Chocolate Challah

This one is a week late, (I have been out at a physics conference in Colorado), but better late than never.

One of my good friends had the first step of his medical boards last week, and so I baked him a loaf of chocolate challah (seen at left). A nice cake-like bread, braided like the traditional egg-bread, with chocolate chips and cocoa powder added. Typically dense and very moist. I baked it two days before the test- Hopefully everything went well for him-

I should catch up on the CSA stuff over the next few days, if moving doesn't consume all of my non-work hours-

Kris

Week Five- A Bit Delayed

We are in the process of moving from our separate to a single apartment. Thankfully, we can string this process over more than the single weekend that most people in Iowa City have over the last weekend of July. The first (and in my opinion, one of the most important) rooms to tackle was the kitchen. After a weekend of work and some compromise, we have almost combined our two nearly complete kitchens into one working and well stocked kitchen. The CSA goods have been scattered since the pickup on Saturday, but here is a list of what we got:

Green Beans, Cabbage, Basil, Garlic Scapes, Onion, Parsley, Lettuce, Broccoli, and Zucchini.

I will leave you with an image of where the kitchen briefly met the plants-

-Kris

Fourth of July Bread

Whats more patriotic than a big pile of bread, homemade for an outdoor grill out?

Around 4 pounds of fresh, slow fermented, Pan a l'Ancienne loafs- One of Amy (and my) favorite breads from The Bread Baker's Apprentice, and the first loafs to baked in her (now our) oven as we migrate away from cooking at my apartment. Hardy, chewy with a good balance between crust and crumb- simply quite delicious.

-Kris

Lamb Kebabs

One of the last meals to be cooked in my bachelor kitchen- Kebabs of Lamb Shoulder. I marinated them overnight in garlic and olive oil, skewered them with green peppers and shallots, and 'grilled' them over a hot skillet for a few minutes. On the side was rice and a lettuce slaw. While the slaw needs a good deal of work, as does my butchering abilities, the meal was overall a success. Thanks to American Lamb Council for the suggestion.

-Kris

Birthday Dinner!

For my 25th birthday, I decided to try making coconut milk pancakes. I followed a recipe from Flatbreads and Flavors, ending up with a dozen or so fluffy cakes.

These were not the best pancakes I have ever had, but the hint of coconut went well with a dash of cold maple syrup and some strawberries (not pictured)- especially on a warm summer evening. The directions called for a particular method of pouring the batter as a means of creating a light, lacy texture, which I ignored; perhaps when I try these again I will follow the instructions to the t.

-Kris

CSA- Week 4

Lots of Greens this week-

In no particular order:

Lettuce, Garlic Scapes, Zucchini, Broccoli, Kale, Peas, Parsley, Basil

I have some fun ideas for the vegetables - Just finished off the turnips from a few weeks back mashed up with potatoes and served with garlic and parsley crusted chicken for dinner tonight.

For tomorrow, I am planning on some cumin beef with broccoli and tomatoes. The recipe comes from a book I just got for my birthday.

On the baking front, after some experimental breads, one which I dubbed a zucchini fudge foam (It looked somewhat bizarre, but tasted quite good, almost like a bread pudding),

I made a Portuguese Sweet Loaf. Should serve as good sandwich bread for lunches for the upcoming week.

Chicken Stir Fry

A nice and simple dish today- Chicken stir fry. With the chicken, I added the CSA's garlic scapes and snap peas, as well as a savory sauce with chili paste, Chinese cooking wine, and soy sauce. Roasted corn and peppers and rice rounded the dish out. The meal was good- the greens where a little undercooked (I find that scapes always need more cooking time than I expect.)

Roti and Meatballs

A fun meal tonight. Made roti (and Indian wheat bread) with ground beef meatballs. Roti seemed like a good replacement for naan, which I have to stay away from due to the presence of yogurt in the latter. The bread was ok, but far from perfect. I need to use a low gluten flour next time to get the correct texture (A good chunk of my baking experience is founded upon creating as much gluten as possible, which requires different flour and different techniques from what Indian breads need). As accompaniments, we had hummus, a mint pesto, and quick pickled radishes. All of the pieces rolled up inside the bread to make a tasty sandwich of sorts.

Marble Rye-

Baked my first rye bread last night-Recipe from The Breadmaker's Apprentice-
Seems to have come out alright. Rather dense, same texture but different flavors from the light and dark doughs. This one might earn a spot in the daily bread rotation.

Chocolate (and Avocado) Mousse

Heard about this one on The Splendid Table- The use of a vegetable to introduce a creamy, silky, texture sounded intriguing. And it worked. Amy suggested that the mousse would work well as a sauce over some baked good. Now we just need to figure out what pastry to try.

Turtle Bread

After Amy pointed me to an inspiring website, I decided to try my hand at bread sculpture. Instead of the Sourdough that Boudin Bakery uses (as they are from California, their choice of bread makes sense), I used the Challah recipe from The Bread Maker's Apprentice, replacing the sugar with honey. The dough shaped quite well, as you can see in the before and after shots below.

Suggestions for other animals?

-Kris

Week Three-

Here is what we picked up on Saturday from the Farmer's Market as well as plans for cooking:

Garlic Scapes- Use in stir fry, mashed potatoes and turnips.

Head Lettuce-tear up for use in a Mediterranean mix to top some meat balls.

Asparagus-Grilled, plan and simple

Bok Choi-Stir Fry

Mint-Two different sauces, if not used for mojitos first.

Turnip-mashed potatoes and turnips

Dandelion-Add to the salad mix.

Broccoli-Still working on this one.

Kale-Ditto

Salad Mix-Add dressing and crutons, serve with a sandwich.

Peas-Stir Fry

Beets-Another great salad topping

As with the first two weeks, we have lots of green leafy veggies. As the season progresses, we should have more fleshy produce, which should be good, as neither Amy nor I can live on salads alone.

Week Two-

Its only week three, and I am already behind on posting. Somehow, I am not too surprised. These delicious offers come from week two- We picked them up on Saturday June 11th.

Above we have rhubarb (not from the CSA, but delicious none the less). Each week the farmers say it will be the last week for rhubarb and the next week some more always appears. We also have some sugar snap peas and asparagus. Below are young broccoli and broccolini. Still working out what to do with them.

Spinach. Not much more to say here.

Above are garlic scapes (the flowering part of the garlic, harvested before blooming to increase bulb growth) mint, and purslane. Below are two types of turnips and one kind of radish.

Should be good cooking this week.

Busy Day-

Busy day yesterday- No updates on either plants or food. Instead, here is one of Amy's stone owls exploring a forest of ginger shoots. I planted the ginger two months back, and it seems to be thriving.

-Kris

Week One- Dinners in retrospect.

As I am playing catchup with this blog and the food we have been consuming, here in one post are the dinners from last week- All using at least one CSA item:

Dinners We Missed-

No pictures of these, as they have already been consumed. Next week I will
try to post the meals as they are cooked but before they are eaten.

Monday: Quick fried neck of lamb with baby bok choi. Learned that neck is the
wrong choice of meat. Very wrong.

Tuesday: Basque chicken with mashed potatoes and turnips. Learned that various root
veggies can add a nice bit of flavor to potatoes.

Wednesday: Bo Ssam. Slow roasted beef short ribs, white rice, a green
garlic sauce, a dragon chili paste all wrapped up in lettuce leafs.
Super tasty.

Thursday: Chicken Fajitas. Simple, straightforward. Used the garlic scapes.

Friday: Deli Sandwichs with a chilled red pepper soup. The jury is still
out on the soup. Assorted greens in both sandwich and soup.

-No pictures, As I forgot prior to record the meals for posterity prior to eating them.

-Kris

Week One-

CSA Week One- June 1st
From last week- Posted for completeness-

From our CSA:
Asparagus (427 oz)
Arugala (143 oz)
Baby Bok Choi (150 oz)
Bunch Spinach (276 oz)
Head Lettuce (106 oz)
Radishes (199 oz)
Turnip (130 oz)
Cilantro (86 oz)
Green Garlic (76 oz)
Nettle [Not touching the stuff-]*
Mint (83 oz)**
---
Rhubarb (521 oz)***
Garlic Scapes (118 oz)***



* Our CSA is run by some interesting folk, who give us things like Stinging
Nettle. Its works as anti-allergenic tea- supposedly. I will let Amy comment
on that one.

** We supplemented the CSA's mint with some from another seller.

*** From the others at the farmers marker, not from Echollective.

Updates on the new food should come each Saturday. All the photos are from my new phone- Thus the poor resolution.

Have a good one-

Kris

...And we are back!

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Hello All!

After a long hiatus (due to schooling and the like) I now return to my
blogging duties. In addition to keeping track of the plants that Amy and
I are cultivating, I intend to record the produce we get from our share
from a local CSA (community supported agriculture) and how we consume it.

The CSA we chose is Echollective They seemed to have a good selection
of food and they have the option of a couple's share, which has half the food of the family share.
I will try to keep track of what we get, how much we get, and how we use it.
Pictures of the raw produce and the final product will also be shared. Hopefully.

Have a good summer-
-Kris