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").

Baking Powder vs. Baking Soda

Yesterday, I began my holiday biscotti baking marathon. I make 14 to 17 batches every year: orange-hazelnut, classic vanilla-almond, and anise pignoli.(See http://www.neighborhood-dish.org/ for recipes). I didn't manage to do any baking last year, so it took me a while to get back into the groove. One of the things I forgot to do was check on my ingredients, so while he first batch was baking the second time, I ran out to Stop & Shop to pick up more flour and eggs, and to replace my almost-expired baking powder. There was a choice of single-acting and double-acting. Afraid the double-acting would raise twice as high, I opted for the former. (This shows you my screwed-up sense of logic.)

That got me to wondering. I know I learned the difference between baking powder and baking soda in high school cooking classes, but 30+ years later, it's slipped my mind. But now, in 2010, we have the internet and a quick search online answered this question and then some. Here are some key points:

• Baking powder contains baking soda, which is simply sodium bicarbonate. Sodium bicarbonate is made by combining limestone and salt in ammonia. (Doesn't sound too appetizing, does it?)
• Baking soda needs an acid to form carbon dioxide, which is what makes the baked good rise. Baking powder contains cream of tartar, which provides the acid. Usually, it also contains some kind of starch. the one I bought contains cornstarch. Adding liquid activates leavening.
• Double-acting baking soda is so-called because it starts leavening when mixed with liquid and then again when it is heated. So when you use single-acting, you need to bake it right away, but when you use double-acting, you can wait a bit. So, I guess I should have opted for the double-acting!
• You can substitute baking powder for baking soda (adjusting quantities), but not vice versa. However, you can make baking powder by mixing baking soda (1 part) and cream of tartar (2 parts. I suppose you could add some cornstarch, too.
• Both baking soda and baking powder expire. I'd thought it was only baking powder. Use vinegar to test baking soda (1/4 t. baking soda to 1 t. vinegar), and hot water to test baking powder (1 t. baking powder to 1/2 c. hot water).

Well, those are the basics. I'd better go test my baking soda!

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for the New Year!

My Secret Affair

I have a confession to make - I’m a little bit in love. He’s short, cute, and has a bit of a belly. He usually keeps things all closed up inside, but sometimes he lets off steam. And he says the cutest little things in Korean.

I’m talking about my new son, right? Well, yeah, I’m in love with him too – but I’m talking about my new rice cooker.

My old rice cooker was cheap but functional. I bought it 20 years ago, at a small appliance store in West Los Angeles that’s no longer in business (I think the store left LA before I did). It cost about 20 bucks and man, I thought that thing was miraculous. How the heck did it know when the rice was done? The whole rice cooker thing, in general, was new to me.

If you don’t have a rice cooker, you may wonder what the big deal is. For me, who tends to use every pot in the kitchen when I cook, the ability to cook rice without using a stovetop burner is incredibly liberating. (This has become even more important now that I have kids and pretty much never use the front burners on my stove – too easy for little fingers to reach). In addition, the rice always comes out so much better than when I try to cook it in a saucepan. After a few uses, I was hooked.

The one drawback to my old cheapo rice cooker was its tendency to burn the bottom layer of rice. We got around this for years by simply unplugging the cooker a soon as the rice was done, but after a while (a long while) I started to think that I deserved better. After all, that burned layer of rice was wasteful, wasn’t it? Even if we got to the cooker in time and it wasn’t totally inedible, it was still stuck to the cooker and we were wasting rice. And then there was the vanity aspect. I am not much for keeping up with the Joneses (or should I say, the Kims?) but for heavens’ sake – I’m over 40, I’m on my second set of good knives (you can’t sharpen them forever, ya know), IT’S TIME TO GET A DECENT RICE COOKER.

And then paralysis set in, once I started to research all the different types of cookers. Fuzzy logic? Is that related to fuzzy math? I’d stand in front of rice cooker displays and my eyes would glaze over. Finally, a friend recommended a brand that is very popular in Korea and (even better) went to Hmart with me to pick one out.

Here it is. I think it is a fuzzy logic/pressure cooker type, but since I still haven’t read the whole manual I’m not too sure:

Isn’t it adorable? It has all these fancy functions, too, for cooking old rice, sushi rice, chicken soup, and multi-cook (which I think is like pressure cooking). The manual came with an English version, but the recipe book did not. So my friend kindly translated a few of the recipes and I have been having sooo much fun learning how to drive this puppy. It makes beef stew in under an hour! AND keeps it hot until you get home! So much better than a crock-pot, in my opinion, which I never really grokked with anyway.

And oh yeah, it makes awesome rice. The best I’ve ever made, anyway. I am blessed with children who think that seaweed and rice is a perfectly acceptable dinner (though they’d prefer if I make some broccoli, too). Since this baby has a timer, I can put the rice in before we leave for swim class, and when we get home, ta dah! Dinner is ready.

A fuuny thing, though, is that my friend who recommended it told me that she hadn’t used many of the fancy-cooking functions –she was only making rice. But now I’ve got her trying out the multi-cook thang, too. I’m not really ready to post a “recipe” because I’m still in the “getting to know you” phase with my rice cooker, but if anyone has some ideas or suggestions for what’s worked in their Cuckoo, I’d love to know.

If You Can't Take the Heat,

...make something else.

It’s hot here. Too hot to do much in the kitchen except sip iced coffee and complain about the heat. Last week, I took advantage of my husband’s absence and cooked as little as possible for myself and the kids. I made a few meals that were each followed by the highly ceremonial Much Reheating of Leftovers.

Eventually, even I got tired of seeing the same stuff. And I knew that my hubby would be especially appreciative of a home-cooked meal after eating restaurant food for a week. (An aside: you can trick people into thinking that you’re a better cook than you really are by cooking for them when they’re REALLY hungry). So I wanted to make something really tasty but without heating up the kitchen.

The answer to this problem? Thai-style garlic shrimp. There’s a bit of prep work involved, but the actual cooking goes really, really fast. The stovetop was on for less than five minutes. I served the shrimp with rice made in the rice cooker (another trick to keeping the kitchen cool) and that cucumber salad that usually accompanies satay (because we also got a cucumber in the CSA box this week). You could also serve a simple green salad, or this Thai-style slaw.

These recipes come from Real Thai: The Best of Thailand’s Regional Cooking by Nancie McDermott. It’s the first Thai cookbook I bought and remains my go-to whenever I’m in the mood for Thai food. Which hasn’t been very often, of late; I’ve been so wrapped up with learning Korean food that I neglected my first love. The Cilantro Pesto is a great recipe; although I use it often in a marinade for grilled chicken, tonight was the first time I’d tried it with shrimp. Since you can scale up the recipe to make a big batch of pesto, it’s also useful for when you get a big, beautiful bunch of cilantro in your CSA box.

Goong Gratiem (Garlic Shrimp)
From Real Thai by Nancie McDermott

Nancie says, “Thais make this dish with a lot of oil and enjoy it as a savory sauce for rice, but you could make it with just enough oil to keep everything from sticking or burning and still have a tasty dish.”

Karen says, if you want to get out of the kitchen completely, you can grill the shrimp. Just rub them with the pesto and a bit of oil right before you cook them.

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 tablespoons Cilntro Pesto
1 tablespoon fish sauce
A few fresh cilantro leaves, for garnish

Heat a wok or medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil and swirl to coat the surface. When the oil is very hot but not smoking, add the shrimp and stir-fry until they begin to color on both sides, about 1 minute. Add the pesto and stir-fry until it coats the shrimp and begins to cook, about 1 minute. Add the fish sauce and toss the shrimp for another 15 seconds to mix it in. Transfer the shrimp and sauce to a serving platter. Sprinkle with the cilantro leaves and serve. (2-3 main-dish servings).


Rahk Pahk Chee-Gratiem-Prik Thai (Cilantro Pesto)
from Real Thai by Nancie McDermott

Nancie says, “This simple combination of three intense Southeast Asian flavors is a classic seasoning of Thai cuisine…You may find yourself noticing new ways to use it, tossed with hot poasta or new potatoes, stirred into stocks, or dolloped on soups.”

Karen says, you can make this with a mortar and pestle, or in a food processor. Or sometimes I chop everything roughly on a big wooden cutting board, then get out a meat mallet and whack away at it. It makes a bit of a mess but is much more fun.

1 teaspoon whole white or black peppercorns [or ~1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper]
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh cilantro roots or leaves and stems
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped garlic

Using a mortar and pestle or a spic grinder, crush or grind the peppercorns to a fine powder. Combine the pepper, cilantro roots, and garlic and work the 3 ingredients into a fairly smooth paste in the mortar on in a small blender or food processor. If you use the blender or food processor, you may need to add a little vegetable oil or water to ease the grinding.

Makes about ¼ cup. Note: To increase the amount to 1 cup of pesto, use 1 tablespoon of peppercorns, ½ cup cilantro roots, and ½ cup garlic. Put it in a glass jar, pour a little oil onto the surface to cover it and close the jar. It will keep nicely for about 1 week in the refrigerator.


Cucumber Pickles
from...oh, you know by now where it's from

¼ cup white vinegar [I used rice wine vinegar]
¼ cup water
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 large cucumber, peeled, cut lengthwise and seeds removed, then sliced ¼” thick
3 tablespoons coarsely chopped shallot or purple onion [or any onion]
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh hot chili [or a dash or dried chili flakes]
1 tablespoon finely chopped dry-roasted peanuts
A few fresh cilantro leaves

Combine the vinegar, water, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a gentle boil, stirring to dissolve sugar and salt. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature.

Just before serving time, peel and slice the cucumber. Combine the cucumber slices with the vinegar dressing, shallot, and chilies and divide between 2 serving bowls. Sprinkle each serving with peanuts and garnish with a few leaves of cilantro. [Karen’s note: I served it family-style and skipped the peanuts]

Up On A Soopbox

I’ve got something on my mind..

Exhibit A: A friend stopped by to have coffee this morning, and our conversation turned to food, or more specifically, the preparation of food. I forget exactly where we were in conversation when she made a comment that made me pause. To paraphrase, she sighed wistfully: some people just have an innate ability to know how to put things together. She then went on to say she thought that I was one of those people, whereas she was not.

Exhibit B: Flashback to Thanksgiving 2009, and the whole family is gathering for an epic feast. I offered to do most of the cooking, mostly because only me and one other family member really enjoy cooking, especially for a crowd. During the weekend, two different people thanked me for doing so much of the cooking, but then went on to say that “it’s easier for you, because you like to cook.”

Exhibit C: Flashback even farther to years ago when some people we know had children, and we did not. It was Christmastime and I brought an assortment of cookies. One person looked at those cookies and proclaimed, You won’t have time to cook like this after you have kids! (My snarky yet - wisely - unspoken reply: Yeah, well, you didn’t cook like this BEFORE you had kids).

And my point(s), to all this whining?

Cooking is a learned skill. Yes, my friend from Exhibit A, I now feel that I can mostly “wing it” even if I don’t have a recipe, but that’s because I learned by cooking FROM recipes for the last 20 years. Even someone as thickheaded as me should pick up a few things after that much time. Sure, some people have a greater interest in and talent for cooking than others, but I wish you wouldn’t feel discouraged just because you think you lack some innate ability.

Cooking is work. And although I enjoy cooking, that doesn’t make it less work! It does make the task less onerous. And Exhibit B family, I was oh so happy to hand over the dirty dishes to you – I would much rather cook than clean, but you already know that since you’ve seen my house.

Cooking is a habit. Exhibit C friend, you were right – you do have MUCH less time to cook after you have kids. The arrival of our 2nd made me even more grateful that the cooking habit had been firmly ingrained long before the children arrived. Call me compulsive, but I MUST MAKE SUPPER. I’m also grateful that my kids will eat almost anything – they’re happy with seaweed and rice for supper, though most nights I still manage to throw something half-decent together (ref. Exhibit A). I’m sure that my hubby has noticed a decline in the quality and “fanciness” of the food lately, but hey – it’s still all homemade.

So there you have it: my cooking philosophy. Cooking is a habit that takes effort to learn. Now go make something.

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.

Just Don't Forget the Wasabi

We're back! The trip was great and all went well, food-wise and family-wise. I didn't post any more food videos because we spent Thursday afternoon at the baths (and I wasn't about to record THAT experience) and were too tired to go out again that night for dinner. Friday morning was spent on last-minute errands and then that afternoon, we went to pick up Little Brother.

Sometime last year, I was telling a friend about Little Brother and how he'd be almost a year old by the time we brought him home. The first thing she said was, Gee, he'll already be speaking/understanding the Korean language. I chuckled to myself because MY first thought had been, Gee, he'll already be eating Korean food. That tells you where my priorities lie.

When I finally got to meet Little Brother, one of the questions that I asked his foster mother was, what does he like to eat? She told me that he drank formula (250 ml every 4 hours!) and had a little rice porridge - jook - twice a day. She also said that she would give him a little of whatever the family was having at mealtimes. I did not get the impression, however, that he usually ate considerable amounts of solid food.

Back to Friday - that night's dinner was takeout sushi and bao from the food halls in the basement of the Shinsegae department store. Little Brother had fallen asleep during the taxi ride back to the hotel, so Paula ventured out to forage for our supper. The Lottle Department store has a food court/food hall in its basement too, also full of wondrous stuff: kiosks with bakery, confectionery, sushi, Indian food, etc. The Shinsegae store has an upscale market within (this was the place where I took photos of seaweed and anchovies on our last trip).

Paula set out the victuals on the coffee table and we tucked in. Partway through our meal, Little Brother roused himself and declared that he was hungry. So I promptly warmed up a bottle that his foster mom had prepared, gathered him into my arms, and prepared for the first feeding/bonding moment with my new son. Who looked at the bottle, looked at me, and then...slowly and deliberately...looked at the sushi. Then he looked back at me. The message was clear: why aren't you sharing?

Since we arrived back in Boston, it's become apparent that Little Brother is, in fact, quite used to solid food. Thus far everything that's been put in front of him has gone down the hatch to varying degrees (mostly depending upon the texture of the food - sweet potato and strawberries tend to slip out of his grasp, whereas green beans provide a more secure purchase). He has no interest in spoon feeding, and while I miss that baby-bird look of openmouthed searching, it is much easier to let him finger-feed on whatever we're having for dinner. Because if I give something to Big Brother and don't put it on little brother's plate too...he notices. Oh yes, he notices.