Week Two (Rhubarb!!)

I picked up our week's share yesterday. And it went much better than last week. I arrived at Harris Teeter as 9:21 and Brett (the driver) was just unloading the truck. I grabbed my crate and was home by 9:30.

Here is what we got:
1 small bouquet of flowers (with a gorgeous pink lily)
1 bag of loose Dragonfly Herb Tea
1 lb of local Maryland Honey
a dozen eggs
1 loaf of sliced Asiago Cheese bread
2 heads of Boston Lettuce
1 bunch of loose kale
1 bunch of curly parsley
1 bunch of radishes
1 bunch of asparagus
1 lb of rhubarb (yea!)
1 pint of strawberries
1 bunch of watercress
1 bunch of scallions
3 vine ripe tomatoes
1 frozen chicken

We were suppose to get spinach this week again. But it was not in my crate. I emailed the farmers and they will make sure I get something special next week. I guess it will be a surprise item. That should be fun.

So with our bounty we are going to make this week:

Lemony/Garlic Kale Pasta with Salad (kale, lettuce, tomato, and scallions)
Open-Faced Egg, Bacon & Watercress with corn on the cob (Eggs, bread and watercress)
Asparagus Risotto with garlic bread (asparagus, parsley and bread)
Roasted Chicken with roasted veggies (chicken, radishes and parsley)

The item I am really excited about is Strawberry/Rhubarb Pie. I have ALWAYS wanted to make it but the grocery store rhubarb never looked good. And this is my chance. I have already make the crust dough and I will make the pie tomorrow.

So stay tuned.

End of Week CSA Round Up

In addition to my CSA share announcement post, I thought I could write a weekly round up. In this post I would tell you how I did with using all of our goodies.

As of this evening, we used all of the:
Strawberries
Spinach (we still have frozen pesto)
Kale
Tomatoes
Cilantro (I gave half to my sister)
Baby bok choy
Asparagus

We still have: 
Lettuce (even through I gave half to my sister)
Half of the scallions
All of the radishes
6 eggs
1/2 of the sausage (we froze it so it should keep for awhile)

My plans are to make egg salad tonight for lunches this weekend. That should take care of the eggs and scallions and maybe some of the lettuce. I hope to roast the radishes and the store bought baby carrots tonight.

Then I would have used/ate or gave away everything we got except the bread, which got moldy around Wednesday and we had to throw it away. (Not counting the coffee, vinegar, flowers or sausage)

Lessons Learned:
Put bread into the fridge by Sunday or Monday
Wrap lettuce and leafy produce in a moist paper towel and put in a plastic bag
Change the glass of water for the flowers and the herbs every couple of days
Cut the strawberries immediately

Grade: B 

It think I did pretty well for my first week. I only had to throw away the bread.

Bring on week 2!

Spinach Pesto (Yummo)

We had spinach pesto tonight. I made the pesto on Sunday morning. Then I put it into ice cube trays and frozen it.

It was awesome to open the freezer, pop out a few pesto cubes, wait for them to thaw out, cook some pasta and toss them together! Dinner done. And it was homemade pesto! With CSA spinach!

Here is the recipe: ( I had to triple this recipe to use all my spinach)
2 cups lightly packed spinach
1/4 cup lightly toasted pine nuts (or walnuts)
1-2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/3 cup evoo (Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
salt and pepper
1/3 parmesan cheese

Combine the spinach, pine nuts, lemon peel and lemon juice in a food processor. Pulse until slightly combine. Pour olive oil and combine until creamy.

Spoon into ice cube trays and freeze.

When ready to use, just pop out, thaw, mix in parmesan cheese and salt/pepper if needed.

Enjoy!

Our First Share

On Saturday, we picked up our first CSA share from Dragonfly Farms. There was a little drama and confusion on the time and location. But I guess that is expected for the first day.

Below is a picture of our goodys.

We received:
1 small bouquet of cut flowers
1 lb of Ground coffee from ZeZe's in Baltimore
.68 lbs of freshly made maple sausage links
1 loaf of Organic Sourdough Wheat bread
12 brown eggs
6.67 oz bottle of Dragonfly Farms Wine Vinegar
1 pint strawberries
1 large bag of spinach
2 bunches of romaine lettuce
1 large bunch of radishes
1 very large bunch of kale
2 vine ripe tomatoes
1 bunch of cilantro
4 small baby bok hoy
1 bundle of scallions
1 bundle of asparagus

I made up the following menu to incorporate our bounty.

Waffles with maple sausage and fresh fruit salad (using eggs, maple sausage and the rest of the strawberries)
Baked Felafel with Tzatziki Sauce (cilantro, romaine lettuce, and tomatoes)
Spinach Pesto with roasted vegetables (spinach, radishes, and asparagus)
Cheeseburgers with kale chips and fries (kale, lettuce and tomatoes)
Refried Rice (scallions, baby bok choy, and asparagus)

We only received half of our monthly items. We should receive local Maryland honey, 1/2 lb cheese and Dragonfly's Herbal tea next week.

We were suppose to get rhubarb this week but it was not in the crate. I was reassured that we would be able to get some next week. I am super excited about rhubarb because I have always wanted to make Rhubarb and Strawberry Pie. But the Rhubarb at the grocery store always looks so sad.  So stay tuned for that.

So far, I would say I'm impressed with the quality and quantity of the items.

Our CSA

This Saturday, May 19th 2012, is the start of our CSA.

Dragonfly Farms from Mt. Airy, MD will be delivering our premium share to our local Harris Teeter every Saturday morning.

I will meet the driver, Brett at 0920 to receive my premium share.

You might be asked, what is a premium share?

Our shares will not just include seasonal fruits and vegetables grown locally. It will also include:

• 1 dozen large brown eggs from free range hens (weekly)
• Loaf of fresh artisanal bread (weekly)
• Fresh cut flowers (weekly)
• One pound freshly made sausage (monthly)
• One pound fresh made cheese (monthly)
• One pound local Maryland honey (monthly)
• One pound fresh roasted, free trade gourmet coffee (monthly)
• Dragonfly's herbal health tea (monthly)
• One bottle Dragonfly's Wine Vinager (one in the spring and one in the fall)
• Local fresh chickens (one for 4th of July and one for Labor Day)
• 12+ pounds Amish-raised turkey legs for Memorial Day
• One Amish Turkey for Thanksgiving

That is a lot of food. And I didn't even go into the variety or size of the fruit and vegetable share.

Look at this:

I will have to get creative on how to use all this food....

I am going to blog about it! I know, I know exciting stuff. But I have a motivation problem with this blog so what better than having a CSA to motivate you.

So either on Saturday or Sunday every week I will post the weekly inventory of our share. Then throughout the week I will update you on how we used this week's bounty!

Stay tuned for CSA posts and the Food Rating System!

Poor Neglected Blog

I have completely neglected of this blog. (The Puppy Files too, but not as much).

I some of you may know, Dave and I have a puppy at home. So with a full time career, my 10 year old Australian Shepherd-Draco, housework, a new puppy with a blog...this Food and TV blog was pushed to the side.

I still want to post here...so please be patient. I think once I find a schedule that will work for all the things listed above I will be able to post more often.

So while I have not have the time or inclination to post, I have been thinking, watching TV and cooking.

Thoughts:

Dave said to me the other day that I rarely make the same meal twice. And because of that he has a hard time remembering what I made and if he liked it. This reminded me of when we were house shopping for Dave. He had the same type of problem. Too many houses and couldn't remember if he liked them. So we developed a simple rating system we shared with his Realtor, Corey, and this helped not only Dave but Corey know what houses to show us.

So I am going to develop a Rating System for my food. Not only for Dave to remember but I thought I could share it here. Since you can't eat the food I make through this blog the Rating System may give you a better idea of what the food was like.

Our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) starts this week....more to come on that.

TV:

If you know me, you know that all the things in my busy life cannot keep me from TV. I will make time and give up other things if I have to. Let me share a few things with you...

·  Within the next couple of days (hopefully) I will post how my shows did (if they got picked up or not)

·  My complete scorecard for the 2011-2012 Season coming soon!

Cooking:

Here a few of the things I have made recently:

·  Spinach and Egg Pie

·  Veggie Burgers

·  Refried Rice (one the few repeats)

·  Pizza (another one of the few repeats)

·  Polenta Lasagna

·  Garlic and Chickpea Pasta with Lemon and Garlic Broccoli

That completes this post. Hopefully things will settle down soon....

Chocolate Waffles

******This is a post I wrote back in April but never posted******

Last Sunday morning I made chocolate waffles. I've never made waffles from scratch. I have always made them from a box.  It was always easier and could made from scratch waffles be any different?

And then I found this recipe from chocolate waffles in the Food Network Magazine. And since McDonalds had already ending their breakfast menu for the today, I decided to get this recipe a try.

I had to make a few changes. I didnt have any milk, so I used some cream with water mixed in.

And made from scratch waffles are different. They were fluffy and light. And these had just the right amount of chocolatety yumminess. Even my chocolate hating boyfriend liked them.

Next time you are in a waffle or chocolate or a waffle and a chocolate mood try chocolate waffles.