Tom Robbins was right...

"The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious."

Now that the CSA is truly underway, the pressure is on to use up all the vegetables, share them, eat them and write about the whole process.

One consistent offering each week is beets. I've never been a fan - I can't see them without thinking of dirty, hairy Pan from Jitterbug Perfume. And to be honest, they taste like dirt to me. However, from the Middle Ages forward they have been considered one of the healthiest foods out there (or, as some call it, Nature's Viagra) so I decided to combine some of my favorite things (pears, shallots, pistachios) with some roasted beets to see if I could make palatable a root that doubles as a way to dye your clothes.

A little research showed that the place to start is a roasted beet salad (though beet brownies are coming soon!). First, I weighed out my beets and then wrapped them in foil.  After about 40 minutes at 400, their rock hard fibrous structure turned firm and cranberry-jelly-like. This was actually a shock to me. Every time I had seen beets at a restaurant or in a picture, I assumed they had been enhanced or pickled. Pas de tout, it turns out. Beets really are nature's answer to the saturated colors of a Helen Frankenthaler painting. Bold, deep scarlet and soft with structural integrity.

The preparation after that was simple and effective. Chopped pistachios, sliced pears, and a homemade dressing made with lemons, shallots, olive oil and a good white wine vinegar. And while the beets didn't win my heart, I enjoyed them far more than I expected.

Tough to see the beets on a red plate - note to self!

Bright and Beautiful Broccoli

I never thought the words "broccoli salad" would ever cross my lips, much less show up on my dinner table. Based on my experience, any sort of mayonaise based salad belongs at a church potluck right next to the jello mold and the banana pudding with nilla wafers. (Not, by the way, that I don't enjoy those things when I'm at a church potluck or lunch at grandma's.)

However, I was browsing through recipes for my freshly-picked-today broccoli and found a gorgonzola-based, broccoli salad that worked with my gluten-free rice pasta. Knowing my husband's deep attachement to gorgonzola, I had to give it a try. And of course, our intrepid dining companions, Kate and Gary, were willing to test out today's recipes for me.



The broccoli salad recipe came from Epicurious and I made a few changes of my own (notably, making it gluten free, subbing canola mayo for regular and skipping the celery). The broccoli and scallions came from our CSA.

First, I blanched the broccoli and immediately shocked it in cold water, stopping the cooking process. This leaves the vegetable crisp-tender, which is perfect for a salad. At the same time, I started some rice pasta - and let me tell you, I have been disappointed by gluten-free pasta time and again, but the Tinkyada Rice Pasta held up well and didn't clump at all.

Practicalities

Well, I broke down and ordered a new cord for my camera - my Android camera is simply not up to the task and my orignal cord has vanished into the Great Black Hole of Tangled Cords on Campus Ave. Going forward the photos should be much crisper and color saturated.

 Thank you Amazon points!

Second practical step - I cleaned out the fridges and freezers so we have adequate space to store the fresh and lovely farm share. Last week's got mashed into the tiny available space and this did not improve their quality...

Finally, the chalkboard wall of options - now I can list out our ingredients and cooking ideas on the day we get the produce, making waste much less likely!



What practical steps do you take to make sure you use up all of your fresh produce?

Scape Escape!

Finally, after months of waiting, Colchester Farms has rolled out this year's CSA! As I begin my second year of exploring fresh, local produce and locally raised meats, I'm excited to restart the blog as well. This year we'll be looking into new ways to enjoy kale, exciting kolhrabi recipes and trying out food ideas from around the globe.

We recently hosted  group of friends for a back porch happy hour. Our friends Kevin and Heather, also Colchester CSA subscribers, brought along a bowl of garlic scape pesto. (Check out Kevin's local brewing project here!) So I decided to look around and try my hand as well, with delicious and visually pleasing results!

Garlic scapes are the "flower stalks" of regular hardneck garlic. Not only are they gorgeous and twisty (see below) but they have recently become very popular with food bloggers and New York farmer's markets. I had never seen (or heard of) garlic scapes until last year's farm share, where we were inundated with them from week one. With my husband's family from Texas visiting the Eastern Shore this weekend, it felt like the right time to introduce a wider audience to our local food adventure!

Pot Roast starring the Veggies!

This week's haul included the usual mixed greens, turnips, potatoes, onions, carrots and swiss chard... and now that the weather is crisp and chilled my first thought was pot roast!

Sorting through the veggies

We were able to buy a roast at the Fresh Market in Annapolis and I popped that baby into the crock pot with some of the carrots, potatoes, onions and a few fresh herbs and spices. Swiss chard seemed like the perfect flavor counterpoint to the slightly sweet root vegetables.

I love the colorful chard stems and the fluffy, billowy leaves that seem to grow bigger when you wash them for sauteeing.

This evening, I just added a bit of minced garlic and chopped onions for flavor and then added all the leaves to the pan. The greens cook down to practically nothing, which surprised me - this hardly looks like enough for four people to sample. Luckily, I didn't really care for the Swiss chard and that left plenty for the others at the table. The other goood news: the pot roast itself turned out perfectly - the quintessential autumn meal after a hard day at work. And we were still able to enjoy it on the back porch, a setting that will be too cold all too soon.

Thanks to Kate and Gary for their willingness to try out our veggies this week!

Autumn: Root Vegetables and Love!

Oh Autumn, I love you! I love the crunchy leaves falling in the yard. I love wearing a hoodie to walk the dog. And I love snuggling in with cozy dinners as the sun sets way too early. Root vegetables fit right in! Tonight we roasted a juicy Bell & Evans chicken over CSA onions, potatoes, and carrots.

You'll notice the makeshift roasting pan (a baking pan and a rack), which was a last minute attempt (successful) to save dinner. Unfortunately, the delightful gorgeous roasting pan we purchased this summer (below) doesn't actually fit into our slightly-smaller-than-standard ovens.

Preparation was pretty straightforward. Ina Garten offers a lovely recipe that I modified slightly to include a couple of pounds of our CSA potatoes. Inside the chicken resides a whole lemon, half a head of garlic, a big bunch of thyme and salt and pepper. I brushed the skin with butter and added salt and pepper for flavor and the result was one of the tastiest chickens I've ever roasted!

A co-worker and her husband were kind enough to sample the dinner, along with a big bowl of CSA greens, and a basic starter of tomato jam, goat cheese and prosciutto. L created the perfect pre-dinner bite!

We finished up with bowls of homemade bittersweet chocolate ice cream - again slightly adapted by replacing four ounces of bittersweet chocolate with unsweetened chocolate and replacing the milk with soy milk (because our cow's milk was off). DELICIOUS!

Tomato Jam (with Goat Cheese)

As I've mentioned here before, we end up with what feels like 52 pounds of tomatoes every week, these days, and I am always searching for a new way to love them and make them scrumptious. After tasting some amazing tomato jam at the Imperial Hotel I decided that would be my next project. Where to find a recipe? Luckily, our real estate-agent-now-friend Marian offered up two great recipes for me to choose from. One called for Green Zebras, of which I had two pounds, so we were off to the races.

Tomato jams seem to fall into two categories - very, very sweet or slightly sweet and savory. I chose a recipe that looked like it had a savory component as more suited to our table. This particular recipe intrigued me with its mix of garlic, cumin, ginger and cinnamon (and of course sugar and honey).

After much dicing, grating, measuring and stirring I ended up with a pot full of fragrant, bubbling tomatoes.

It took a little more than 40 minutes of simmering with the occasional stir to end up with remarkably tasty jam that pairs terrifically with a milder chevre and some water crackers! And... I randomly met another tomato jam fan at brunch yesterday who received the smaller jar to take home as a prize!

Recipe after the jump...