CSA Share: Week 1

Well we finally got the share!!  In our picnic basket you can see the collection of yumminess.  Included are the following things in the following amounts:

Baby Leeks -- approximately 5.2 oz

White Salad or Hakurei Turnips -- approximately 9.2 oz

Chives -- approximately .5 oz

Basil -- approximately .9 oz

Oregano -- approximately .5 oz

Escarole -- approximately 10.2 oz

Radishes -- approximately 6.6 oz

Asparagus -- approximately 7 oz

Salad Greens -- approximately 7.2 oz and...eggs!  Sorry forgot to take a photo of those too. Be sure to check out Jessica's blog Eat, Sleep, Garden for some great artistic photos of the farm and the share!

As you can see it is starting out at a good pace!  From what I have read about CSAs, they can start out a little slow in the beginning and then by the middle of the share you are overwhelmed! 

So, what we did when we got home we washed and wrapped our veggies loosely in damp paper towels and placed them in slightly opened freezer bags for storage.  We made some deviled eggs, homemade mayo, the salad turnips sliced and soaked in rice wine vinegar, and a yummy salad with the salad greens and the tops of the turnips.  Chef Z is looking to can the asparagus and make some spicy asparagus pickles -- maybe some pickled salad turnips too.  Check back later this week for recipes and ideas!

---- M.B. & Chef Z

It's Finally Here!!!

Hello Everyone!!

Chef Z and I were already getting pumped that we get our first share this week (!!!!) when we received an email from the owner of Screamin' Ridge Farm, Joe, with an "idea" of what are share will contain.  Here is the what our pickup on Thursday should contain if everything goes as planned with weather, etc.:

Pasture Raised Chicken Eggs (Yummmmm)

Asparagus

Scallions

Baby Leeks

Hakurei Baby White Salad Turnips

Radishes

Salad mix or a head of lettuce

Escarole and hopefully....

Chives, Oregano and Basil!!

We have some preliminary ideas/recipes in store.  I know Chef Z has a small batch of Spicy Asparagus Pickles in mind....

When we pick it up on Thursday night, we will be taking photos and weighing it all out with my dear friend, and fellow blogger, Jessica from Eat, Sleep, Garden who will be up visiting us in the land of Cheese and Maple Syrup!

Just an FYI for everyone, according to Joe, each share is roughly worth $32.50 based on weekly market retail prices with a 10%-15% discount.  Mind this stuff is of a higher quality since it is grown using organic/sustainable methods.  Maybe seeing the bounty will encourage others that the initial cost is worth while!  If you are ever in Montpelier for Capital City Farmer's Market be sure to check Joe Buley and Screamin'  Ridge out.

By the way, does anyone have any recipe suggestions?

---- M.B.

GREEK NIGHT!!

Over the weekend we got in the mood for Greek and being as we had the supplies, our interpretation of a Greek meal was created. Chef Z covered most of the meal and I made the cucumber salad 2 ways. Chef Z's with cucumber, onion, cider vinegar, salt and pepper and mine with cucumber, onion, dill, cider vinegar, and sugar. To go with the salad, Chef Z made a fabulous rack of lamb and whole wheat couscous with shallot and stone ground mustard. A traditional tzatziki sauce was served on the side.

So this rack of lamb was the best that I've every had. Typically lamb is a little gamey (basically it tastes like iron), but this rack was ridiculously good! Basically we were able to have pure lamb, it was fucking amazing. Although I did have a hell of a time cleaning it, there was cartilage that I have never seen before, it was totally worth it. I'm telling you people, I tasted lamb.... just lamb, not game, not iron, just lamb. First time in my life I have ever tasted anything like that and I went to culinary school.

So being us, we save whatever we can. We luckily had some left over jus from a leg of lamb that I braised. We found it in the freezer and decided that it would be a great accoutrement to the rack, along with the tzatziki.

I started by sweating shallots and garlic, then I added a little red wine and reduced au sec (barely dry). I put the lamb jus in then I reduced the jus by about 60%, leaving just a glace for us to use, but man was it good.

For a starch I just made a mustard and shallot couscous, nothing special, just trying to keep with the theme, actually turned out kind good despite my throwing it together at the last second.

We were very happy with the meal, not much talking going on, just noms. We were literally sucking on the bones. Don't think this had much to do with the preparation as much as the quality of the meat, but damn was it a good meal. Hope you all get to enjoy a rack of lamb as good as the one we got, oh yeah, we got two more in the fridge bitches so be jealous.

---- Chef Z & M.B.

3rd Shift, and How I Learned to Eat While On It

Approximately 1 ½ years ago, I was informed that I would be working 3rd shift. I freaked. I was the type of person who could barely stay up until 12pm on the weekends AND I woke up at 630am like clockwork! What was I going to do?

I Googled.

Surprisingly, my go-to source for fixing and remedying problems failed me. I found, 1 ½ years ago, that there is next to NOTHING on the Internet that tells you how to adjust. I was frustrated, but with the help of Chef Z, and friends who were here visiting at the time, I stayed up as long as I could, almost 24 hours, and then managed to sleep through my first day. Over the next 2 weeks it became more normal to sleep during the day with black out curtains and a fan (2 of the few recommendations I actually found). Things seemed as though they were as normal as they could be and I found that I wasn't having problems going to sleep or staying awake like most people. My problem was eating. I was eating breakfast 2 times a day and for me there really aren't healthy breakfasts. I'm a bacon-n-egg, biscuits-n-gravy, eggs Benedict type of girl. Nothing makes me happier than greasy, sauce covered breakfast foods. I realized that this must be the reason why people say they gain so much weight on nights. How do you know when to eat what? With the idea in mind that I did not want to have to buy a new wardrobe after 6 months, and that I was probably going to have heart failure if I continued to eat bacon 3 times a day, I joined Sparkpeople which was one of the few sites that had had information on it about staying healthy while working 3rd shift. They have a meal plan, but because we don't keep a lot of the foods that they talk about in the plan in the house or I just thought that some of the food was gross, I made up my own plan and just tracked it. The great thing about the site is that they let you have a “maintain” choice and a “weight loss” choice. No pressure to loose, which was great because that was exactly what I wanted to avoid. So, with the tracker, I started to see how I was eating for a week. All I can say is I'm glad I didn't keep those habits up!

After a while I figured out my “day pattern”. I would wake up in the late afternoon (3-4pm) and have coffee. Somewhere between 5-7pm, that would be “lunch”. This usually consisted of what ever Chef Z wanted to whip up, or whatever I threw together from the random odds and ends in the fridge. I then would pack a HUGE meal for my snack and dinner. My snack is around 11p and then I have “dinner” at 2am. When I get home (7a-8a) I eat “breakfast” and then go right to bed.

I have to throw a shout-out to my mom for getting me the AWESOME Mr. Bento by Zojirushi. This was great for portion control as well as having enough room to pack healthy snacks. Before, like many of the people at my office, I would take a few dollars and wander down to the vending machines where there was soda, snacks, and then the “meal machine” – the ones with the sandwiches, wraps, and strange over processed breakfast sandwiches. With the Mr. Bento, I had so much food that I never got hungry to pour money into the machine.

Have you ever worked 3rd shift? How did you handle it?


--- M.B.

May Grocery Shopping and Bulk Meat Share

Today, we hope, marks the last grocery store excursion that we will be having. By that I mean that we are hoping that from hence forth, we will be only having to shop at the Hunger Mountain Co-Op to supplement our diet. This could be done in most places by going to a Whole Foods or other chain that has a massive amount of bulk bins. The Co-Op is great for flour, soy sauce, peanut butter, pasta, nuts, and spices in bulk at low low prices. By buying just what we need for the month in bulk, we save money and get exactly the amount we need. We believe that once we start getting our CSA that only the bulk items will be needed to round out our diet.

So, this final run to the grocery store included some of our favorites: deli meat and cheese (gotta love a good sandwich), anchovies in a jar (the oil is a great flavor supplement in sauces), white Cabot cheddar and butter,Green Mountain Gringo Salsa (the best jar salsa around made with whole foods), some on sale organic pork, and lots of lettuce to make yummy salads until we get the share. Two more weeks until we are up to our eye balls in fresh produce and eggs!

Also today we received our Bulk Meat Order from Pete's Greens which was HUGE.

 

Right there ladies and gentlemen is a 8.3 lb chicken. I will call him Chiczilla. He is currently defrosting in our fridge awaiting his dismemberment. Also enclosed was London Broil and 2 racks of lamb. That's right, now we have 3 delicious racks of lamb. Can anyone say dinner party?

Seriously, it is the biggest fucking chicken I have ever seen!! I am going to make a huge amount of stock out of it, hopefully it's got the giblets. I am going to do a post on stocks and share some of my secrets with you. Well they're really not secrets, just traditional French cooking, but it should be helpful non the less. Anyway, can't wait for the CSA to start and we can really get pumping on the posts.

--- Chef Z and M.B.

May Meat Share

Hello everyone!!

Sorry for the delay in posts. Things have been busy in the Chef Z/M.B. Household, what with birthdays (!), spring cleaning :(, guests that will soon be visiting (!!!), and getting ready for our first vacation across country (!!!!!). That being said, I have determined that Chef Z can definitely not undergo this massive project alone and so I will be writing posts as well. These posts, in warning, will probably not be of the recipe persuasion like the Chefs, but more along the lines of my eating healthily to survive working the third shift (a post on what I've learned about healthy eating habits while on 3^rd shift is soon to follow!).

We receive a Meat Share from Pete'sGreens. Pete's is a CSA that covers a LOT of Vermont, and is run year round. This is perfect if you cannot find a CSA close to you or if you want your family to enjoy local foods all winter long. We have done the meat share for 3 seasons now and overall we have enjoyed the experiences we have had with them. The reason that we chose to go with Screamin'Ridge Farm for our CSA is because we wanted to support a local small businessman in our area (he's not even 15 miles away) and because he brings something new and different to the experience simply because he was and is a chef. Now, without further ado, I present to you the May Meat Share, brought to us by Pete'sGreens.

Sorry for the resolution! We were trying the cameras out on our phones. If you can't tell, this share we received a 5.5lb chicken, that is currently defrosting so it can be broken down and used for Chef Z's delicious stock. We also have Sweet Italian Lamb sausage. I have to admit that we ate over half of it sliced up in my Veggie Marinara and the last 2 links are cooked and waiting patiently in the freezer to be sausage, onion, and pepper subs on a lazy cooking day. We also received pasture raised ground beef (approximately 1.5lbs) and a 2lb rack of lamb. I know that I am looking forward to some of Chef Z's bacon burgers now that it is starting to warm up here in the frosty north.

What are your favorite things to eat in the summer months?

---- M.B.