International Onions! After all, it's the Olympics.

For the last two weeks, we've picked up bunches of delicious (and gorgeous) red torpedo onions and I have looked at them, thought about them and done nothing.

Finally, my French heritage asserted itself and I landed on two, old school, recipes from the south of France - pissaladiere and onion confit.

Southern French pizza!

Savory onion confit!

First, I found a bread, called a pissaladiere, which is essentially a French flatbread. Believed to have been introduced by the Italians during the French papacy, it is common throughout the south of France. Similar to pizza, pissaladiere generally features vegetables but no cheese.

Kohlrabi, Coconut, and Chili

A quick survey of friends and colleagues revealed a nearly universal shrugging of shoulders when it comes to kohlrabi. While it is a gorgeous, purple vegetable it is also something of a mystery. Luckily, the dear husband found a recipe for Chili-Dusted Kohlrabi Fries over at Five and Spice that appealed to me right away. (And even luckier was the presence of a test audience of 10+, over for evening cocktails!)

Kohlrabi is a member of the same family as broccoli, turnips, kale, and cabbage, and was "created by artificial selection." Its turnip-like texture and broccoli scent are a bit confusing to the first-time cook but they work really well together when roasted.

When preparing, be careful to cut away both of the tough, fibrous layers of peel or you may end up with something too bitter and stringy for most tastes. In this recipe, the fries are coated in coconut oil (my choice - vegetable or olive oil would also work), tossed with chili powder, cumin, and sea salt before roasting in the oven.

Paired up with yogurt mixed with cilantro and lime juice, the fries were a modest hit and will probably be back on the menu later this summer!

Whooo-Hooo: This Week's Crop!

Wheeee! This week we have a generous haul, in large part due to the "bonus" items available for the early arrivals. We ended up with two melons, pattypan and summer squash, two pints of heirloom cherry-type tomatoes, scallions, and "red torpedo" onions. We also have beets, carrots and anaheim peppers. On the herb front, we ended up with cilantro & basil. It will be a mammoth job to use this whole crop before it expires but I'm looking forward to the challenge!

(Also in the photo, Barbara Kafka's Vegetable Love, an invaluable resource during this experiment.)

Bacon, Corn, and Potatoes - Breakfast Extravaganza!

The biggest surprise from the CSA so far has been how easy it is to incorporate fresh veggies into my breakfast and brunch plans. In that sense, this has already been a successful experiment - I am eating more fresh produce before ten-thirty in the morning than ever before!

This weekend, Smitten Kitchen pointed the way with Bacon Corn Hash.  Paired up with some fresh bread from a local bakery and home made Blackberry-Ginger jam - we had a great contrast of salty-savory with sweet-spicy.

The hash was not difficult to create, though it took a lot of dicing (dark red norland potatoes), and slicing kernels off of the sweet corn cob. Total, I spent about an hour and forty-five minutes prepping, sauteeing, and otherwise making this happen.

Tomatillos, Pork, and Mango Lassi Ice Cream, oh my!

Everybody loves a slow cooker recipe - the general belief is that they cut down on prep time and make the cooking process a piece of cake. While this is true 80% of the time, the remaining 20% I am consulting the Gourmet Slowcooker by Lynn Alley. The meals in this book are fantastic go-tos, especially if you don't mind the two hour prep time generally required.

This week's Saturday night dinner featured Pork and Tomatillo Stew from the Gourmet Slowcooker. This is one of our favorites and we included the tomatillos, white onions, garlic and peppers from this week's crop. Tomatillos are covered in a slightly gummy husk that requires removal and lots of hand soap.

The recipe called for three pounds of the fruit, which gave me the opportunity to pull out my new kitchen scale for measurement. Once the tomatillos were roasting in the oven, it was time to chop the onions, garlic and pork.

Jenny Lind Delight?

Now, I am not much of a melon fan - when I was nine years old I entered a watermelon eating contest and remained traumatized for years afterwards. "Mixed fruit bowls" that consist of nothing but cantaloupe and honeydew drive me nuts when I visit restaurants. So when I set eyes on the Jenny Lind melon from the CSA this week I was not terribly excited. The Jenny Lind, named for a famous European opera singer, is a type of cantaloupe that is not generally commercially grown. Apparently, home gardeners tend to favor it because of its relatively small size and temperate nature but it is too delicate to transport long distances.

I started my exploration with the traditional sniff test - this melon smelled like candy, very sweet and light. With this much sugar in it, I thought, how bad can it be?











We sliced it open (reminded me a bit of a cross between an acorn squash and a cantaloup) and jumped right in. It was even sweeter than it smelled. I'm not big on very sweet things - I don't sweeten my coffee and if it isn't 70% dark, chocolate doesn't make my shopping list. So this melon was interesting, but not a favorite.

I probably won't go out of my way to find another Jenny Lind melon, but it is kind of cool to try something new, especially something that generally cannot be found at the store.

Sweet, Sweet, Sweet...Sweet Corn and Carmelized Onions!

Summer has truly arrived when the sweet corn appears, and this week we received a half dozen ears! While there is nothing like sweet corn grilled in the husk or flash boiled in milk, I wanted to use at least one ear on a more complex dish. Pairing sweet corn with sweet onions seemed like a no-brainer and a quick search of my favorite food blogs turned up a great combination - Goat Cheese Cornbread with Carmelized Onions.  Luckily, I had a house full of guests willing to be my test group so I picked up some goat cheese, some cornmeal and a bit of buttermilk and jumped right in.

Deb at Smitten Kitchen recommends soaking the cornmeal in buttermilk overnight, but naturally I opened the recipe an hour before I wanted to start cooking. So I soaked the cornmeal during that hour and it seemed to be fine.

Next steps: chopping and sauteeing the farm fresh onions and strip the kernels from the corn cob.


Stripping kernels is easy as long as you (1) hold the cob at an angle and (2) cut AWAY from yourself. I managed to nick myself a bit by failing to remember that basic technique!

Bubbly Back Porch Brunch!

One thing I love about our new country life is having the time and space to welcome friends to a relaxing, slow-paced environment. Between the Bay, the farmer's market and our own back porch, we have plenty of chances to connect with nature and our meals often reflect that connection. This weekend I was thrilled to welcome some amazing DC women to C-town and they were kind enough to sample the various CSA (and farmers' market) experiments, culminating in this morning's brunch.

Hope you're hungry!

We pulled together ingredients from Lockbriar Farms and Colchester CSA as well as the lovely folks who brought us the Freixenet for our OJ. Our al fresco brunch included Baked Oatmeal with Blackberries and Ginger (which could use more candied ginger),  Orange Sweet Rolls (just perfect), Anise and Plum Phyllo Crisps (good ol' Martha), a tasty scallion and gruyere omelette (you can't go wrong, really) and fresh plum tomatoes, sugar plums and apricots. 

We rounded out the meal with farro porridge with blueberries, coffee and mimosas. Many thanks to the gorgeous DC and C-town guests who made the meal into an fabulous event!

Tomatillos, Sweet Corn, Potatoes

This week, Drew picked up our share of the harvest out at Colchester Farms, where he had the opportunity to walk the fields and cut a bouquet for the kitchen (where the wallpaper backing and shelf plugs make a lovely backdrop).

Check out the summer festival of vegetables!

We have sweet corn, potatoes covered in dirt, huge white onions, bright kohlrabi, garlic scapes, luscious ripe tomatoes, crunchy jalapenos and, best of all, little green tomatillos! While we will find fun and creative ways to use everything, I am particularly thrilled with the Aztecs' favorite fruit. Tomatillos pair well with pork and pack a serious nutritional punch but they aren't always widely available. Check back later in the week for a slow-cooker pork & tomatillos stew, goat cheese and onion cornbread and an exciting kohlrabi creation!

Where the Magic Happens

While I suppose the real magic happens on the farms, in the fields and in the dirt itself, the kitchen is also a place of transformation. Our kitchen was probably the number one selling point of our new home, at least for me. I have never had so much counter space or two (!!!) ovens, which revolutionize making brunch for a picky, sleepy crowd. That being said, our kitchen was formerly wall-papered within an inch of its life (including the ceilings) and we are now in the process of ripping the blue and white floral paper off the walls and substituting a bright, cheerful paint.

Blueberries, in the Morning!

Fresh blueberries manage to insinuate themselves into every meal of the day - which is why I can't pick enough of them this summer! Here they appear in a bowl of farro porridge. Some identify farro as the grain that fed the Roman Empire before the time of Christ until Rome fell in the fifth century. I can't confirm or deny the history, but I can assure you that it is considered a superfood and when you pair it with blueberries you more or less hit the nutritional jackpot!

Blueberries & Grapefruit - Jam in July!

My BIL visited us today and it seemed like the perfect time to pick some fresh berries from nearby Lockbriar Farms. Although the raspberries were picked out, there were blueberries, blackberries and peaches galore. Undaunted by the 98 degree heat, we spent an hour gathering the freshest fruit we could find, with the exception of peaches. The local insect life chased us out of the orchard before we could find anything ripe. The results:

I'm always looking for new ways to use fresh berries - living near "u-pick" berry farms is one of my favorite things about this rural adventure - and this week I turned to the folks at Brooklyn Supper to find a recipe for Blueberry-Grapefruit Jam. This was my first experience with jam making and I confess to a bit of nerves. The first step was combining berries, sugar and grapefruit zest (not cheese despite the picture below).

Zucchini, Potatoes and Thyme (and tuna)

This week, our CSA (Colchester Farms) offered a variety of the more recognizable veggies including summer squash, potatoes, carrots, greens and a few choice herbs.

As one of the first eight people on the pick-up scene, I also scored some remarkably sweet cherry tomatoes. I have never tasted anything so delicate and summery alongside my home cooked dinner.

So the weekly question arose... how to use these amazing offerings in a pleasing and healthy manner. I immediately thought of pairing the vegetable dishes with fresh tuna steaks from Old Mill Cafe. I am constantly astonished at how healthy fish is (news alert, I know) and have fallen in love with this particular fish.

As I flipped through cookbooks I ran into one of my favorite dishes from my days in Charlotte - the Barefoot Contessa's Vegetable Tian from the Barefoot in Paris cookbook. Though it takes a bit of time to create - lots of slicing and grating, the final result is worth every minute and the contemplative chopping is relaxing. I was able to use potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and summer squash along with garlic and thyme. The only non-CSA item was a bit of gruyere sprinkled across the top.   

As you can see, this is a simple dish - just layer slices of squash, potatoes and tomatoes over a layer of sauteed sweet onions and garlic, sprinkled with thyme. Bake under foil then sprinkle gruyere and bake a little more. Delicious and tender!

The final product! Grilled Mediterranean tuna steaks with Vegetable Tian and sweet cherry tomatoes.

Kohlrabi, Purslane and Beets

This year represents titanic lifestyle changes - after 17 years of city living I have have moved with my husband to the vastly rural Eastern Shore of Maryland. While there are many challenges, which I will no doubt explore in later posts, a highlight of our new home is the local CSA. Through the CSA we have purchased a share of a local farm's vegetable crops and each week we are surprised with new selections. This blog is both a celebration of what we encounter and a tool for accountability to help ensure that I don't leave the kohlrabi to shrivel up in my lower crisper (not that this has happened already or anything).

Every week (or more) I will post pics, stories and reviews of recipes tried and shared with others. I am delighted that the sheer volume of veggies we receive will provide additional motivation to my hospitality gene, at least until our friends are fed up (haha) with being guinea pigs for odd plant foods.