Week 1

[Posted by Ruth]

There is a light at the end of the lettuce tunnel and it's called Lettuce Soup!

I googled "what to do with too much lettuce" and found recipes for lettuce soup.  Most of them are thickened with a potato and pureed; to be served hot or cold.  This seemed like a solution to...

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The mountain of lettuce that remains in spite of our diligent salad eating this week.  I decided I would use a sweet potato and some curry paste to give it a little twist.  Try the one below or do a little on-line searching and find one you like.

Mild Curried Lettuce Soup
These are approximate measurements

8-10 cups stock (I made chicken stock from the leftover Stone Gardens chicken carcass this week)
1 or 2 sweet potatoes
5 scallions - chopped
2-3 T mild curry paste (or more, to taste)
20 cups loosly packed lettuce -roughly chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Garnishes
Flavored oil (hazelnut, pistachio or even just olive oil)
Lime juice and lime zest
Plain yogurt or sour cream
Salted cashews


Initially salt stock to taste and bring to simmer w/ cut up peeled potatoes and curry paste.  Simmer until potaotes are soft.  Add in the lettuce and scallions - you will have to push it down a bit before it reduces.

(It WILL all fit)
  
Simmer for about 10-15 minutes - until the lettuce is well softened but hasn't quite lost all it color.  Puree with an immersion blender or in batches in a blender or food processor.  Season with additional salt and pepper, to taste.  Garnish as desired.  With more time than I have on a week night, I can see adding roasted garlic, etc. or a different blend of spices.  The soup has a lovely, fresh taste, very light. 

What did I serve it with?  A salad of course.  My husband is a patient man. 

Week 1 - The First Salad

(Posted by Denise)

Important Safety Tip: Make sure you have enough room in your refrigerator for the mountain of lettuce that arrives in your CSA box. Ruth told me there was a lot, but seriously there is a TON of lettuce. It also takes a while to wash all of the produce and package it for storage.

I was at a yoga weekend this weekend so today was my first real day with the farm share. I had a delicious salad for lunch and made a large (really LARGE) salad to accompany some leftover chicken for dinner. The salad included, lettuce, radishes, salad turnips, and scallions. Tomorrow when I make another salad I think I will include some carrots, edamame and some other things from the fridge, maybe some dried cranberries to keep it interesting.

This is also a busy time of the school year and the boys have games, so tonight was a night where we eat in shifts. It was nice to have the salad our for every one to take some and then get on to homework. I've never done that before and it was freeing to not have to be in the kitchen for the better part of three hours!

Quick Red Wine Vinaigrette
1 clove of garlic minced

1 tsp Dijon mustard

salt

pepper

1 teaspoon agave syrup

1/2 C red wine vinegar

1/4 C water

3/4 C olive oil

Sometimes I just put all of the ingredients in a jar and shake it up or I give it a spin in the blender. I also taste the dressing on a piece of lettuce to make sure that the seasonings are right.

Week 1

[Posted by Ruth]
Grilled Bok Choy...FAIL!

We said we'd talk about what didn't work and this definitely didn't work.  I like the marinade I used, which is one I've used many times but we just didn't like how this came out.

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First off, I would have been better off it I'd marinated them rather than just brush the mixture on while the coals were getting ready.  Even with continuous brushing, not enough of the flavor got in.

Secondly, even though I had cut them in half and thought I had them well rinsed, there was still a fair amount of grit down at the base.  If I'd cut these up and sauteed them as I normally would, the grit would be been eliminated.  We did eat the smaller ones - 2 each - with dinner but next time I'll do them another way.

Still the marinate is worth noting.  You can use this on fish, chicken, eggplant, (apparently everything except grilled bok choy) and it's very nice.

Asian Marinade/BBQ sauce

1 T Shoyu or your favorite soy sauce
1 T Worcestershire sauce
2 T Hoisin sauce
1 T Brown sugar
3 T Dry white wine
3 T Olive oil


Mix all and use.  great on grilled or baked salmon, shrimp, eggplant etc.

Week 1 First Pickup

(Posted by Denise)

Finally our pick up day arrived! Of course it is on one of the busiest Saturday mornings of spring and we were in a huge rush so I couldn't post until today. (I'm not sure any cooking is going to get done this weekend either!) Anyway, we got to the farmer's market nice and early. I am so glad that I found out that you don't get to take the box with you. I was luckily armed with some huge grocery bags to get everything to the car.

Here is the Stone Garden booth at the market. We met Stacia and she was great. She even had a surprise for us. Strawberrries!

Jones Family Farms is open for pick your own strawberries and as a treat put some in our CSA to entice us to come down and pick. They have me hooked. The kids ate most of them within two minutes of getting them in the door and washed. They were sweet and juicy and tasted like summer! So, this week on top of the mountain of lettuce that was in our share, there will be strawberries.

Here is our farmshare. All of the vegetables are beautiful and I can say that I'm a little intimidated by the amount of lettuce. The family looks a little nervous too!

Week 1

[Posted by Ruth]

Just a quickie tonight.  Too hot for a lot of cooking and eating.  Made a salad w/ the mountain of lettuce and croutons from the last of the Wave Hill bread and topped it w/ chicken salad made from the leftover lemon chicken w/ garlic/basil mayonnaise topped w/ salted cashews and some shaved parmesan cheese.

Garlic Basil Mayonnaise
2 cloves garlic - crushed
1/2 tsp salt
2 egg yolks
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 small bunch basil, chopped
pepper to taste.

With a spoon or mortar and pestle, blend the garlic and salt into a paste.  Whisk in the egg yolks.  Begin whisking in the olive oil - just a drop at a time at first and then in thin, steady stream, whisking constantly until all the oil is emulsified in.  Stir in the chopped basil and pepper and refrigerate for an hour if possible for flavors to blend.

Week 1

[Posted by Ruth]

Pizza!
With a large enough quantity of lettuce to keep me up at night, I decided to use the Asian Mix in grilled pizza tonight.

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So, here is grilled Asian Blend Pizza with goat cheese and mango before grilling....

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During grilling (just to prove I really did grill it)

 And...after grilling and a bit of eating.

It was very good.  One thing I would do differently is to cut up the Asian Blend before putting on the pizza.  At least one of the greens had a stem that got VERY stringy when cooked and we kept taking a bite and pulling a chunk of topping off.  So, here is the recipe but, be warned, cut the greens up a bit first!

Basic Pizza Crust (makes crusts for two pies) - best to do this the night or morning before you want pizza
(or-use frozen dough or even a ready made, boboli-type crust and follow their cooking directions)
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 cups unbleached white flour
1 3/4 cup very warm water
1 package active dry yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp sugar
1 T salt.

Sprinkle yeast on warm water until softened.  Whisk in the whole wheat flour and the sugar.  (This is where recipes say to "proof" the yeast and wait until it foams.  I honestly never bother to do this.  Unless you purchased your yeast during the Kennedy administration, you're probably O.K)

Using a stand mixer or good wooden spoon, gradually add in the white flour a cup at a time.  When you've added 1/2, mix in the olive oil and continue adding the flour.  Once all the flour is mostly incorporated, sprinkle in the salt and knead (use the dough hook) for about 7 minutes or, since I did mine in the morning, as long as it takes me to dry my hair.

Should be a nice, soft dough.  Turn into a bowl that has been coated with olive oil, turn over to coat both sides, cover with plastic wrap and put in fridge either overnight or at least from the morning on.

Take out of fridge about 1 hour before you want to roll the dough out.  Roll out on a pizza peel or cookie sheet generously coated with corn meal or more wheat flour.  Top as desired and let sit for 20-30 minutes before grilling or baking.  To grill, get a bed of very hot coals, put a pizza stone over them and close the lid - let the stone heat for at least 15 minutes before putting the pizza on.

Or- put stone in oven and preheat to 500 degrees for at least 1/2 hour.  Then reduce to 425.  In either case, pizza will take 15 to 25 minutes.  Keep an eye on it.  If grilling, it's best to turn it half way through the cooking time to avoid hot spots in the fire.

Asian Mix Topping (this is for 1 pizza, double this if you want to use all the dough and make in two batches.)
Approx 4 cups Asian Mix
1 clove garlic crushed
juice 1/2 lemon
Approx 3-4 T olive oil
generous sprinkling of salt and pepper
4 oz Goat Cheese broken into small pieces
1 very ripe mango cut into small pieces (if you don't have a mango - it's just as good w/out - we make the 2nd pizza without)

Mix greens (see note above and CUT THEM UP) with garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.  Toss to blend and put on rolled out pizza dough.  Sprinkle mango and cheese on top.  

I will sleep a little easier tonight in the knowledge that I've made a dent in all these greens!

Week 1

 [Posted by Ruth]

Today was the first pick up of my farm share with Stone Gardens Farm.  Our pick up location is at Westport's Wakeman farm where the Westport GVI is located.

Here are the boxes ready for pick up.

Turns out it looks like even more when you get it home and unpack...

The first order of business was to wash and safely store all of this.  It's amazing how much MORE it all fluffed up once it was prepped and ready for the refrigerator. 

Here's what we got:
4 heads assorted lettuce
2 bunches bok choy
3 bunches radishes
1 bunch salad turnips
2 bunches huge scallions
1 bunch basil
1 bag asian mix (in wooden bowl on table)
3 small pots herbs (parsley, basil, chives)
Plus 1 loaf of bread from my bread share


extra for this week - 1 Stone Gardens chicken

Since I decided to add in a chicken from the farm this week, dinner tonight was an easy choice.  Quick roasted lemon chicken, salad with buttermilk dressing and Wave Hill Bread.  We really liked the salad turnips (seen in the picture above, bottom right) in the salad.  I hope we get more of them as the weeks go by.


Buttermilk Salad Dressing
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 T olive oil
Large pinch (about 1/4 tsp salt)
Pepper to taste
pinch sugar
tsp prepared mustard
1/2 tsp herbs de Provence (or Tarragon)


Put all ingredients together and whisk or shake in a small jar.  That's it.


Quick Roasted Lemon Chicken
1 small fryer chicken 3-4 lbs
2 lemons - quartered lengthwise
Approx 1 - 2 T Dry spice rub (I used Penzey's Singapore blend)
Salt and Pepper
Olive oil for rubbing on the skin


Preheat oven to 425.  Rub chicken w/ a bit of olive oil and season inside and out, top and bottom with the spice rub, salt and pepper.  Put the lemon slices inside the body cavity.  Place chicken in wrack of roasting pan upside down and roast for 40 minutes.  Turn right side (breast side) up and continue roasting for another 20-40 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken.  Let rest for 10-15 minutes, carve and, if you like, squeeze the roasted lemon juice over the meat.

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Not too bad for a quick, weeknight meal.