Farm Share #5

So pretty and so odd this week. Lets see, we had:

pointy head cabbage
sugar snap peas
carrots
cucumbers
fresh onions
corn
blueberries
currants
gooseberries



So the pointy head cabbage was the cutest thing ever and the currants were beautiful. I took about 8 glamor shots of them all over the kitchen. I had never seen a gooseberry before so that was kind of fun, too.


And a the bread share was onion foccacia. Once again, it was scarfed. We don't eat a lot of bread. But when we do, we do it FAST!

The blueberries, the few that weren't shoved into our faces immediately upon unpacking the food, were mixed with vanilla yogurt and tasted divine.

What is this ancient bit of technology? It is an early food processor. It is quite ugly and functional. My mom got it, I think, when I was still in high school. It is about 30 years old. My father used to insist on calling it "the La Machine" instead of just "La Machine" and for some reason my sisters and I though this made him seem like a hayseed. He truly knew how to push our buttons!

Anyway, I yanked it out of the cabinet for a recipe that was nearly what I was looking for.

The recipe is CABBAGE AND ONION SALAD and it called for things I had around the house, which is nice. Also, it called for raisins and since when I was searching "what the hell can I do with fresh currants?" I was informed that they could be used in place of cranberries. And since I have been known to use the odd craisin in place of raisins...

Well, I'm sure you can see where this is going.

Brace yourself for the aforementioned glamor shots of the raising substitutes!

Oh, and they look even prettier when combined with the formerly pointy headed cabbage.  And a TON of onion. Frankly, way too much onion. I doubled the recipe, but I may have tripled the onion.

Did I mention I used a lot of onion.

Lots.

The dressing is a beautiful combination of mayonaise, oil, sugar and salt.

And it turned into this delicious, albeit sideways salad. With WAY too much onion...

 I laughed and laughed about the corn. At the pick up site we were warned repeatedly not to "peek" at the corn. It was awesome. I finally understand why people buy scratch tickets. "What is my corn going to look like? Will there be worms? Will it be deformed? I can't wait to find out!"

I got home and shucked it. And boiled it up.

It was a poem of deliciousness! I am in love with this corn!

This is the spread I put out for my book club Friday night. It really has nothing to do with the farm share, but it is so durned pretty, I just wanted to show it off!

Also it can represent the passing of time.  I neglected to say that the carrots, pea pods and cucumbers were used in salads. Of course they were. It is implied by their very existance.

BUT WHAT OF THE GOOSEBERRIES????????

 When I get an unfamiliar food from the farm share I go online and try to find recipes featuring the food. It is fun and challenging, but this week takes the cake. Or rather the Gooseberry Crumble.

Apparently no one in the United States makes anything but jam out of gooseberries. Every single recipe I could find had grams and caster sugar and 1.5 liter casserole dishes.

Yes, they were all in English!

But I perservered. I will print the actual recipe at the bottom and I will print my conversions which are incredibly loosey-goosey. But - spoiler! - it ended up amazing.

First up, cut the tops and tails off the berries. This was much easier than I thought it would be.

Add some lemon zest. I put in maybe 2 teaspoons. The recipe called for the finely grated zest of one large lemon. Even with my light lemon, it was still quite lemony.

 I poured a TON of sugar over the berries and lemon.

In a separate bowl I mixed flour, butter and sugar and did the choppy thing that you do with pie crust. Then added pecans. The recipe called for macadamia nuts, but nuts is nuts, I always say.

And I had pecans.

It looked strangely attractive, but REALLY dry. I was a little concerned, but then I remembered that those little berries were full of goo, so I put it into a 400 degree oven in faith.

 Will you look at that? It is like a heavenly dish of happiness. So beautiful, tart and sweet at the same time.  I am in love with gooseberries.

The British suggest serving this with clotted cream. I am a fan of clotted cream, but had none on hand. So I put a little blob of vanilla Greek yogurt on it. It was quite delicious. I put it in my ramekin.

Now doesn't that sound odd? I say that as if I only have one ramekin.

I know what you are thinking, "Surely you must have a SET of ramekins. Only a crazy person would just have ONE."

Unless there was foul play involved.

Have you seen three other ramekins that look exactly like this lonely one? Any tips are appreciated. No questions will be asked. Just tell me where they are!!! 

And here are your recipes...

Cabbage & Onion Salad

The salad will keep well for up to three days in a sealed container in the refrigerator, so you can make it in advance and at the time of serving, give it a good stir and transfer to a serving dish.

1 Onion, chopped finely

3 cups Cabbage, grated or very finely sliced

1/2 cup Seedless Raisins

3/4 cup Mayonnaise

1 TB Sunflower Oil

1 TB Sugar

1/2 t Salt

1.) Mix the Onion, Cabbage and Raisins in a large bowl.

2.) Combine the Mayonnaise, Oil, Sugar and Salt very well - mix in with the Cabbage.

Chill before serving.

Enjoy!

******The raisins can be replaced with fresh currants. And you can use vegetable oil instead of sunflower oil if you like.******

Gooseberry, lemon and macadamia nut crumbles recipe

Serves 6

Takes 20 minutes to make and 25-30 minutes to bake

Ingredients:

    900g gooseberries, topped and tailed

    150g caster sugar, plus a little extra to serve

    Finely grated zest of 1 large lemon

For the crumble topping:

    150g plain flour

    95g chilled butter, cut into small pieces

    75g caster sugar

    50g macadamia nuts, very coarsely chopped

METHOD

 

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan180°C/gas 6. Pack the gooseberries into 6 x 250ml deep ovenproof dishes or a 1.5-litre ovenproof dish. Sprinkle with the caster sugar and zest.

2. Make the crumble topping. Put the flour and butter into a food processor and whizz until it looks like fine crumbs. Add the sugar and pulse once more until the mixture starts to stick together in little lumps - this is what will make your topping craggy and crunchy. Stir in the macadamia nuts.

3. Spoon the crumble topping generously over the top of the gooseberries. Place the dishes or dish on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the gooseberries are hot and bubbling and the tops are golden. Sprinkle with a little more caster sugar and serve with a spoonful of clotted cream.

Tip: These are very good with a little peeled and diced Cox's apple mixed in with the berries. It's important to cook them at a slightly higher temperature than normal so the topping can become nicely crisp and golden before the fruit boils up over it, making it soft again.

 ******Here are the vague American measures*******

Fruit Mixture:

2 pounds gooseberries

1 c. sugar (but a little less)

lemon zest (however much you like)

Crumble Mixture:

1 c. flour (but a little more)

1/2 c. butter (but a little less)

1/3 c. sugar (but a little more)

1/2 c. nuts - on the nosie!

Cook for 25 minutes at 400 degrees. 

Let it cool or your mouth will never forgive you!

Enjoy!

FARM SHARE #4

Ooh, look at that bounty! This week was just spectacular.
On team veggie we had:
sugar snap peas
Swiss chard
scallions
carrots
onions
zucchini
yellow squash
cucumbers
tomatoes
Thank goodness I only have a half veggie share! There is so much.


Fruitwise we ended up with raspberries, blackberries and a ton of blueberries!

The cheese was burrata which is the Fresehen-Up gum of the cheese world. (More on that later...)

And the bread was something French-ish and delicious.

The basil was stolen from a friend's garden. Well, not stolen, I begged for it. I have no shame!







 Okay, look at that bread! Ignore the bottle of liquor, it will make sense later. There is no resisting that bread!

You can't really see the oil, garlic, Parmesan dip I made, but I can still taste it 22 hours later. It was potent and delicious. We ate it with some wonderful Kalamata olives that I had the good sense to impulse buy last week. Yay me!

When my beloved ball and chain spotted the berries he said, "This can only mean one thing- SANGRIA!" He loves sangria. Now you may need to look away if you really make sangria, but here is my horrible and yet incredibly tasty sangria. Ready? 

1. Dump a bunch of berries in the sangria pitcher.

2. Cover them with a few shots of triple sec.

3. Pour in some red wine.

4. Pour in some sweet tea.

5. Fill a glass with ice.

6. Pour boozy-tea mixture a third of the way up the glass. 

7. Add diet 7-Up to top of glass.

I know, it sounds horrible, like something you would get if Walmart had a bar. But it is yummy and you can drink it all night because it has just enough hooch so that you can taste it but you don't do any real damage to your liver or reputation.

Since I was kind enough to make sangria, I figured that I would trick the family into trying a new vegetable. Hey, I have standards. They are low, but I do have them. Anyway, we have never had anything as exotic as Swiss chard (although we are big fans of the cheese, army knife and steak- just kidding about the steak) so I said it was a kind of spinach and even put it in the empty spinach casket from Market Basket. (Hee, Market Basket spinach casket... so rhymey!)

And it was a huge hit! Along with the other veggies -in the salad of which I did not take a picture. But I did record the chopping as I am wont to do.

This is the Capricious Salad I made. (caprese salad but more whimsical...) I just chop everything up, unlike my idol so it is not as pretty, but it still tastes yummy. Just basil, tomato, balsamic vinegar and what one assumes is mozzarella.

But not quite. When I cut open the burrata, thinking it was garden variety mozzerella, I assumed that there was something terribly, TERRIBLY wrong. It was oozing! It was milky and horrifying.

Turns out it is just "a fresh Italian cheese, made from mozzarella and cream.  The outer shell is solid mozzarella while the inside contains both mozzarella and cream, giving it an unusual, soft texture." according to the fine folks at wikipedia.

Surprise! It looks gross.

But it tastes swell. Oh yeah, I ate it. I ate it UP!

And here are some glamor shots of berries and, well, everything, including some chicken.

Ooh! I forgot the squashes and onion! I cooked them in some olive oil and sprinkled them with garlic powder. I know, I need to get some fresh garlic.

But it was still delicious!










And there you have it. Look at me turning all those fruits and vegetables into food. Well, you know what I mean - food that the fussy processed food loving folks here will eat.

I DO NOT HATE AMERICA!

...but I am a little annoyed with the fourth of July this year. No farm share this week. So sad...

However, if you will step up to the way-back machine, I will take you to the wilds of last week to show you what I did with the cabbage and lettuce from last week!

What is going on here? Is this a Christopher Nolan movie? Are we starting with the end product? 

Why yes we are. These are moo-shu-ish lettuce roll ups. I invented them! Well, that is not entirely true. But I did just whip this together with no help whatsoever from the internet. Pretty slick for a recipe girl like me!

Once again, we start on my beautiful bamboo cutting board.  Ooh, that cabbage is chopped up real nice. I used my sling blade... Just kidding. But I did get enthusiastic during the cabbage carnage.

Look at my little pork sticks! And my carrot sticks. I can julienne just about anything. But I did slice the scallions (farm share scallions!) into little circles for contrast. Yes, presentation is everything for me. (See cat vomit rhubarb chicken...)

This is after I added the secret ingredient. No, not the cabbage, surely you saw that coming. The hoisin sauce! It makes everything more wonderful. I gave it a stir and it smelled divine.

Then I made some little lettuce vests and plopped the porky deliciousness right on there. Rolled them right up in beautiful farm share goodness.  Yes, one family member used tortillas for his, but I will not show a photo because it just looks dull. Not like this...

Glorious, isn't it? I should just wrap everything in lettuce. Hot dogs, mallowmars, bananas, whatever I've got.







I was going to post some pictures of my home improvement projects here, but I keep forgetting to take "before" pictures and my "afters" are only impressive if you knew what they looked like before.

Okay, I will post this ONE because I built this thing. I bought it in pieces and it was like the most fun lego set ever!

And here is a little side view because it looks so darn cute with the cutting boards and tiny mixers on the shelves.

Now that's it. I'll see you Thursday at the depot!

FARM SHARE 3!!

Alright, it seems that this blog doesn't want me to be able to type next to pictures this week. Well, poo. So to punish it, I am going to make it hold GIANT pictures of beautiful food. That'll teach it!

Take a gander, if you will, at this week's bounty!

Let's see, in the vegetable share we had lettuce, scallions, cabbage, kohlrabi and something called pea tendrils that I had not heard of before.

The fruit share was a quart and a pint of strawberries and a pint of cherries!

And it was a banner week for bread and cheese. We got a loaf of sourdough with garlic and a block of some amazing cheddar that felt like butter on my tongue.

You may notice some dents in the bread and cheese and a certain lack of fullness to the quart of berries. You know how sometimes the food doesn't last the day? Well, sometimes it doesn't even make the car ride home unscathed! I was like a jackal on a carcass with that bread. Just gnawing away. And the cheese was a bit of an embarrassment as well. Although I did have the self control not to bite chunks out. I did break off a piece delicately with my nearly clean fingers. The strawberries, I just jammed down my gullet and threw the hulls out the window like a horrible litterer. But vegetable matter doesn't count as litter. I looked it up. 

So what did I do to this food?

Well first I emasculated the kohlrabi.Just chopped his little tendrils off. And then I peeled him and cut him into sticks with an eye towards preparing kohlrabi home fries. I am not even sure if I am going to post the recipe. It was not pretty.

Okay, it doesn't look so bad right now, does it? Kind of apple-like. That potato peeler was completely useless against the tough skin of the beastie.

Then a dipping into a nice friendly bag of flour.

And a warm bath in some olive oil. For some reason, this is the last picture I took of them. After this I put them on some paper towels to absorb some of the grease and sprinkled them with cumin. Like the recipe suggested! They tasted like blocks of somewhat tender wood. Not my finest hour! I was going to force the family to try one, but even I am not that cruel!

Let us go, then, to the next recipe - Pea Tendrils with Crimini Mushrooms and Leeks. Or as I call it - Pea Tendrils with Regular Old White Mushrooms and some farm share scallions! Look at that garlic from last week's farm share! Still helpful! And if you look in the back corner you can see some of the bread and cheese which I could NOT STOP EATING!!!

Here are the scallions being cooked in some butter.

Have I mentioned my love for my Pampered Chef chopper thingy lately? It is so handy for the garlic.

And look how beautiful the pea tendrils are! They even have little flowers on them. Oh pea tendrils, would that I had just enjoyed you in your pretty flower bedecked state rather than trying to, well, cook you.

The tension builds as I add the garlic and mushrooms! Surely this must be a good idea.

The tendrils are placed ever so gently into the pan.

After the first stir.









And this is as far as the pictures go. After a minute or two it might as well have been spinach! I should have just put them on a salad or something. I just can't abide cooked greens. Even beautiful, flowry, tendrily cooked greens. Oh the humanity. I tried to eat them, but even the butter couldn't save them from just grossing me out. A little raspberry walnut balsamic vinegar on these babies raw and they would have been delicious. Alas, I cooked them and it was all for naught...

The cabbage and lettuce will be Aunt Ginger's delicious crunchy salad. I found a link here for something surprisingly similar. And yet they did not thank Aunt Ginger. Citations, people! Humble Bean's photos put mine to shame though. Very beautiful.

And here are the recipes for those of you who don't know a cautionary tale when you see one!

 

Kohlrabi Home Fries

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN

1 1/2 to 2 pounds kohlrabi

1 tablespoon rice flour, chickpea flour or semolina (more as needed) 

Salt to taste

2 to 4 tablespoons canola oil or grapeseed oil, as needed 

Chili powder, ground cumin, curry powder or paprika to taste

1. Peel the kohlrabi and cut into thick sticks, about 1/3 to 1/2 inch wide and about 2 inches long.

2. Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a heavy skillet (cast iron is good). Meanwhile, place the flour in a large bowl, season with salt if desired and quickly toss the kohlrabi sticks in the flour so that they are lightly coated.

3. When the oil is rippling, carefully add the kohlrabi to the pan in batches so that the pan isn’t crowded. Cook on one side until browned, about 2 to 3 minutes. Then, using tongs, turn the pieces over to brown on the other side for another 2 to 3 minutes. The procedure should take only about 5 minutes if there is enough oil in the pan. Drain on paper towels, then sprinkle right away with the seasoning of your choice. Serve hot.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

Advance preparation: You can cut up the kohlrabi several hours before frying. Keep in the refrigerator.

Nutritional information per serving (based on lower range in ingredients, 4 servings): 117 calories; 7 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 4 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 13 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams dietary fiber; 34 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 3 grams protein

Pea Tendrils with Crimini Mushrooms and Leeks

Makes 4 servings

    3 tablespoons butter

    1 cup thinly sliced leek (white and pale green parts only; about 1 medium)

    2 garlic cloves, minced

    8 ounces crimini mushrooms, sliced

    8 cups pea tendrils, left intact

 

Melt butter in large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Add leek; cover and cook until leek is soft but not brown, stirring often, about 7 minutes. Increase heat to medium-high; add garlic and mushrooms and sauté until mushrooms begin to brown, about 7 minutes. Add pea tendrils; cook until pea tendrils just begin to wilt, tossing often, about 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Farm Share Number Two!

Isn't it pretty?

So this week was the advent of the BREAD and CHEESE shares!!! Thanks to Corey McLaughlin for practically forcing me to buy them.

The bread was a very herb-y focaccia that didn't last the night. There were two cheeses - FETA, which everyone hates but me so hurrah, I get to eat it all! And some CHEVRE that was very popular on the bread and also didn't last the night. Because someone left it on the counter. Someone who will be shut out of the cheese share next time. And might be kicked out of the marital bed if he mistreats cheese like that again...

But enough about the cheese tragedy. Our fruit this week was strawberries, two beautiful quarts. They were picked away at for two days and the rest were frozen for smoothies.


Our veggies were splendid. There was only one that I hadn't cooked with before let's see if you can identify it!

• two pudgy, juicy tomatoes
• garlic
• scallinos
• fennel

If you guessed fennel, you win the prize! Which is the rest of the garlic, because I will never get around to using all of it...

Now here is the opening salvo in farm share eating. I cut some of the bread and topped it with a bit of feta and a strawberry half to eat while I cooked. Because self control is for the weak. The rest of my family ripped into it as well. I managed to cut a few slices and set them aside for later before the last crumbs were attacked.

These are some of the ingredients for Chicken Milanese with Tomato and Fennel Sauce, which was what I ended up making. So, the recipe calls for cherry tomatoes, I substituted one of my fresh ones. It also called for garlic and fennel - had them both! And it wanted mascarpone cheese, which is completely different from goat cheese, but it still came out delicious. (If not pretty...)

 Isn't it pretty when I chop things? The tomato is in the yellow bowl, looking like strawberries, the garlic is in the orange and the fennel is in the blue. 

You can also see the chicken tenders - not breasts as the recipe calls for because I have GONE ROGUE on this recipe. You can't contain me food network! I am off the rez! I breaded them and cooked them in a little olive oil. 

Now back to business...

 I cooked the fennel in the chicken scrapings and it smelled so good! I only used half the fennel and twice the garlic and while it was delicious, I am curious as to how it would have tasted if, well, anything I did resembled the actual recipe!

I also added the special surprise guest, dried thyme! Which I have in my newly and beautifully organized spice cabinet. Stay tuned, someday I will post on that and it will knock your socks RIGHT OFF!!

Then I stirred this and stirred this and it smelled delicious and yet others in my family chose to eat this.

Which I call stupid white food plate. Plain chicken with brown rice and a piece of bread. How dull, how bland, how much less like a crime scene looking than what I actually ate.

Yes, I understand that this looks much like what many a cat has left on many a carpet. But it was delicious! Now if you look at the picture from the online recipe, you will note that they placed the chicken ON TOP of the sauce. That is a really good idea and one that I should have taken into consideration. 

I put my bread down, topped it with chicken and then ladled the cat sick, I mean sauce, over top. But I ate it bravely and it was delicious. And the bread was actually too much. It wasn't necessary. The sauce was a lot denser and more veggie friendly than it seemed. And I only used half the cheese that was called for because I am not selfish.


In a perfect world, it would have looked more like this. Pretty yummy looking, isn't it?

I will now add the recipe that I completely bastardized for this meal and leave you to your own devices. Enjoy!

[I just reread the recipe and it clearly says, "Transfer the chicken to a serving platter and spoon the sauce over the top before serving." This is clearly a ploy to make sure that theirs is the prettiest!]

 

Chicken Milanese with Tomato and Fennel Sauce

Recipe courtesy Giada De Laurentiis

Total Time: 43 min Prep 15 min Cook 28 min

Yield:  4 to 6 servings

 

Ingredients

Chicken: 

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

2 eggs, beaten

1 1/4 cups plain bread crumbs

2/3 cup grated Parmesan

2 teaspoons dried basil

1 teaspoon dried thyme

4 (6 to 8-ounce) boneless and skinless chicken breasts, tenderloins removed

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Saucee:

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 fennel bulbs, trimmed and thinly sliced

2 1/2 cups (12 ounces) cherry tomatoes, halved

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for seasoning

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more for seasoning

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon dried thyme or 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves

1/2 cup mascarpone cheese, at room temperature

Directions

For the chicken: Put an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a wire rack.

Using 3 wide shallow bowls, add the flour to 1, the eggs to another and to the third bowl combine the bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, basil, and thyme.

On a work surface, put the chicken between 2 pieces of plastic wrap. Using a meat mallet, lightly pound the chicken until approximately 1/4 to 1/2-inch thick. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken pieces in the flour to coat lightly, then dip into the beaten eggs, allowing the excess egg to drip off. Coat the chicken with the bread crumb mixture, pressing gently to adhere.

In a large, nonstick saute pan, heat the vegetable oil over medium heat. Add 2 pieces of the breaded chicken into the oil and cook until light golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes on each side. Transfer the chicken to the prepared baking sheet and keep warm in the oven. Repeat with the remaining chicken. Reserve the cooking juices in the saute pan.

For the sauce: Using the same saute pan, add the olive oil to the reserved cooking juices and heat over medium heat. Add the fennel and cook, stirring frequently, until softened, about 5 to 6 minutes. Stir in the cherry tomatoes, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, garlic and thyme. Cook for 5 to 6 minutes until the tomatoes are tender. Remove the pan from the heat. Add the mascarpone cheese and stir until the mixture is creamy. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Transfer the chicken to a serving platter and spoon the sauce over the top before serving.

FARM SHARE #1!!!!!

 Well here is the treat I have been waiting for! The FIRST FARM SHARE!
This week we got

• a head of tender lettuce
• a head of broccoli
• a bunch of hakurei turnips
• a bunch of scallions
• a bunch of rhubarb
• a quart plus a pint of the most delicious strawberries

Everyone said, "Don't be disappointed at the first share, it is always the smallest..." I was NOT disappointed. It was all beautiful!
As soon as I got home I looked for some recipes to make the most of this bounty!

The strawberries were easy. I washed them and put them in a bowl and they barely made it through the afternoon. They were beautiful and sweet and reminded me of Aunt Rosie's garden from way back.

I made an incredible salad with the turnips and lettuce that had a spicy homemade dressing and candied pecans.

We are going to pretend that the rhubarb pork chop casserole that I made looked like this picture from the internet rather than the slightly charred mess it ended up being. I forgot to take a picture before we dug in, but it was pretty ugly so no great loss. It was surprisingly delicious, though.

The only thing left after dinner were the scallions and the broccoli. I will be steaming the broccoli at some point this weekend and the scallions will go over salads and maybe a frittata. Oh, don't you worry, they will get eaten!

So my stats for the summer are good. Of the 2 weird* farm share items (turnips and rhubarb) I used them both within 24 hours.

Hurrah for me!

Hurrah for farm share!

*  "Weird" is defined as a specific term that refers to a vegetable I have never cooked or perhaps even eaten in my life. A noob, if you will...

Hakurei Turnip Salad

from JulieIrene at SparkRecipes

This salad makes use of the Hakurei Turnip (also called Asian Salad Turnips or Japanese Turnips), which are generally a fall plant. The dressing can be modified to taste and used on any salad, so enjoy!

Minutes to Prepare: 30

Number of Servings: 4

Salad Ingredients:

    4 cups greens of choice (I used the turnip greens from the turnips)

    4 small Asian salad turnips, diced

    2 apples, diced

    4 Tblsp candied pecans

    8 Tblsp dressing

Candied Pecans:

    dash Salt

    1/2 cup sugar

    1/4 tsp cinnamon

    3 Tbsp nonfat milk

    1/2 cup pecan pieces

    1/2 Tbsp vanilla

Dressing

    3 garlic cloves

    dash salt

    1 1/2 Tbsp dijon mustard

    2 Tbsp Cider Vinegar

    1 Tbsp Olive Oil

    dash ground pepper

Directions

Candied Pecans:

1. Mix salt, sugar, cinnamon & milk in saucepan & bring to boil.

2. Remove from heat.

3. Add vanilla & pecans. Stir until coated & crystallized.

4. Pour on to wax paper or foil & separate with fork to cool.

Dressing:

1. Mash garlic cloves in bowl with fork.

2. Add salt, mustard & vinegar. Whisk well.

3. Whisk in oil & dash of pepper.

This salad recipe makes 4 servings. In each salad bowl, place 1 cup greens & toss with dressing. Add on top of each salad one diced turnip, 1/2 of a diced apple, and 2 Tbsp of candied pecans.

 

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Pork Chop Rhubarb Casserole

From The Rhubarb Compendium

Ingredients:

4 pork chops

3 C. rhubarb -- cut up

1 Tbsp. cooking oil

1/2 C. brown sugar

1 Tsp. cinnamon

2 1/2 to 3 c. bread crumbs

1/4 C. flour

Salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:

In skillet, brown pork chops in oil; add salt and pepper. Remove to platter. Mix 1/4 cup pan drippings with bread crumbs. Reserve 1/2 cup. Sprinkle remaining crumbs into 9x13 inch baking dish. Combine rhubarb, sugar, flour and cinnamon. Spoon half over the bread crumbs. Arrange pork chops on top. Spoon remaining rhubarb mixture over chops. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Remove foil, sprinkle remaining crumbs. Bake 15 minutes longer.

 Once I am home for the summer I will start uploading nutritional information and maybe even Weight Watchers points, but for now, you will just have to trust that it might be healthy and is certainly delicious, unless stated otherwise.

Fat Girl with a Farm Share

I got my first Farm Share newletter today! I am so excited. We are getting a half vegetable share and a fill fruit share through Farm Direct Coop. We are going to eat healthy and organic and it is going to be awesome. I may be back in Birkenstock and Indian print skirts by July. I was planning on growing tomatoes, zucchini and peppers so that I could make Elly's Zucchini Relish and Karen's Cooked Salsa with my own vegetables. But according to the newsletter, I can buy those in bulk from the coop and save myself a lot of work. This blog isn't titled Sedentary Woman for nothing!
Anyway, I am thrilled that it is coming so soon. I think I will try to document what I am sure will be some serious vegetable related train wreck recipes as well as successes. Man, I hope there are some successes!