Sometimes, What Seems like A Good Idea At The Time, Really Is One

There’s an awful lot of steak in my freezer right now.

Is that a problem?

Well, yes…because it’s CSA steak.

For the most part, I’ve been very happy with the meat we’ve gotten from our CSA. I really do think it tastes better (the chicken tastes more like chicken!), I totally support the farming methods that they use, and I feel good about feeding their stuff to my boys. But for me, the steaks have been, um, tricky to deal with.

I read somewhere (probably on the CSA’s website) that pasture-raised beef is leaner and therefore cooks quicker than supermarket beef. So you need to be careful to not overcook your steaks. No problem, I thought: I love medium rare steak. Getting that perfect medium rare, however, was tricky: my first few victims were sadly overdone (ugh). To be fair to the CSA, it was my lack of experience with beefy behavior; I simply needed enough practice to recognize when the goods were cooked right.

So now I have a plan: when I pull a sirloin from the freezer, it gets a bulgogi-style marinade (i.e. soy sauce, lots of crushed garlic, a bit of sugar, sesame oil, and some chopped scallions) for at least half a day. I get a cast-iron skillet screaming hot, sear the steak on each side for about 3 minutes, then transfer it to a baking sheet (with sides: don’t want to spill tasty beef juices all over my oven). The steaks are usually thick (more than one inch) so they need an extra ten minutes or so in a 350 degree oven to finish cooking. After a brief post-oven rest they are a beautiful medium-rare. I finally feel like I can handle the sirloin.

But one of the quirks of a CSA is that you don’t get to choose the cuts – you take what you get. A couple of months ago, we got a London Broil in our cooler. I eyed it every time I went down to the freezer; having conquered the sirloin so recently, was I ready to tackle another cut? Tonight, I decided, was the night.

In the fridge, I had some gorgonzola cheese and romaine lettuce: a steak salad came to mind. Then I remembered the loaf of bread in the bread box (yes, I actually have AND use a bread box) and envisioned an open-face steak salad-sandwich sort of thing. So I marinated the steak, using this recipe from Emeril Lagasse instead of my usual marinade, because I though the mustard would be good with the gorgonzola. I seared it in the cast-iron skillet but skipped the oven-baking step, since the London Broil was only an inch thick (but I still let the steak rest after cooking). Sliced thin and arranged over cheese and bread, it tasted just as good as I imagined it would. Which doesn’t happen everyday, you know…my imagination has pretty high expectations.

Open-Faced Steak Sandwich (for four servings)

About 1 lb London broil steak
Steak marinade of your choice
Some country-style bread with big holes, lightly toasted (I used Trader Joe’s Tuscan Pane, which has a slight sourdough flavor)
Gorgonzola or other bleu cheese, sliced thin or crumbled
Romaine or other lettuce, or argula, or spinach, washed and sliced into strips
Cucumber, peeled and sliced thin, or some roasted red bell peppers or both
Salt and pepper

Prepare the marinade and place it in a plastic bag, along with the steak. Put it in the refrigerator for 4 hours up to overnight, turning it over once or twice.

About 30 minutes before cooking the steak, take it out of the refrigerator. Heat a heavy skillert (preferably cast iron) over medium heat for about 10 minutes or until very hot. Remove the steak from the marinade and wipe off the excess. Place the steak in the hot skillet and sear for about 3 minutes. Turn the steak over and sear on the other side for another 3 minutes, or until medium-rare. Transfer the steak to a plate or cutting board and cover (I used the lid to a large stockpot) and let rest for 10 minutes. Transfer the steak onto a cutting board, reserving any juices that have accumulated on the plate, and cut it into thin slices (1/4’ thick or less).

Lightly toast one or two slices of bread per person and place them on a plate. Drizzle some of the reserved steak juices over the bread. Arrange some of the Gorgonzola cheese on top, followed by a few slices of steak, then the romaine lettuce or other greens. Add the red bell peppers (if using). Arrange the cucumber slices on top of everything and sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper. Eat with a knife and fork!

Working With What You've Got

I keep meaning to write about my transition from a typical grocery store shopper to CSA junkie. CSA stands for community supported agriculture; the idea is that the farmer organizes their own distribution system and you, the consumer, pay upfront for a season’s worth of whatever the farm produces. Generally, the food costs more than what you’d pay at the supermarket, but the quality is much higher and your food dollars support the farmer directly.

I keep meaning to write a Manifesto about why I chose to go the CSA route, how it’s changed the way I shop and cook, etc. etc. but I finally realized that it’s just too big a topic for a single blog post. Suffice to say that my cooking has shifted away from a meal planning/listmaking approach. I used to think about what I wanted to make; now I think about what I have to use up.

(This approach to cooking was surprisingly liberating. No matter how much I used to “meal plan” for the week, something would invariably throw the plan out of whack. We’d decide go out for dinner one night, or when Thursday came we just weren’t in the mood for goulash. So there I’d be with leftover groceries and no desire or time to use them).

I keep meaning to write more posts in general, but since I’ve gotten into the CSA groove I’ve been making a lot of the same things again and again. That’s a change for me, too, and it’s not all due to the CSAs – some of it’s because it’s just a LOT harder to make dinner now that I’m a Mom of Two. So instead, I’ll going to try sharing some small stories. If nothing else, my experience will hopefully show a CSA-non-believer how to make it work. And with that, I bring you,

The Pork Problem

Everyone who joins a CSA has a few items that they really don’t like. For example, kohlrabi is not my favorite veggie, but it grows well in New England so it shows up in CSA boxes frequently. Most of the time I can foist it off on my hubby by putting it in a salad. But if not and it spoils I don’t feel too guilty putting it on the compost pile.*

The meat, though, is a different story. We get pasture-raised beef, chicken, pork and lamb from Chestnut Farms. Their prices are comparable to other meat CSAs that I’ve looked at – $8 a pound. At that cost, I don’t want to waste anything. The meat comes frozen and will last a while in the deep freeze, but at some point you’ve got to use it all.

I could try to trade the cuts that I don’t prefer with a fellow CSA member, but to me that goes against the spirit of the CSA. Each chicken has just two legs, and there are only so many steaks in each cow.** So I sort of like the challenge of finding a way to use everything that arrives in the cooler each month.

One item that I’ve really struggled, though, with is Breakfast Sausage patties. I love breakfast sausage, but these are very peppery (too spicy for the kids, and almost too spicy for me) and too salty for my taste. The last time we got sausage patties, they hung around in my freezer for quite a while. I’d give them a guilty glance, then quickly grab something else and shut the lid. At last, however, I had a breakthrough and thought of not one! But two! different ways to make this product into a tasty meal:

Solution #1: Tomato gravy. This one was so obvious that I let out a big DUH when I finally thought of it. My favorite recipe for tomato gravy calls for a pound of Italian sausage, sweet or hot. I substituted the breakfast sausage and added a bit of crushed fennel seed. Yummy!

Solution #2: Meatloaf. Some time ago I started messing around with the ratio of ground beef to ground pork in meatloaf. A 2:1 ratio of beef: pork (we get both items in the CSA) worked best – the pork lightened up the loaf, but it still tasted beefy. So I tried swapping the sausage for plain ‘ole ground pork, and it worked great – and the extra seasoning in the sausage compensated for the salt that I forgot to add to the meatloaf mixture. (DUH).

I’m heartened by my small successes. The next time Breakfast Sausage patties make an appearance in the cooler, I’ll be ready. Now I just need to figure out how to cook Flap Meat (hint: it’s beef).


Recipe: Judy’s Tomato Gravy

I found this recipe in Gail’s Recipe Swap. It’s simple to make and oh so yummy. You can make it with you own homegrown or home-canned tomatoes. The sauce can be frozen so you don’t have to use it all at once.

Olive oil
1-2 lbs Italian sausage, sweet and/or hot (or breakfast sausage), casing removed
1 large onion, chopped
2 or more cloves of garlic, minced
2 28-oz cans Italian whole tomatoes
2 8-oz cans tomato sauce
2 6-oz cans tomato paste
2 bay leaves
Dried basil & dried oregano, to taste (I use about a tablespoon of each)
½ to ¾ cup dry red wine

1. Put the tomatoes through a food mill or blender to puree them (if you prefer a chunky sauce, you can just dump them into a bowl and squish the tomatoes with your hands).

2. Heat a large pot and add a little oil. Add the sausage, breaking it up with a fork or spatula, and cook until it is browned. If there is a lot of fat in the pan you can pour some of it off. Add the onion and garlic and cook until soft, stirring often. Add the pureed tomatoes, sauce, and paste and stir well (you can rinse out the cans with a little water and add that to the pot, too). Add the wine, bay leaves and dried herbs and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook, partially covered, over low heat for at least 30 minutes – longer is better, I usually let it go for at least an hour.


Meatsloaf: A guideline

This is loosely based on a recipe for meatloaf in an old "Best Recipes from the Los Angeles Times Cookbook". It’s a lighter loaf, not dense, that is great for meatloaf sandwiches the next day. It makes one big loaf or you can shape the mix into 2 smaller loaves. Eat one tonight and freeze the other for a busy day. Use as many of the different vegetables as you’d like or skip them altogether – but I recommend that you add them. They add a lot of flavor and they help to lighten the loaf.

2-3 slices of bread (or a leftover bagel, English muffin, whatever)
Milk
2-3 eggs
1-2 tablespoons ketchup or 1 tablespoon tomato paste

Olive oil, butter, or rendered fat (pork or chicken)
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium-to-large carrot, shredded
1 salad turnip, or a 2-3” chunk of daikon or Korean radish, peeled and shredded
½ of a red or green bell pepper, or a couple of slices of roasted red pepper from a jar, minced.
1 small zucchini, shredded, or some thinly sliced and chopped green cabbage, or napa cabbage, or kale, or other leafy green from your veggie CSA that you need to use up
As much chopped garlic as you like, or a handful of garlic chives, or a couple of garlic scapes, finely chopped
About ¼ cup dry vermouth or dry white wine, optional

2 lbs ground beef
1 lb ground pork or breakfast sausage

1. Place the bread in a large bowl and rip it into pieces. Add the milk and toss the bread around, letting it soak up the milk while you sauté the veggies.

2. Heat a large skillet and add 1-2 tablespoons of fat, oil, or butter. Cook the onion over medium heat until beginning to soften, stirring occasionally. Add the shredded carrot, radish, and bell pepper and cook until they wilt and soften, about 5 minutes. Add the shredded cabbage or zucchini and continue to cook until the veggie are soft and limp. Add the garlic/garlic chives/garlic scapes and cook for 2 min more. Add the vermouth and bring to a boil; let it simmer for a couple of minutes and then turn off the heat. Season with salt and pepper and then let the veggies cool a bit.

3. Use your fingers to rub the milk-soaked bread into small pieces – they to break up the lumps, unless you like lumps in your meatloaf. Add the eggs and ketchup and mix well with a fork. Carefull add the vegetable mixture and stir well.

4. Add the beef and pork to the bowl, then use your hands to mix everything together. I like to start by squishing with my fingers and then finish by kneading it together. Wipe your hands with a paper towel and then shape the mixture into 1 or 2 loaves. Place in a baking dish and bake at 350 for at least an hour – use a meat thermometer to check the temperature. I cook it to at least 160F.

5. Let cool for ~10 minutes, then slice and serve.


*I should note that I do try to avoid wasting food. Even though I spend more food dollars on CSA veggies and meats, I think less food goes to waste overall in the use-what-you-have approach to cooking.

** Kim, from Chestnut Farms, explained this a lot better in one of their newsletters (scroll down to November 2009, "Prime shares").

And So It Begins

I'm talking about CSA season, of course. It's Week Three, which means that we're scrambling for ideas to use up greens. Actually, I signed us up for a late winter/early spring CSA, too, so we've been feelin' the green over here for a couple months already.

I prefer to eat my greens in soup. Kale and sausage is a match made in heaven, but feels too heavy in the summertime. So lately I've been making lots of Asian-inspired soups because they're quick, easy and use lots of CSA produce!
This one is based on a recipe for haddock soup from Aeri’s Kitchen and a cod, chard and potato dish. I made this tonight with flounder fillets and bok choy and it was fantastic.


Korean-Inspired Fish Soup with Greens

For variety, you can add some cubes of firm tofu to the soup at the step when you add the fish. Or place a scoop of cooked rice, some cooked udon noodles or other noodles in each person’s serving bowl and ladle in the soup. Makes 3-4 servings.

6-8 cups of liquid: anchovy stock, fish stock, dashi, vegetable stock, or water
1 small onion, cut in half and sliced thin
~1 cup of peeled, thinly sliced Korean radish, daikon radish, or salad turnips
1 tablespoon chopped garlic, minced together with 1/2 teaspoon of salt (or to taste)
1 small hot pepper or a pinch of dried chili flakes, optional
1 to 1-1/2 pounds of fish fillets, cut into serving-sized pieces
2-3 scallions, cut into 1/2” pieces
A few large handfuls of mild-tasting greens (bok choy, chard, turnip greens, Napa cabbage, etc.), washed and chopped into bite-sized pieces
2-3 garlic scapes, sliced very thinly (optional)

1. Bring the liquid to a simmer in a low, wide pot. Add the onion, garlic, radish and optional hot pepper and simmer for 10 minutes.

2. Add the fish fillets and simmer gently for 5-10 minutes. Skim off the foam that rises to the surface of the soup, if you wish.

3. Add the scallions, greens and optional garlic scapes and simmer for another 5 minutes or just until the greens are tender.

4. Eat and feel virtuous – you used up all those veggies, AND you ate some fish.

Mary Had A Little (Ground) Lamb

The first time that I found ground lamb in the delivery from our meat CSA, I thought, Oh boy, lamburgers! Well, that’s not entirely true; I did think “lamburgers” but not “oh boy.” Lamb patties were in the regular supper rotation at our house when I was growing up. Simply fried up in a skillet and served without buns, I remember them - not fondly - as a little dry and not terribly exciting. I let my little packet of ground lamb languish, therefore, in the freezer for a few months…

…until I was perusing my Indian cookbook and thought, DUH. LAMB.

I tried out this little recipe for Kashmiri-style meatballs and Oh boy! for real. These are really wonderful. The recipe is easy to do and can be made ahead of time, then re-heated. So, it’s a great recipe for when you have a hankering to make a big Indian feast. The only real problem is that these meatballs taste so good you will wish you had made more of them.

I’m going to give you the recipe verbatim from the cookbook, but just so you know: I don’t really do it this way, because the sauce came out so oily. Maybe it’s just me and I’m doing something wrong, or maybe it’s just supposed to be oily. So what I did was: (1) make the meatball mixture, (2) fry it in a little olive oil, (3) add some water, garam masala, salt and pepper and (4) simmer. I didn’t have any dried milk, either. So maybe I didn’t really make Kashimiri Kofta Kari. But whatever it was, it sure was tasty.


Kashimiri Kofta Kari (Curried Meatballs, Kashimiri Style)
From The Complete Asian Cookbook, by Charmaine Solomon

1-1/2 pounds lean minced lamb
1 teaspoon finely greated ginger
2 fresh chilies, finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon chili powder
2 teaspoons garam masala
2 teaspoons salt [note: I only used about ½ teaspoon]
½ cup yogurt
3 tablespoons ghee [or olive oil]
1 tablespoon dried milk or khoa
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom

Put the lamb into a bowl with the ginger, chilies, coriander, chili powder and 1 teaspoon each of the garam masala and salt. Add 1 tablespoon of the yogurt to moisten the spices and help distribute them evenly. A teaspoon or so of the ghee can be added if the lamb is very lean. Mix well and form into small oval shapes.

Heat the ghee in a heavy saucepan, add the dried milk, sugar, remaining yogurt, garam masala and salt. Fry gently, then add a half cup of hot water, bring to the boil and add the koftas. Simmer, covered, until no liquid remains. Turn koftas over, add a half cup more hot water and the pepper, cover and simmer until the liquid is absorbed once more. Sprinkle the dish with cardamom and serve with Indian breads or rice. Cover after adding cardamom so its fragrance will not dissipate.

Serves 6. [6? 6 what??!? Small children, maybe. The hubby & I polished it off all by ourselves].

Confit Me

Is there a 12-step program for addiction to pork products? I sure hope so – after eating this pork confit tonight, I may need professional help to keep me from making it every week.

It began innocently enough. I had a small package of country-style pork ribs in the freezer and a pint of lard in the refrigerator. The pork was from our meat CSA; the lard, well, that was an impulse buy at the Polish market when I was shopping for Vigilia in December. I didn’t really know what to do with country-style ribs, but the lard got me thinking: meat…fat…confit.

Have you had duck confit? Artery-clogging, hypertension-inducing confit? Sometimes restaurants put “confit” on the menu, but the plate arrives containing a poseur: true confit is very salty, a little dry, and a bit chewy. Heaven in a duck leg, and it’s pretty good with pork, too. I’d first encountered the pork version on a pizza in Boston. I don’t remember the name of the place, and I don’t know if they’re still in business, but this place near the Brigham made an awesome pie with pork confit.

So I decided to have a go at making pork confit. I used Mark Bittman’s recipe as a guideline, but reduced the amounts of juniper and allspice berries in the brine because even I don’t keep a bucketful of those spices on hand. (I did have a bucketful of fennel seeds, though). The recipe calls for ½ cup of salt, but doesn’t specify kosher vs. regular salt. It matters because kosher salt is “fluffier” and is generally used in greater quantities than regular salt for brining purposes. To complicate matters, I was out of kosher salt and wanted to use up my kimchee salt. So I guessed: I used about 1/3 cup of kimchee salt, which I estimate is a little coarser (and a bit “wetter”) than plain table salt.

I let the pork soak in the brine for 48 hours. In retrospect, 24 hours of brining would have sufficed since I was using country-style ribs instead of a whole pork loin or shoulder. I also could have gone with a shorter cooking time: after 2-1/2 hours, the juices had completely evaporated and the meat began to caramelize a bit. So, 2 hours would probably have been enough time for the pork to become tender.

And oh, how tender it was! I started this last week – put the meat into brine on Thursday, cooked it in the fat on Saturday, then let it cool and stored it in the refrigerator. Today I scraped it all out into a pan and warmed it over low heat, then poured off most of the fat (saving it for the next batch of confit, don’t ya know) and added about 3 cups of drained, homemade saurkraut. (This time, it’s the fresh stuff – I never got around to canning this year’s batch of kraut). Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes until the kraut is tender. Eat and swoon.

And try not to do this again next week…

On Meats and Beans

In addition to the vegetable CSA that I joined last summer, we’ve been doing a meat CSA. For the most part, I love it: we get pasture-raised beef, pork, chicken and lamb (with an option to purchase an Heirloom Turkey at Thanksgiving) on a monthly basis. They charge a flat rate per pound, and you choose the total number of pounds that you want to receive each month.

I won’t get into all the reasons that we decided to go the CSA route for meat – that’s an entire post (or two) in its own right – but I will say that it’s definitely exacerbated my hoarding tendencies. If I’m gonna pay eight bucks a pound for meat, I’m gonna be darned sure that I get as much out of that meat as possible. Every scrap of fat and bone, therefore, gets saved or re-used in some way. It makes for an odd assortment of baggies in the freezer, but that's another story....

…which brings me to Dec 29th, 2009, on which I contemplated a menu for New Year’s Eve. I decided to go with a soup-based meal, since our guests would be arriving at different times and I didn’t want to be locked into the kitchen trying to Make Dinner Happen. I pulled out my favorite soup cookbook – Soups and Stews, by Bernard Clayton Jr.- and began to peruse recipes. The Seven Bean Soup caught my eye because (1) it could be made a day ahead, (2) I had a lot of dried beans on hand and (3) several teenagers were coming to the party and Bernard described the soup as “a large recipe that will feed a boy Scout patrol, a young football team or a crew freshly returned from a sail.”

(Here I will digress about dried beans: I love them for the vegetable garden, because they are soooo easy to grow. Plant them. Water them. Wait for the vines to die off in the fall, then harvest them. I choose which varieties to grow based mainly on what will look pretty in glass jars on the pantry shelf. Oh, all right, I do read the descriptions of taste, too, in the catalogs, but mostly it’s all about the pretty.)

In the pantry, I had some Hidatsa Shield Figure and Good Mother Stallard beans that I grew myself, some Jacob’s Cattle beans from the veggie CSA, and a few other organic varieties that I bought at Whole Foods (black beans, cannellini, and chick peas). I also had a lamb bone in the freezer, leftover from a small leg roast, that I thought would work okay in the broth-making step for this recipe – Bernard says to use veal bones, but I didn’t have any, and there’s another recipe for a lamb and bean stew that made me think the lamb bone just might work here. Some people don’t like the flavor of lamb, but I figured that all the smokiness from the ham hocks and sausage would hide any “game-y” character.

If you don’t have the exact types of beans that are called for in the recipe, you can substitute others, or use different proportions of the cited beans, though the soup does look pretty with all the different shapes and colors. As for my heirlooms, I found that the Hidatsas and the Jacob’s Cattle truly are very tasty beans. The next time I make this I will probably add a little more sausage so that it has a greater presence in the bowl.

Since you make the broth from scratch, it takes a while to complete this recipe. You can do it in stages, however, over the course of a weekend: start soaking the beans and make the ham broth on Friday night, cook the beans on Saturday, and put it all together on Sunday. This soup was really delicious…and it did indeed make enough to feed a crew freshly returned from a sail.


Seven Bean Soup
Adapted from Soups and Stews, by Bernard Clayton Jr.

½ cup of each dried beans: navy beans, pinto beans, cranberry beans, kidney beans, black-eyed beans, garbanzos (chick peas), lima beans
Water
2 smoked ham hocks
1 pound soup bones, preferable veal [or whatever you have in the freezer from your meat CSA]
2 tablespoons butter
2 medium onions, chopped finely
2 medium carrots, chopped finely
4 stalks celery, chopped finely
1 clove garlic, minced
½ cup vermouth or dry white wine, optional
1 28-ounce can tomatoes, including the liquid
1 pound of garlic sausage (Portuguese liguica, Italian sausage, Polish kielbasa or other)
Salt, if desired or necessary [it wasn’t]
Black pepper to taste

Combine the beans in a large bowl and rinse them in cold water, taking care to remove any stones or grit. Add enough water to the bowl to cover the beans by 2” and let them soak overnight.

The next day, place the ham hocks and soup bone(s) with enough water to cover them by 2” – about 10 cups of water. Bring the water to a boil, partially cover the pot with a lid and simmer over low heat for 2-1/2 hours. Skim off any brown film as it collects on the surface.

While the broth is simmering, drain the beans. Transfer them to another saucepan and add water to cover by 2-3” – about 4 quarts of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 1 hour or until the beans are cooked al dente – definitely not mushy. Drain the beans, reserving some of the cooking liquid in the event it is needed to thin the soup later.

Cut the sausage on the diagonal into ¼”-thick slices. Heat a large soup pot over medium heat and add the sausage slices. Cook until the fat is released and the sausage is browned, about 10 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the cooked sausage to a bowl lined with paper towels and discard any excess fat in the pan.

Add the butter to the soup pot and let the foam subside, then add the onion, carrots, celery and garlic. Cook over medium-low heat until the vegetables are translucent, but not browned, about 8 minutes. Add the vermouth, if using, and simmer for a few minutes until the liquid is mostly gone. [At this point, you can turn off the heat and wait for the ham hocks to finish simmering].

When the ham hocks are cooked, turn off the heat and remove the hocks from the pot. Let them cool a bit and then cut the meat off of them, removing the layers of fat. Cut the meat into bite-sized pieces and add to the soup pot containing the cooked vegetables. Discard the fat and bones (if you are preparing the broth a day ahead, you can chill it overnight and remove the fat from the surface the next day. Otherwise use a gravy separator to easily de-fat the ham broth).

Pour the ham broth into the soup pot that contains the cooked veggies. Add the tomatoes and the drained, cooked beans. Add the sausage slices, bring to a boil and simmer over medium-low heat for 30-45 minutes. Taste for seasoning. Salt cautiously, if at all, because the ham will have made its contribution. Add black pepper to taste. Serve with a green salad, a nice country bread, and plenty of butter.

Lo Mein of Lamb & Leftovers

Some days, things just don't go as planned.

I've been trying hard to cook with what I need to use, vs. what I feel like eating - a necessary skill when you've invested in both meat and veggie CSAs. A quick survey of the fridge last night told me that tonight's supper would be something along the lines of braised tofu with cabbage (and no, it was not CSA tofu).

Then this morning I arose with, ugh, a sore throat and sniffles. (It is not, I believe, the Dreaded Flu). I was also dismayed to discover that I'd used up the last of my Korean ginger-honey tea concentrate - nothing whacks a sore throat upside the head like a good dose of ginger. So in I went to our local Hong Kong Market (formerly Super 88) in search of more tea, but instead walked out with some fresh shitake mushrooms and a nice bunch of garlic chives. (They were out of the tea).

(An aside: for years, I avoided fresh shitakes. I was introduced to the dried version by a Chinese-American friend who told me to never buy the fresh ones because they have little flavor. I stuck by that for years, until I discovered bibimbap and learned that yes, Virginia, fresh shitakes do have a place on the plate).

Why did I buy the 'shrooms and chives? It's not like I *needed* them; the fridge is already too full. We are still finishing up the Thanksgiving feast, although that (thankfully) is at last down to the final bits of turkey & wild rice soup. I really think I must have some kind of grocery shopping compulsion...at any rate, I knew I was gonna have to face the music when I put the new booty away. As I opened the fridge, the produce stared me down, as if, how could you? There's two-week-old kale in here!

Which brings me to the recipe/method for this post: lo mein. It, along with fried rice, enchiladas and curry of miscellaneous vegetables is one of my standard, clean-out-the-fridge tricks. Because yes, in addition to veggies I didn't need, I bought noodles I didn't need. A friend got me onto using thick, chewy udon noodles for lo mein (which maybe means that I shouldn't be calling it lo mein, if I use a different noodle? I am no expert, for sure, in the nomenclature of noodle dishes). You can find ones that are pre-cooked, which saves a step at dinner time and a dirty pot at cleanup time.

The basic method is to chop up some garlic and onions, whatever veggies you have on hand, and whatever leftover meat you have (or use tofu, or just skip it). Stir-fry the veggies in a little peanut oil or sesame oil, adding the longer-cooking veg to the skillet or wok first. When all the veggies are cooked, dump them into a bowl. Add a little more oil to the pan, add the garlic and cook for a few seconds, then add the meat/tofu/nothing. When the meat is heated through, add that to the bowl. If you are feeling highly motivated, scramble an egg in the pan, turn it out on a plate and chop it with a knife. Finally, add a little more oil to the pan, add the noodles and some seasoning (soy sauce, fish sauce, rice wine vinegar, black vinegar, brown bean sauce, all of the above) and a little water and cook to soften the noodles. Dump the cooked veggies, meat, and egg on top of the noodles and use a big spatula or chan to turn everything over and combine. Taste for seasoning and add some chopped green onion, cilantro, or basil as a garnish.

What was different about tonights lo mein was the leftovers I had to work with: the two-week-old purple kale (which looked surprisingly fresh. Must be something about buying direct from the farmer there!) and a mostly-consumed small leg of lamb. I don't think I've ever seen lamb and kale together, but what do I know, anyway? And then it occurred to me, lamb goes well with garlic, so why not garlic chives? I decided to go for it. Then while I was cooking, the words "hoisin-glazed lamb" surfaced from somewhere deep in the back of my head.

The final result was (surprisingly) tasty, and quite pretty. The purple kale turned almost black when cooked, making a nice contrast with the thick white noodles, the green chives and some red bell pepper (that also needed to be used up). Unfortunately, I don't have a photo to show you because I forgot to take a pic before dinner, and then - we ate it all up.

Of course, I'm still left with the cabbage and tofu, which means that's got to be on the menu for tomorrow night...with mushrooms.


Lo Mein with Leftover Lamb

peanut and sesame oil
1 small red onion (or 1/2 large), sliced
about 1/2 cup red bell pepper, diced
6-8 fresh shitake mushrooms, stems removed, caps sliced
1/2 small bunch purple kale (or other greens), washed well and chopped
about 1 cup diced cooked lamb
about 1/2 cup garlic chives, washed and cut into 1" lengths
1 pound fresh udon or other noodles, cooked 9and drained, if you can't find the precooked variety)
1-2 tablespoons each of soy sauce, hoisin sauce, and ice wine vinegar or black vinegar

Heat a wok or large frypan over high heat. Add a little peanut oil (~1 tablespoon) and the onion and stir-fry for a few minutes, then add the bell pepper. Stir-fry until the onion and pepper are beginning to soften, then add the mushrooms. Stir-fry for a few more minutes, then add the kale and a little water to the pan. Let the veggies simmer, turning occasionally and adding a little more water as needed until the kale is just tender, about 5 minutes (longer if you have tougher or older greens).

Add the lamb and cook for a minute or two, then place the noodles in the pan and pour the soy sauce, hoisin sauce and vinegar on top. Turn down the heat to medium and use a pair of tongs or a wooden spoon to gently nudge the noodles apart. Turn everything over to mix gently, adding the garlic chives. Add a little more water if the pan seems dry or you want a thinner sauce. Taste and correct seasonings (the sauce will be sweet from the hoisin). Eat.

Make 2-4 servings, depending on how hungry you are and if you are making other dishes.


Notes:
(1) You can, of course, use dried shitakes for this. Save the water that you soak them in (strain it through a coffee filter set in a funnel or sieve) and add it to the wok when you cook the kale. (2) If you can't find garlic chives, or don't want the angst of trying to use up the leftovers, substitute a couple cloves of garlic, finely chopped, and some green onions/scallions cut into 1" sections. Add the garlic to the pan with the meat and the green onions with the soy sauce.

CSA Week Number...Oh Lordy, I Have No Idea What Week It Is, But Here's A Tasty Recipe That Uses Lots of Veggies

I make this quick little curry thing a lot. Last week, I served it to a friend for lunch, and told at least two other friends about it, so I figured it was time to write it down and share it with the masses. (Or, ummm, the small group of people who read this blog). It's nice as a side dish with other curries, or meat or chicken (roasted, grilled, baked, whatever you like). Make a big batch of it; it keeps in the fridge for a few days. Serve it over hot rice with a fried egg and some hot sauce; instant dinner! (and yes, that IS a rip-off on bibim bap. I never claimed to be a purist).

This is a clean-out-the fridge recipe, which makes it perfect for a CSA post. There is not strict rule about which vegetables to use, except that you should use veggie you like to eat, of course. For maximum eye appeal, aim to have something red (hot or sweet red peppers), something green (zucchini, green beans, green bell peppers, green peas, broccoli, spinach or other leafys), and something orange (carrots, sweet potato or winter squash) along with something white (potatoes and/or cauliflower), but almost any combination of veggies will work. Mushrooms are quite good in this, too. And chick peas! Or white beans! You get the idea.

Since the version I made this week is most fresh in my mind, that's what I'll write, with the following note: don't get too hung up on amounts. The point of this "recipe" is to use up what you have on hand. So, it says to use 1/2 of a cauliflower because I had already used the other 1/2 for something else. The quantity can be scaled up, and you can add more curry powder if the flavor is not strong enough for you. Just be sure to add the veggies that take longest to cook first; the quicker-cooking ones go in last.

Mixed Vegetable Curry
(A more or less Original Recipe)

1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion (small, med or large, depending on how much you love onions), chopped
1 tsp or more Madras brand curry powder (I use about 1 tablespoon, but I like spicy salty food)
a few tablespoons of dry sherry, optional
1 can diced tomatoes (don't drain them) or ~2 cups fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 pound red-skinned or Yukon gold potatoes (leave them whole if small, cut into 1-2" chunks if large)
1/2 head of cauliflower, cut into small floweretts
1/2 lb green beans, cut into 1" pieces
1/2 red bell pepper, cut into strips.
1 small zucchini, cut into strips 1/2" wide and 1" long
chopped fresh cilantro or flat-leaf parsley, optional
lemon or lime juice, optional
salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pan (skillet, unless you are adding fresh leafy greens - in that case, use a large pot with a lid so you have room to add the greens). Add the chopped onion and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. If you have time, lower the heat and continue cooking the onion until it is light golden in color, about 20 minutes longer - not necessary but it will give added flavor to your curry.

2. Add the curry powder to the pan. Stir and cook for about a minute over medium heat, until the curry powder is fragrant or someone wanders into the kitchen and says, "mmm what smells so good?"

3. Add the sherry (if using) and stir to combine, then add the tomatoes. Stir well, then simmer over medium heat for about 10 minutes. At this point, you can turn off the heat and go do something else for an hour or two.

4. Reheat the pan (if needed) and add the longest-cooking veggies that can take a little overcooking: potatoes (or carrots). Stir well, then cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

5. Add the medium-cooking veggies that you'd prefer to not overcook: cauliflower, green beans and red bell pepper. Stir well, cover and simmer for 10 minutes

6. Add the delicate veggies that turn to mush when overcooked: zucchini (or yellow squash), baby spinach. Stir, cover and simmer another 5 minutes.

7. Poke everything with a fork to make sure it is cooked. Add chopped cilantro or parsley and a squeeze of lime or lemon juice, then season with salt and pepper.

Braised Greens with Sausage

I ended up making this for lunch today - I couldn't hold out until dinnertime. Plus, my son was occupying himself nicely so it seemed prudent to seize the opportunity and get cooking.

You can use almost any types of greens in this, and almost any type of sausage. I had collards and turnip greens on hand from this weeks' CSA delivery. I put the collards in the pot first and let them wilt down before adding the turnip greens, since the collards take a bit longer to cook. As for sausage, I prefer smoked pork ones like kielbasa; chorizo and linguica are really good too. But any type of sausage would probably do - whatever you have on hand (or is on sale). If you get a low-fat variety, keep an eye on it during the browning step - it seems like lower-fat sausages burn more quickly (maybe the add extra sugar to the cure?). If you're in a hurry, you can skip the sausage-browning step altogether. It does add a lot of flavor, though, so I do it whenever I have time.

Leftovers make a great soup - cut the sausages and greens into bite-sized pieces. Add chicken stock (or a stock made from shrimp shells - YUM) and some cubed potatoes or white beans (aka cannellini), simmer until the potatoes are cooked and EAT.


Braised Greens with Smoked Sausages
Serves 2-4 people, depending on how hungry you are

a few tablespoons olive oil or bacon grease
1 pound smoked sausage, cut into 3-4" long pieces and sliced in half lengthwise
1 medium onion, cut in half and sliced thin
3-4 big cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed down with the side of a chef's knife or small plate (or minced, if you prefer)
a splash of vermouth
2 bunches of greens (collards, kale, turnip, mustard, etc), washed and coarsely chopped

1. Heat the oil in a large stockpot (8-quart) set over medium heat. Add the sausage pieces, cut side down, and cook until they are starting to brown. Flip them over and let brown a bit on the other side, keeping an eye on the drippings in the pot - you don't want them to burn.

2. Take the sausages out of the pot and set them on a plate. Add the sliced onion and garlic to the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion starts to soften. Add a splash of vermouth or water and stir to get up the good browned stuff.

3. Put the chopped greens in the pan and cover. Let them cook for a few minutes, then uncover the pot and stir to bring the greens from the bottom up on top. Cover and cook until all of the greens are wilted (5-10 minutes, total). If you have a lot of greens, you may need to add half of them, cook until wilted, and then add the other half.

4. Uncover the pot and lay the sausages back on top of the greens. Sprinkle with ground black pepper and simmer, covered, over medium-low heat until the greens are tender, another 10-20 minutes (taste the greens after 10 minutes to see if they are done to your liking. The stems of the collards should be tender). Taste for seasoning (I don't usually add salt, because the sausage is salty enough) and serve with some good crusty bread.

CSA Week 2: A Case of Fairly Bad Timing

Another one of my little concerns with going the CSA route was, will I use everything up each week? One reason that I've stopped "meal planning" a week's worth of meals at a time is that things often change and you end up eating out one night, or you just can't work up the energy to make borscht another, and then there you are with all those beets. Even though I'd signed up for a half/single share with the CSA, I was still worried about having too many veggies. So it was with great relief, and no small quantity of smugness, that I used the last of last week's share on Monday.

Then on Tuesday, a nice man came to our house and repainted our circa-1940's glazed-enamel kitchen sink. This was significant because Tuesday is also the day for our weekly veggie pickup. Usually I like to wash some of the greens right away - prewashing them gets a somewhat messy and time-consuming step out of the way, and most greens will be OK for a day or two if you dry them well before you store them in the fridge. On Tuesday, however, the whole kitchen was masked off to protect it from paint spray, and we were under strict instructions to refrain from using the sink for the next 10 hours: conditions not ideal for washing, let alone cooking, a big haul of leafy greens. Plus, my hubby had a business dinner, and I was too tired from the day too even think about cooking. No veggies, therefore, were consumed on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, my hubby jetted off on a three-day business trip, leaving me with a head of lettuce, a bunch of collard greens, a bunch of baby turnips, two wicked big bunches of bok choy, and two garlic scapes all to myself. (Well, okay, my son is here, but three-year-olds aren't generally known to be voracious veggie eaters). What to do?

What to do. The collards are pretty young, so a quick braise with some garlic and kielbasa should do nicely for them. I like sausage-and-greens dishes, because the leftovers keep well and when you think you can't eat them anymore, they can be sliced up and turned into soup (add some diced potatoes or cannellini beans). So that's on the menu for tomorrow night. The bok choy should be able to hold out until Friday when I'll stir-fry it with a Player To Be Named Later. Thanks to the trusty Internet I've just learned that garlic scapes can be stir-fried (and also, what the heck garlic scapes are). But how about those turnips? They were billed as "salad turnips," meaning that they can be eaten raw, such as sliced up in a salad. They still have their greens attached, so I'll add those to tomorrow night's collards and kielbasa. I sliced up a turnip to taste a sample and it reminded me of daikon radish, and that made me think of radish kimchee.

I love radish kimchee. Sometimes I buy it in a jar, but mostly I make it at home using a recipe from Korean Cuisine by Young Sook Choi (note: I bought this book in the English/Chinese version from Amazon, but currently only the Korean edition is listed. Caveat emptor). It's not really a fermented kimchee - it only sits out for a day - but it's easy, quick and oh so yummy. (Well, if you like spicy food). I usually serve it as a side dish when I make Korean food or any Asian-style barbequed meat for dinner. You can also use it as one of the veggie dishes in bibim bap. Or for a really fast dinner, cook some rice, add a fried egg and some radish (or any other, for that matter) kimchee. Sometimes I even eat it with a little leftover rice for breakfast. And, radish kimchee can be kept in the refrigerator for a week - and if you have any left by then, you can add a little anchovy broth to whip up a kimchee stew (or a modified radish soup, which I'll post someday). (And now I really need to write that post on anchovy broth!).

Since the salad turnips tasted so much like radishes, I decided to give this a whirl. I think it's pretty tasty. One note; I don't think there's a substitute for Korean red pepper powder; you can try it with other red chilies but I just don't think it'll be the same. Make space in your cupboard for some go chu ga ru (red pepper powder) and in your fridge for some go chu jang (Korean hot pepper paste; not used in this particular recipe but in many others that I love); with those two things, you can make a lot of really great food.


Turnip Kimchee

A warning: this stuff is pretty addictive. I've eaten about a third of the batch, just while I was writing up this post. So much for "preserving the harvest."

8-10 oz baby turnips (1 small bunch, about 7 2-3" baby turnips), washed but not peeled, sliced thin
1 scallion, chopped into small pieces (1/2" or less
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon Korean red pepper powder
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 small garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon minced or finely grated fresh ginger (optional).

Mix everything together. Transfer into a sealed container and let it sit around at room temperature for a while (up to overnight). Keeps refrigerated for one week.

CSA week 1: Lots of Leafys

The veggie CSA that we're participating in started up this week. I was excited to see what we'd be getting, though I knew that, with this being New England and all, the selection would be limited. We ended up with lettuce, Swiss Chard, and spinach (and also strawberries and rhubarb, since I purchased a fruit share in addition to the veggies). Everything looked great and really fresh. (One of my pet peeves about "certified organic" produce is that it often suffers from a lack of proper storage. If you're going to all the trouble to grow "organic," why not keep the potatoes at a proper temperature until you sell them? It's not rocket science; it's a root cellar).

What to do with this bounty? This question seemed especially important since it's likely that the same players will be featured in next week's share, so I need to be ready. My hubby likes to have a salad for lunch everyday so I wasn't too worried about using that up. And I make Korean food often enough that the recipe for sesame spinach (also known as spinach salad) has full occupancy in my brain (and better yet, uses up a lot of spinach). My son ate the entire quart of strawberries within a day, and I found a good recipe for rhubarb bread, so those two were taken care of, too.

But the Swiss chard...I love the taste of leafy greens, but I hit a cook's block (kind of like a writer's block, but in the kitchen) when it comes to remembering ways to cook them. One can eat only so much chard sauteed with garlic. Then I remembered this recipe that was published in the Boston Globe Magazine (who hopefully won't hunt me down and sue me since I credit them fully). As a service to my fellow CSA members (who are also challenged by chard) and myself (who is just plain forgetful) I'm reposting the recipe here.

I must disclose that I haven't made this recipe yet - I'm going to make it for dinner tomorrow night. I'm posting it now, though, because (1) I have made other, very similar recipes and I liked them a lot, so I'm brashly confident that it'll turn out okay (I'll probably skip the fennel 'cause I don't have any right now, and use sorrel instead of basil because that's what's in the garden), (2) this recipe was one of the winners in a "one-pot meals" cooking contest, and (3) there will be wine with dinner tomorrow night, which means I'll be too sleepy to post it after I eat it. Therefore, I will take the risk and post an untested recipe: eater beware.

Cod with Swiss Chard and Potatoes
Source: The Boston Globe, February 17, 2008
Serves 6 (note: can be scaled down to serve fewer people)

2 1 1/2-pound skinless cod fillets
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 lemon
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, cut in half and thinly sliced
1 bulb fennel, cored and thinly sliced
1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes, drained
3 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, thinly sliced and set aside in a bowl of water
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
6 cups coarsely chopped Swiss chard
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups chopped fresh basil (optional)

Rinse the cod, pat dry, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Squeeze the lemon over the fillets and set the fish aside.

In a large saute pan over medium heat, heat the olive oil. Add the onion and fennel, season with salt and pepper, and cook until vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes. Mix in the tomatoes and simmer the mixture for about 5 minutes.

Remove the potato slices from the water, dry them on paper towels, and arrange them on top of the tomato mixture. Season with more salt and pepper, add the chicken broth, cover, and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes.

Lay the cod fillets on top of the potatoes and put the Swiss chard on top of the fish. Cover again and cook until the chard is wilted and the fish is cooked through, about 10 minutes.

Take the pan off the heat and divide the chard among 6 plates. Divide the fish into portions and place on top of the chard, then divide and arrange the potatoes around the fish.

Put the pan back on the heat, add the butter to the sauce, and stir to mix. Reduce for about 2 minutes, then adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Add basil, if using, to the sauce, stir to mix, and spoon over the fish. Serve immediately.