I did with that week’s veggies, either.

I guess it’s getting to the point where I’m seeing some of the same things (which is great, because I’ve liked them all!), but I’m also repeating the same recipes (because I’ve found the way I like to prepare those veggies!). So there isn’t much to say about that, really… soup, roasted, stir-fried… whatever it is…

With Week #19, I didn’t do much differently at all. I took all of the veggies and chopped/sliced them quickly – because I have no time to do anything else! – and dropped them into a pot with pork strips and just stirred it all around then added frozen udon. I’m not posting a recipe because I’m not satisfied with the results. Maybe one day, but that day is not today.

Also, the combination of veggies I used was just not quite right. I’ll fix it… eventually. For now, I’ll stick to udon in soup, since I can make those and make them well. Hahahah. (I have a TON of trouble with Asian noodle dishes that aren’t in soup; it just isn’t my forte.)

Hopefully I’ll have a better post for next week, but at this time, I cannot guarantee such!

Happy eating!

CSA Week #17

Feisty Foodie — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:30:32 +0000

Strangely, I took only two pictures for CSA Week #17.

I can tell you this: the beets were roasted simply, and the greens used for more soup along with the kale. Green beans were blanched quickly and eaten with a bit of butter and salt, very simple; zucchini, sauteed simply, the cherry tomatoes eaten like candy while watching a DVD – again, simply. Notice a pattern here? I was into the simple.

I did, however, use up a bunch of peppers by adding a ton of them into my regular chili recipe. Someone mentioned last time rolling up a bit of chili in tortillas and eating it like that, so I tried that.

I topped it with a bit of sour cream, some local/organic tomato slices (also from my CSA), and local/organic cilantro (ditto). And it was gooooood, though I think I didn’t make a “dry” enough chili this time for that. Ah well. Love it!

Happy eating!