The Best Kale Dish You've Ever Made

This post's title is a direct quote from Mr. Eating the Scenery, after he finished off his second helping, leaving the dish empty.  This was indeed a spectacularly delicious way to prepare kale, which is often found braised with garlic and olive oil, ho hum.

The funny thing is, the original recipe called for crushed coriander seed.  For reasons unknown, I read "cardamom," and duly crushed cardamom seed and sprinkled it in at the appointed time.  The round, sweet, spicy, exotic flavor seemed to fuse the kale and apples and onions in a wondrous waltz of taste.

I didn't notice until sitting down here with the recipe that it called for coriander seed.

Sometimes a mistake can be wonderful.

The photo I took before we dug in, however, is best forgotten.  The sunrise above, looking east from our home, is much more attractive, if tangential to the food theme.  Trust me.
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KALE WITH APPLES AND CARDAMOM 
From The Smart Palate, tweaked a bit

My bunch of kale was rather small, so this recipe made about two very hearty servings (or four smaller ones).  If you use a large bunch of kale, you'll want to increase the olive oil and perhaps use a large onion and a second apple, and increase the spices a bit.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, peeled, halved and sliced thinly
1 apple, peeled, cored and sliced thinly
Salt and pepper

1/2 teaspoon crushed cardamom
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 bunch kale (I used Lacinato, aka Black Tuscan), washed, cut from center ribs, then sliced thinly

In large skillet with a lid, heat olive oil over medium heat.  Toss in the onion and apple, and sprinkle all with salt and pepper.  Saute for a minute or so, reduce heat to low, cover and cook until apple and onion begin to sweat (sorry, I just learned that culinary term a bit ago and keep wanting to use it), about 5 to 8 minutes.  Add a little water if necessary to keep things from sticking.

Sprinkle cardamom and crushed red pepper over the apple mixture and stir it in, then stir in the kale.  Cover and cook for about 10 minutes, or until kale reaches the consistency you like.

An amazing dish.

Makes 2 to 4 servings, depending on size of your kale bunch

Homemade Ice Cream with Cherries and Dates

Ever seeking to reduce my use of refined sugar, and increase good fats, I decided to try making some ice cream with no refined sugar at all.  I'm certain that using our wonderful, local Pure Eire Jersey cream gave this ice cream its eye-opening, superior taste and texture.
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HOMEMADE ICE CREAM WITH CHERRIES AND DATES

Just a small dish is immensely satisfying, much like Italian gelato.

1 cup frozen pitted sweet cherries
10 pitted dates
3/4 cup water

2 teaspoons vanilla
1-1/2 cups Pure Eire cream

Place an appropriately-sized glass container with cover in your freezer so it is ready for the ice cream.  If you are going to serve it freshly churned, freeze little serving bowls. 

In a blender, puree the cherries, dates and water until smooth.  Add vanilla and cream, and blend just until cream is incorporated and mix is smooth.

Pour into ice cream maker and process for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the ice cream stiffens and begins to curl around the paddle blades in a big way.

Serve the ice cream right away, or spatula it (hey, if you can spoon something, you can spatula it, right?) into your frozen container.  Put right into the freezer.

Makes a little under 4 cups of rich, delicious ice cream, or about 8 servings to savor slowly!

Kabocha with Clothes On

 

Amazing!  Who knew there were squashes whose peels you could eat!  Apparently people eat unpeeled kabocha squash all the time!  I love it when I emerge from the culinary dark, finally to see something that others have known for millennia.  Here's how you do it.

Slice off the stems and blossom ends. Cut off any bumps or damaged spots, and remove any divots.

Then cut the squash in half.  Be careful.  If you have trouble getting the knife through, take the squash to a concrete area and bang it to complete the split.

Use your trusty serrated ice cream scoop to remove the seeds. Cut squash into dice (about 3/4 inch) and toss in a bowl with 2 tablespoons olive oil.  Spread on a Silpat-lined cookie sheet and sprinkle the dices with salt and pepper.

Roast at 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring once at midpoint.   The squash will begin to caramelize, and will taste exquisitely sweet and dense.

Other squash varieties whose skins are edible are Delicata and acorn.  But you have to make sure the squash is fairly fresh.  Apparently the skin grows thicker throughout the winter as the squash loses moisture.

To test for peel edibility, you could cut a cube and microwave it to see if the skin goes soft.

Our venerable CSA farmer grows umpteen varieties of squash and held a squash tasting that I was not able to attend.  Perhaps he mentioned this wondrous quality of certain squashes!  It certainly speeds the preparation process, and provides an easier source of cubed squash to freeze or roast!

Wilted Salad Greens

Traditionally known as "wilted lettuce," this tangy and deeply satisfying salad was commonly served back in the Day.  Generally speaking, I refer to the Day when people did not consume processed carbohydrates in the volumes and concentrations found in Big Gulps and giant Venti frappuccinos, unless they were hoisting bales of hay onto trucks all day, or suchlike.  And no one fueled themselves on chemical stews of fractured transfats, because they were not concocted yet. 

Thus, real fat (butter and such) wasn't cause for any hand-wringing.  In fact, our (mostly long-lived) forebears would probably have prepared significantly more of the hot dressing for this salad, hence the "wilted" moniker.  But the amounts I use here won't take down your lettuce volume by much.

As we further reduce the amount of processed carbohydrates we consume, and prepare more fresh vegetables, we find that adding real fat becomes appropriate.

Options for additions and variations are many:  hard boiled eggs, green onions, herbs, cream in the dressing ... personalize it your way, or find your grandma's recipe for wilted lettuce and find out just how good the Good Old Days really could be!
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WILTED SALAD GREENS

If you use bacon you have already cut up, fried, and frozen, just heat it in a little skillet to crisp it and release some of the fat, then use olive oil to reach the 2 tablespoons of fat amount.

A medium sized bowl of fresh, CSA salad greens
Natural bacon
Olive oil
Vinegar
Sucanat or agave syrup
Salt

In a little skillet, fry about a cup of bacon pieces (about 4-5 slices).  Remove bacon to drain.  To the bacon fat, add enough olive oil to reach a volume of about
2 tablespoons.  Add 2 tablespoons of vinegar (any kind, really), and  2 teaspoons of your chosen sweetener.  Sprinkle on some salt.  Whisk and cook a little, until the sweetener is dissolved and the liquid is hot.

Spoon the hot dressing in a swirl over your salad greens.  Scatter the bacon pieces atop.

Makes 4 hearty servings

The Things We Do for Squash

No other vegetable plays so hard to get.  Even optimistic I, on occasion, am daunted by their thick-skinned impenetrability.  But as everyone knows it's better to have attempted to cook squash than never to have cooked it at all. 

To that end, with visions of happy-ever-after roasted squash dishes dancing in my head, I boldly brought in my CSA squash a while back, during that particularly cold spell we had where the north wind was bitingly fierce.  Darkness was falling.  I couldn't get the knife to fully split the squash, so gathered squash and knife and headed out my (north facing) dining room door to the back patio, where there was concrete.  The wind immediately blasted into the house, so I pulled the door quickly shut.

Not until I had slammed the knife-impaled squash onto the concrete, thus splitting it, did I find that I had failed to fully unlock the door.  I was now locked outside, in the near dark, with a split squash, a knife, no coat, and an unmercifully arctic north wind bearing down upon me.

I recalled with great vividness the discussion Mr. Eating the Scenery and I had recently about our non-operative garage door keypad.  It was still inoperable.  The keybox by the back door (also north facing) was my only hope.  I don't think I've ever been as close to frostbite as I was fiddling with that frigid metal keybox, feeling for the number sequence and punching numbers in the dark, for around 20 minutes, failing to get it unlocked and growing fumblier minute by frosty minute.

Still, I have wonderful neighbors, and had they been home, I'm sure they would have welcomed me in, big chef's knife, squash and all, for tea and cookies while I waited for Mr. Eating the Scenery to arrive home. As it was, at last I succeeded in opening the keybox and the door.  I needed no trip to the emergency room but was fascinated by the pain involved in slowly thawing my fingertips under tepid water.

Squash hurts.

Greek Potatoes

So good it makes you want to do a stomping dance and break some glassware.

Earlier this fall, as I was buying leeks (when my local ones were gone, I didn't seem to be able to be without them) at the grocery store, the checker asked me what I did with them.  There are so many things!  But of course I was struck dumb, as we so often are when there is so much to say, and could only blurt things like "soup" and "eggs."

But I shall take this recipe to her.  No one who asks me for ideas or recipes shall be left in the dark.
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GREEK POTATOES
Adapted from Plenty by Diana Henry

2 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
1 cup lowfat yogurt

1/4 cup olive oil
5 leeks, white and light green parts only, cut into chunks
1-1/4 lb. Yukon Gold or red potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks slightly larger than the leek chunks
Salt and pepper

12 to 16 ounces spinach, chard, or other greens, more or less to taste, sliced
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
1 to 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
A glug of lemon juice

Mix the garlic and yogurt and set aside.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a heavy skillet.  Add leeks and potatoes, and season them with salt and pepper.  Heat over a low temperature for 20 minutes or so.  Check occasionally and add water if needed.  This seems to be called "sweating," and indeed the potatoes and leeks will look a bit like they are doing hot yoga.

When potatoes are not crisp but are less than tender, add the spinach and the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Mix gently, add a little more water, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cover.  Cook about 5 minutes or until the greens have wilted nicely.

Stir in the dill, mint and lemon juice. At this point I stirred in the garlic/yogurt mixture, but the original recipe advises us to serve it alongside, a perfectly acceptable option.

Makes 6 side dish servings

Sheffield Harvest Crush Apple and Grape Cider

My stepson contributed this tasty local cider to our Christmas dinner.  Sheffield Cider in Mesa (just north of Pasco) makes this blend from apples and several varieties of wine grapes.  It's amazingly fresh tasting, almost like fresh-squeezed juice.  First you taste the apple, then a delightfully crisp grape essence.

Add Alan Pangborn's Blanc de Blanc from Moonlight Cellar in Kennewick, and you have two wonderful, local ways to toast the New Year.  Resolve to make 2011 your year for eating locally!

Smoked Salmon Chowder

This delicious chowder has become our traditional Christmas Eve dinner dish.  Savory, hearty, with a subtle hint of tarragon ... it's a real keeper.  I've tweaked it a bit and see that I've written "perfect" on its page in the cookbook.
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SMOKED SALMON CHOWDER
Adapted from Soups and Stews by Maryana Vollstedt

Do make this a day ahead of time and chill so the flavors can blend.  Stir in the half-and-half when heating to serve.  You can leave out the half-and-half and still have a delectable, creamy chowder.

2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chopped yellow onion
1/2 cup diced celery
1/3 cup all-purpose flour

4 cups chicken stock
2 cups bottled clam broth
2 Yukon Gold potatoes (about 1 pound), peeled and cut in half-inch dice
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dill
1 teaspoon paprika

10 ounces smoked salmon, from Northwest Seafood Market, skin removed and flaked
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 drops Tabasco sauce
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 cup half-and-half (or mixed Pure Eire milk and cream), optional

In large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, melt butter with oil.  Add onion and celery and saute until vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes.

Sprinkle flour over vegetables and stir.  Add stock and stir until slightly thickened.  Add potatoes, tarragon, thyme, dill and paprkia.  Cover and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.  Add salmon, garlic, lemon juice, Tabasco sauce, salt, pepper and wine.  Simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes.  Add half-and-half and simmer over low heat until heated through, about 5 minutes.

The Lunar Eclipse/Solstice Box

Total lunar eclipse, Winter Solstice, and Winter CSA Box Three--all on the same day.  What is the deeper, or higher, meaning of this?  Um ... nothing!  I don't mean to squash anyone's enthusiasm for the supernatural, but I don't carrot all for big stretches to link unrelated items. Unless I'm trying to put a bunch of things into a recipe ...

Western Dried Fruits Cake

A gem of a cake made entirely of nuts and dried fruits, with just enough vanilla-scented batter to hold it all together.  Beautiful, jewel-like slices go wonderfully with coffee and tea, or on a plate of cookies and candies for dessert after a holiday meal.

This recipe came out in the 80's and I've seen many versions since then, varying the fruits and nuts, adding candied ginger and such.  But for a pure, heavenly taste that unquestionably deserves all the superlatives you can give it, this original version is the ticket.

I've been making this cake in little foil pans for around 25 years now, and giving them as gifts.  Merry Christmas!
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WESTERN DRIED FRUITS CAKE
From Sunset Magazine

A couple of hints:  Snip the apricots into quarters using kitchen shears.  It's easier than using a knife.  To butter the pans, use a brush dipped in melted butter; brush the butter onto the waxed paper lining also.

1 cup chopped pitted dates
2 cups quartered dried apricots
1 cup golden raisins
1-1/2 cups whole blanched almonds
1-1/2 cups walnut pieces
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Butter a 5- x 9-inch loaf pan; line with baking parchment or waxed paper, then butter the paper.

In small bowl, combine flour, sugar and baking powder to blend.  

In large bowl, combine dates, apricots, raisins, almonds and walnuts.  Add flour mixture to fruits and mix evenly.

Beat eggs with vanilla to blend.  Stir thoroughly into fruit mixture.  Spoon batter into prepared loaf pan and spread evenly; press batter into corners of pan, and press batter down as you fill the pan so there are no gaps.  Shape the batter so it's a bit rounded on the top of the loaf.

Bake in a 300-degree oven until golden brown, about 2 hours.  Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then turn out of pan.  Peel off paper and let cake cool on rack.

Wrap in plastic wrap or foil.  Chill at least two days or up to two months.  Or eat it immediately!  The flavor is excellent fresh, too.  If desired, sprinkle the top of the cake with 1 tablespoon rum or brandy once a week.

Makes 1 loaf

Gift loaves option:  Double the recipe.  Use six small foil loaf pans, about 3 x 6 inches.  Butter and line pans as instructed above.  Be sure to push batter into corners of pans and press down so the loaf is compact.  Bake at 250 degrees (a cooler temperature than the big, single loaf) for 2 hours.  Watch the cakes during the last hour to prevent burning.  For these small loaves, I found that 300 degrees was too hot.

Book Review: The Dirty Life

This book was absorbing and compelling all the way through.  It goes way beyond "city girl marries farmer."  Ms. Kimball describes how, although she was completely unfamiliar with farming, she almost instantly was captivated by its gritty fundamentalness.  She felt safe, seeing literally for the first time in her life where food actually came from.  A New Yorker, she had rarely cooked.

The farmer who became the author's husband, and with whom she started and currently operates a whole-diet CSA farm, is a fascinating man who lives his beliefs about how food should be grown, and he cooks fantastically simple yet complexly-flavored meals with the farm produce. 

There are no recipes, but that's kind of the point.  The author writes that when we move to seasonal, local eating, "The central question in the kitchen would have to change from What do I want? to What is available?"  The Kimballs provide "naked, unprocessed food, two steps from the dirt."

Their Essex Farm is the first whole-diet CSA in the country, providing members with beef, pork, chicken, eggs, milk, herbs and vegetables, berries, grains and flours, legumes, and maple syrup. 

This is a book to savor, but that will have to happen on my second trip through.  The first time I was completely caught up in the suspense inevitably generated when livelihood is linked so directly to something as capricious as Nature.

Roasted Beet Salad with Arugula, Goat Cheese, and Horseradish Vinaigrette

My Mom recently returned from a trip to Hood River, Oregon, and described this dish she encountered at the restaurant at Hood River Inn.  It sounded simple and delicious.  Spectacular, multicolored beets arrived in the first two CSA boxes, so I roasted them, used some for this salad, and pickled the rest. 

For two salads, simply cut peeled, roasted beets into chunks and toss them in a mixture of 2 tablespoons olive oil or Apres Vin grapeseed oil, 2 tablespoons vinegar, 2 teaspoons horseradish, 1/4 teaspoon salt and a few grinds of fresh pepper.  Let the tossed beets sit in the mixture for a while, then lift out and arrange them atop arugula on two salad plates.  Drizzle remaining dressing from the bowl over the salads, and scatter crumbled goat cheese atop.  I think any vinaigrette, especially perhaps cranberry or raspberry, would be just as delicious.

That Casa Mia Mango Dessert

Casa Mia makes a delicious dessert of zabaglione topped with mango puree.  My Costco mangoes were ripening alarmingly fast, so I decided to sort of replicate the Casa Mia dessert using my Pure Eire milk and cream.  Now, I use very little dairy, but can't seem to resist picking up some Pure Eire whenever I'm in one of our local health food stores.  My philosophy is that if you're going to have some dairy, why not have fresh, local dairy, from Jersey cows?

So.  I sliced two mangoes into the blender, and added enough milk and cream (okay, more cream than milk) so that the whole thing could blend into two servings worth of delicious, creamy, mango-y dessert.  Satisfying, and no processed sugar involved. 

Slow Food Christmas Cookie Exchange

Thirteen brave folks added the Slow Food Cookie exchange to their busy holiday calendars.  This despite the invitation to put vegetables in cookies, and categories for judging including "healthiest ingredient" and "most unusual ingredient."  Slow Food folk are incredibly intrepid!  They even shared favorite baking memories with the receptive group.   From left, Kurt, Nick, Sarah, Aisling, Peggy, Rachel, Laurie and Russ.

Ask Angela about anything to do with baking, and you will get an enthusiastic and thorough response, as Whitney finds out!

We sampled Carrot-Beet Cookies, Herb Shortbread, Spinach-Blueberry-Oat Bars, Squash-Cranberry-Walnut Biscotti, Pumpkin Cookies, Brandy Balls, Ginger Cookies, and Green Tea-Pecan Cookies. A good-natured but somewhat controlled free-for-all voting session awarded bakers prizes for healthiest ingredient, most local, most unusual ingredient, and first place in taste.  Congratulations to winners Sarah (2!), Angela and Peggy.

Not just cookies, but cider, local cheeses, fresh-baked bread (with local flour) by Angela, local hot spiced wine, and fruits were on offer.

Softly falling snow added to the holiday ambiance.

My Mom chats with Russ and Laurie, who supply many local folks with free-range chickens, eggs, turkeys, and even ducks. Thanks to all the farmers and bakers who made this relaxing and fun Slow Food event possible!  And special thanks to Angela for co-hosting!

Cranberry Pluot Sauce

Rummaging in the freezer, I found cranberries from last year.  And beside them, a container of pluot sauce frozen this summer.  Combine them?  Why not! 

I usually make cranberry sauce with orange juice concentrate, but these fruity things seemed drawn to each other by some invisible force of culinary serendipity.  It happens!  It's fun, momentarily at least, to free oneself from the same old combinations of things and take a risk. 

In this case the payoff was an amazingly great cranberry sauce with summery pluot undertones.  I used a little honey to bring a not-too-sweet balance to the sauce and harmonize the flavors.

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CRANBERRY PLUOT SAUCE

8 cups frozen cranberries
3 cups pluot sauce (plum sauce would work, too)
1/3 cup honey

Put cranberries and pluot sauce in a large pot.  Add a little water to get things started.  Heat over medium heat until pluot sauce is fully incorporated and berries start to pop.  Cook, stirring, about 10 to 15 minutes more until sauce thickens and most of the berries have burst.  Stir in honey.

Makes about 8 servings.

Box the Second

Two winter squashes, two Chinese cabbages, two bunches of carrots!  Chili peppers and oregano, spinach and braising greens, a bunch of beets and turnips.  And a really happy CSA customer in a pear tree!

Lemon and Cumin Slaw

This is a light, lemony, crunchy slaw that goes together quickly and compliments any meat (pulled pork comes to mind!) or sturdier casseroles, such as enchiladas and mac and cheese.  It's also great alongside robust, winter soups such as chilis and chowders.

I'm always drawn to recipes with a minimum of ingredients, especially when they combine so beautifully like this, where the flavor of each ingredient is equally showcased.

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LEMON AND CUMIN SLAW
From the British Country Living magazine

This slaw keeps very, very well, and develops a deeper flavor over time.  But it's amazing freshly made, too.  I once tried adding some olive oil, but it only detracted from the fine, tangy crispness of the slaw.  

1/2 a medium-sized green cabbage, thinly sliced into shreds
1 organic lemon
1 tablespoon cumin seed (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Grate the lemon's peel into a large bowl using a Microplane or other fine grater.  Juice the lemon, adding the juice to the bowl with the peel.  Add the salt.

In a small skillet, toast the cumin seed 'til it begins to brown and becomes fragrant.  Transfer to a mortar and pestle, and grind roughly, then transfer to the bowl with the lemon juice and peel.

Whisk dressing, then toss in the cabbage and mix all together well.

Makes about 6 servings.

Party Mix, Remixed

Who doesn't remember the moment they learned how to pronounce "Worcestershire?" Every year around Christmas or New Year's when I was a kid, we'd make a batch of Chex party mix, baking it in the bottoms of our oven broiler trays, and faithfully stirring it every 15 minutes for an hour.  The salty-sour-crunchy effect was unique back in the day, and you had to make it.  Today, you can buy preservative- and color-laden bags of the stuff.  No thanks!  Herewith, my redux version.

"Redux" actually means "brought back" or "restored."  In this case, I'm bringing back the memorable taste but none of the preservatives that, alas, Chex brand cereals contain.  To complete the feel-good theme I used organic butter and a bunch of other cool things.

I don't keep onion powder (!) or that item the Chex people call "seasoned salt" on hand, and my garlic powder is rather ancient, so a little creativity was called for.  You can use your creativity, too.  But this recipe will get you started.

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PARTY MIX, REMIXED
Adapted from the Chex Original Recipe

Yes, you should double this.  It makes a lot, but you can give it away or even freeze it and surprise yourself later!  Plus, it has a tendency to vanish.  If you're a pretzel fan, substitute those in for some of the dry ingredients.

9 cups total of square, chex-ish cereals  (I used Health Valley Crunch-Ems and Cascadian Farms Multigrain squares from our local health food store)
1/2 cup dry roasted almonds
1/2 cup dry roasted cashews
1/2 cup Alexia onion strips, broken up a bit
1/2 cup Annie's cheddar bunnies

4 tablespoons organic butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Heat oven to 250 degrees.  In a large roasting pan, combine the cereals, nuts, onion strips and cheddar bunnies.  

In small saucepan, melt the butter.  Stir in the olive oil, Worcestershire sauce, salt and spices.  Mix well.  Drizzle over the dry ingredients, tossing well until combined. 

Bake for one hour, stirring every 15 minutes.  Cool thoroughly before storing.

RELATED REDUX POST:  Tater Tot Casserole, Remixed

Cabernet Sauvignon Roasted Potatoes

The subtlest hint of fresh Cabernet Sauvignon grape flavor from the oil lifts these local spuds into the realm of nearly ethereal.  

Snowy roads have kept me closer to home than usual lately, but I discovered some local organic Russets, purchased from my CSA farmer's stand at the Richland Farmers' Market, lolling around in my produce drawer. (Yes, Jeanne, that would be the "Humi-drawer," for those of us who remember the glory days of the Frigidaires!)

A light massage with grapeseed oil, a dusting of salt, pepper and thyme (rescued just before the single-digit temperatures blackened the herb garden), and these taters are ready to go.

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CABERNET SAUVIGNON ROASTED POTATOES

Glorious amounts of creativity can be applied to this recipe ... different flavored oils, different herbs, even different kinds of potatoes.  

4 local organic Russet spuds, peeled and quartered lengthwise
1 tablespoon Apres Vin Cabernet Sauvignon (or other flavor) grapeseed oil
Salt
Pepper
Thyme

Rub olive oil all over quartered potatoes.  Arrange on Silpat-lined baking sheet.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper and thyme.  Roast at 400 degrees for 45 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

First Winter CSA Box!

The boxes are here!  Woo hoo!  Imagine having a box of fresh, locally-grown vegetables, all winter, every two weeks 'til April.  No, you're not dreaming!  It can happen!  

This first box contained winter squash, Chinese cabbage, chard, cranberries (from Western Washington), turnips, beets, carrots and sage.  The cranberries made a luscious sauce for Thanksgiving, and the carrots are wonderfully sweet.  The cabbage went into Thanksgiving dinner slaw.  I cooked the beet and turnip greens for dinner on dropoff day. And somehow missed getting the chard and cranberries in the photo.  I seem to recall flinging produce here and there in my delight.

This is my second winter CSA year, and my blog was created to document my first year's experience. We're off and running again!