CSA Recipe Journal

Monday, March 22, 2010

Preparing for the new season: Part 2

Check out seasonal cookbooks!

I used to just cook by thinking about whatever I wanted to eat, find a recipe and then go buy the ingredients at the grocery store. Joining the CSA reversed this process for me - the ingredients came to me and then I had to figure out what to do with them! This was initially challenging but I think in the end has actually simplified the process of meal planning for me. Good, seasonal cookbooks have been a great help in this department. Below are some of my favorite seasonal cookbooks that I own and a few that I have been wanting to check out.

In Season by Sarah Raven

Sunday Soup by Betty Rosbottom

Simply in Season

Coloring the Seasons by Allegra McEvedy

Local Flavors by Deborah Madison

The Farm to Table Cookbook by Ivy Manning

EatingWell in Season

Now this one isn't a cookbook organized by season but it is my favorite cookbook of all time:

Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Preparing for the new season: part 1

Time to clean up!

In about 2 months the vegetables will start rolling in! Last year was my first year as a member of a CSA and I learned a lot along the way. Now, with a tiny bit more knowledge under my belt, I'm going to be more prepared this year to enjoy my share to its fullest. So in order to pass the time, I'm going to spend the next two months learning more and getting prepared. Step one, though, is going to be cleaning out the kitchen for a fresh start.

Here are some resources for getting cleaned up:

Clean it out!

Make your own cleaning products

Organize your pantry

Organize your fridge

Building a natural foods pantry

One of the many benefits of a deep clean: I discovered some left over pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, and strawberries buried deep in my freezer. I will enjoy eating those but I really can't wait for the fresh stuff!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Only 16 Days!

Only 16 days until the Columbia Farmer's Market opens!
http://www.columbiafarmersmarket.org/
Opening Day is Saturday, March 20, 2010. There should be scallions, broccoli, lettuces, cauliflower, and herbs, and of course all of the year-round products that are usually available. The seasons always seem to change at just the right time and this is good because I am very tired of winter weather and winter foods and am ready for some spring!

Unfortunately, there are still two more months until the CSA shares start rolling in . . . but the time will fly by, especially for me since I will be on my surgery rotation until then. The CSA should just be getting started when I'm finished with surgery so that will be a nice treat at the end of two hard months. Don't forget to find and sign up for your own CSA:
http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

Here are some recipes to pass the time while we are waiting for Spring and the good food to start!
Lamb Ragu
Roasted vegetables
Roasted broccoli with saffron lime butter
Feta sun-dried tomato turkey sliders
Garlic soup
Maple apple walnut muffins

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Root Beer Round Up!

(This is unrelated to my CSA recipe journal but I needed somewhere to chronicle the results of our great root beer taste testing we held last night.)

It all started maybe a year ago, when Colin and I started buying different root beers around town and trying them out. We were mainly getting them from the natural foods store and tried Virgil's, Natural Brew, Maine Root and probably some others. I argued that Virgil's was my favorite and Colin thought Natural Brew was the best. So we decided we would have a little blind taste testing and settle it once and for all. So slowly I started buying up a few root beers here and there to store until we had enough to do our taste testing. But then things got a little out of hand . . . and before I knew it, we had 15 different root beers in our possession. I had requested suggestions on Facebook and of course had to try all of those, and then read other peoples root beer reviews online and had to get those and thanks to websites like Soda Samurai we ended up with a lot of root beer. We decided a lot of root beer would go to waste if we just tasted it ourselves and thought we could use a couple other opinions to help make the rank list so we enlisted the help of our friends Casey and Lauren. So here is how it went down:

THE ROOT BEERS:

These are the root beers we tested in alphabetical order:
Berghoff (Chicago, IL)
Boylan (Haledon, New Jersey)
Capt'n Eli's (Portland, Maine)
Dad's (Chicago, IL)
Fitz's (St. Louis, MO)
Gale's (Riverwood, IL)
Jones (Seattle, WA)
Lost Trail (Louisburg, KS)
Maine Root (Scarborough, Maine)
Natural Brew (Orrville, Ohio)
Sea Dog (Portland, Maine)
Sioux City (Whitestone, New York)
Sprecher's (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
Thomas Kemper (Seattle, WA)
Virgil's (Los Angeles, California)

There are A LOT more root beers in the world than I thought. I believe one site listed 2530 brands! So we obviously are barely even touching the surface of the root beer world. We had to limit it so these are the 15 we tried. I'm sure we missed lots and lots and lots of other delicious root beers out there.

THE METHOD:

Lauren and I prepared cups of each root beers in cups labeled with letters and the boys prepared the same for us. We kept track of which letter was which root beer for which person on one of the sheets below:

Then we began the tasting. Everyone kept notes on a sheet labeled with the letters. Then everyone ranked the root beers 1 through 15 best to worst. I got these chalkboard place mats as a wedding shower gift and used them to create a place for people to put their root beers in order:

Then the tasting began!

This is Casey. He should have written up this report instead of me. He wrote the best descriptions for his taste testing that involved adjectives like "honest" and "whiny" and "comical". In between root beers we had water and crackers for cleansing the palate. It took a lot of tasting and retasting but then everyone had their final order locked in.

We then got out the keys and everyone figured out which root beer was which.

THE RESULTS:

We tallied our individual lists and made a final rank list. The final results are:

1. Lost Trail
2. Sioux City
3. Capt'n Eli's
4. Berghoff
5. Fitz's
6. Boylan
7. Thomas Kemper
8. Jones
9. Sea Dog
10. Gale's
11. Sprecher's
12. Virgil's
13. Maine Root
14. Natural Brew
15. Dad's

The Delicious Top Five!

Below is a chart of the results and each individuals rank list:

As you can see while there were some consistencies between the four of us, there were a couple of outliers that deserve honorable mention.

First, Boylan:

Boylan was ranked 1st, 4th, and 5th by Casey, Linsey and Lauren respectively but 15th by Colin. It had a very unique and fruity flavor - almost like it was a whole new breed of root beer. I have to say it is one of my new favorites but Colin just thought it was too unlike root beer for him I guess.

Second honorable mention, Gale's:

This one was ranked very highly by the guys and very low by the girls. The guys would describe it as "cinnamon-y" and I think Lauren described it best as tasting like "your grandma's soap." Even after tasting it again and discussing it after the results were revealed the issue remained contentious and very much split along the gender line. Which is fine with me, I can drink all the Boylan and Colin can have all the Gale's.

DISCUSSION:

Overall, the root beers seemed to fall into categories of very sweet, vanilla-y, or more medicinal. It probably depends a lot on what you are looking for in a root beer which ones you will like. Overall for us, the highest ranking root beers had more vanilla undertones like Lost Trail and Sioux City, the almost overly sweet ones fell in the middle like Jones and Thomas Kemper, and the medicinal ones were our least favorites. I found it funny that Colin and I both ranked our once professed favorites, Natural Brew and Virgil's, very poorly. We were also somewhat interested if we would prefer sodas with cane sugar to those with high fructose corn syrup. However, we only included two with HFCS, Sprecher's and Dad's, so it isn't really fair to compare in this set up, but Sprecher's was verging on the edge of too syrup-y sweet and Dad's was the clear overall loser among all of us, I described it tasting like pepper-y medicine. I was a bit embarrassed at first that I ranked Sioux City as my #1 but they have recently reformulated to get rid of the HFCS and replaced it with cane sugar and it really is quite good. It almost has a hint of cream soda to it. So I will again leave you with the top 5, very delicious - I recommend them all! Go forth and find your favorite root beer!

Thursday, January 28, 2010

The Root Cellar

The Root Cellar is a great place to get local food products year round. They have everything from produce, meat, eggs, milk, breads, cheeses, dry goods and lots more! Here's a bit more about them from their website:

"We at the Root Cellar believe that the body is a shrine:

What you put in it is the first stop of the energy that will come out.

What better philosophy than eating clean local fresh food.

By building a healthy circle of supporting the farmers in our community who work hard everyday to earn your food dollar you too can be part of galvanizing your community against urban sprawl, water contamination, excessive fossil fuel consumption, monetary exportation and help make lay the ground work for your state to be more food secure. Support Missouri farmers buy local food. Shop at the Root Cellar! Leave some heritage for future generations.

*Special note: In addition to being an all Missouri grocery the Root Cellar also is a microprocessor of local foods with produce exclusively from area farmers.

We hand craft in small batches salsas, pasta sauces, jams, butters, hot sauces, frozen pizzas and seasonal pies."

The Root Cellar is located at 814A E. Broadway Columbia, MO 65201. Learn more at their website or better yet, go check them out and enjoy some delicious local food!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

An Ode to Goat Cheese

Few things in life are more delicious than goat cheese, and that is why we are so lucky here in Columbia to have our own local, Goatsbeard Farm, makers of all fine, local goat cheese. This is a delicious local food item to enjoy even in the winter. Their fresh cheeses are not always available but the aged cheeses and feta-style are available year round. You can find them at the farmer's market, Clover's, the Root Cellar, and Hy-Vee. You can visit their website by clicking here to learn more. They also have recipes posted at their site but here are some of my favorite recipes with goat cheese:

Red pepper risotto
Goat cheese with fresh dill and paprika
Goat cheese pesto
Red pesto ravioli
Spring wild rice salad
Squash, black bean, and goat cheese tamales
Wheat berry salad from "Super Natural Cooking" by Heidi Swanson
Potato leek pizza from "The Pioneer Woman Cooks" by Ree Drummond
(you MUST get these last two cookbooks and try these recipes!)

Thank you goats for your delicious cheese!

Saturday, January 9, 2010

A Movie to Watch

FOOD, INC.

It will make you very depressed about the world, but it is worth watching - and will get you excited about all the local food that will be available in a few short (long?) months!

Here's the trailer for Food, inc: