CSA DEMOS: My suggestions

POST #760

Here is an exerpt from the post I sent in answer to the CSA’s call for food prep demos.  Let’s see if they go for anything.  If not, well, it would be a volunteer gig anyway, and I would have to supply all the ingredients and equipment…

Based on my previous experiences doing demos, I wrote them and told them I could do these things:

• beet or turnip salad might be the best/most accessible — lots of people have a food processor. (I learned from a Greek member that she makes beet salad in much the same way, only she cooks the beets).
•  What I do that is kind of cool is make pasta from raw vegetables (zucchini, carrot, beet — anything that is hard enough to work with the spiralizer)  That is interesting to people because it makes another way to do salad, or a way to have a cool dish in the summer, etc…..(I could suggest where people could get spiralizers– mostly on-line, or in Japanese stores in town)  If I did this one, I would probably make a simple raw tomato sauce to go on it. (BTW, I did this demo as the first demo the CSA ever had — many people were interested, but they thought I was selling the spiralizer.  I now understand how to handle that more effectively)
•  I could also demonstrate how to make a raw vegan cashew cheeze  pate that is very nice as a tomato stuffing, or on individual tomato slices — this would be a trifle more expensive for me to produce because of the tomatoes. but I could also put it on zucchini or cucumber slices for tasting (I do this one several ways – my favorites are with kale, or with shiitake mushrooms and jalapeno)   It can also be used to make a nice “raw-violi” with thin kohlrabi or beet slices — which I’ve been doing for the past 2 weeks, btw)
•  I also have a very easy quick recipe for a raw vegan cheddar cheeze that can be used as a dip for raw vegetables, or as a sauce for other food (this uses red bell pepper, lemon, and cashews), 
•  I could, also do a demo for how to make guaranteed 3-day sauerkraut that doesn’t smell up your kitchen or take up much space.  (I’ve just opened the one I started on Saturday night!)  I would just need to make up some sauerkraut 3 days before the event, and then have the ingredients to show (or not even — I could just explain it)  This demo would not be on-going at all – it would be a one-off – if you are there, you see it, but I will hang around and explain how it is done to late comers, if you like.  

 the sauerkraut  is also a possibility for a workshop, if you are at all interested in doing workshops.  Such a workshop would take all of 1/2 hour (or more, if you wanted it to be hands-on) – you show what is needed, you show how it’s done, you give ideas for variations, you give a tasting, and send them on their merry way (or more, if you wanted it to be hands-on)  The demo way would be more like a youtube video – here is how you do it.  (Here are the things you need, watch me, here are extra things that you could add, here are variations that you could do, here is what you absolutely really really need for success, here is a taste.)

So, we’ll see if they bite on any of these.  I have already done the beet salad and the spiralized vegetable pasta, but that was a couple of years ago.

 

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6/28/12 CSA SHARE DISTRIBUTION #5

 POST #758

Here is what we got and what I came home with:

Zucchini – 4 pcs
Cipollini Onions – 1 bun
Fennel -OR- Kohlrabi – 1 bun…We got broccoli instead, I traded for more kale
Baby Spinach – 1 bag
Radicchio – 1 hd
Swiss Chard – 1 bun………………I traded for more kale
Toscano Kale – 1 bun
Red Boston Lettuce – 1 hd…..…We got a HUGE bunch of escarole instead

I traded the broccoli because it was mostly yellow, and I don’t care for broccoli that much anyway.

I kept the radicchio because I have never eaten radicchio, and I can’t know if I don’t like it until I try it.  Wish me luck.

I was going to trade the onions for something, but they are so nice and big – I have some store-bought onions, which will last for a while, but these nice fat onions will be good in salads for the next week, I think.

I just made it through last week’s escarole (gasp!), and now I’m saddled with more.  Oh well. Wraps worked last week, I can deal with a salad or two, and then, of course, there are (yuck) green smoothies.  (I was just checking my skin today to see if I have turned green from all the green smoothies occasioned by the farms insidious desire for me to consume green leaves.)

I will be up by Fairway market tomorrow afternoon, so I will stop in there and pick up some cabbage (I’m out of sauerkraut), tomatoes, mushrooms (I want to make a cashew/jalapeno/mushroom cheeze filling for kohlrabi ravioli with the kohlrabi I still have left), and some more lentils to sprout (I really do love lentil sprouts)

BTW, last week, I bought this bag of sprouting grass for the cats from the supermarket, and it turned out to be wheat mixed with vermiculite.  I opened the bag wrong, so I ended up putting a paper towel in my old Kitchen Garden sprouter.  I have never seen wheat sprout that fast!  It grew to be short grass (standing up and everything) in 2 days.  I watered it twice a day for about 5 days, then set it out for the cats, who would have nothing to do with it – oh well, I guess they are not into healthy food.  Meanwhile, I saw it was so easy, I am thinking about growing wheat grass for me (mind you, I am still in the thinking stage. I could probably put a window box inside the kitchen window – our only window that gets sun).

It’s really hot here, but, I’m happy to say that my last living fan (2 died over the winter) is cooling my room off nicely.  Yea!

6/28/12 CSA SHARE: What they say we will get

POST #757

This is what they say we will get:

Zucchini – several pcs
Cipollini Onions – 1 bun
Fennel -OR- Kohlrabi – 1 bun
Baby Spinach – 1 bag
Radicchio – 1 hd
Swiss Chard – 1 bun
Toscano Kale – 1 bun
Red Boston Lettuce – 1 hd

I’m looking forward to some zucchini pasta and kale chips.

WHAT WE GOT & WHAT I AM DOING WITH IT

Here’s the breakdown from Thursday’s share

Kohlrabi – 1 pc    actually we got several pieces
Fennel – 1 pce       I traded for a big kohlrabi
Carrots – 1 bun     the carrots were kind of small. I put them through the juicer
Cilantro – 1 bun    a big bunch
Escarole – 1 hd      this was a large head
Scallions – 1 bun    traded for more cilantro
Arugula – 1 bag       we got choggia beets
Green Romaine Lettuce – 1 hd    traded for more beets
Green Boston Lettuce – 1 hd

I put the carrots through the juicer and got a small juice glass of carrot juice. I froze the pulp for use in something later.

I’ve made a couple of different versions of raw ravioli, using the large kohlrabi.  I cut it in half and sliced it with my thin slicer (looks like a vegetable peeler, but it’s very wide).  I put my cashew-kale pate and cilantro in the raviolis, and I also made the “chicken pate” recipe from Ani Phyo’s first book and put it in the wraps with some cilantro.

I used the escarole in some wraps with the cashew-kale pate, onion, tomato, cilantro, and lentil sprouts.   I also made a soup with lentil sprouts by dehydrating chopped up  escarole leaves to tender, then adding garlic, olive oil, a little sea salt (!) and black pepper, cilantro, and some red pepper flakes, and dehydrating for a few hours until it was warm.

Well, the lettuce has gone into salads, duh. I also threw some of it, along with some escarole, and an apple, into the blender for a smoothie.  Yuck.  I drank it anyway.  It’s good for me, right?

The beets, you ask?  My beet salad (beets into the food processor along with olive oil, apple cider vinegar, onions, and garlic – with some cilantro!).  I also made a “slaw” with some kohlrabi, beets, apple cider vinegar, onions, extra virgin olive oil, garlic,  and – yes! cilantro! — I put the kohlrabi in the food processor first, and ground it to almost apple sauce consistency, removed it, then put the beets and everything else in, then tossed all in a bowl — the idea was to have white color, but the beets in colored the kohlrabi anyway

My room-mate and I are tentatively back on a two-day meal share plan, so I am planning some fancy kohlrabi raviolo (not sure what will go in them yet), with a sauce of some sort – likely sun-dried tomatoes with something;  a lettuce, escarole, seaweed salad with lentil or sunflower sprouts and a vinaigrette of some sort. I might make the escarole soup again, as well – I liked it, and I will have enough time on Wednesday to do all of the dehydrating.

I’m glad to be back to a one day a week meal share because it gives me a chance to use up stuff I won’t eat all of by myself (I mean, I have been eating all of my share because I have no money to buy other food, but it sure would be nice to have a helping hand, and my room-mate loves salads.)

Of course, we do expect the appearance of sauerkraut somewhere in all of this.  I still have 1/2 qt jalapeno sauerkraut.  I’ll be making more sauerkraut by week end.

6/21/12 CSA SHARE: What they say we will get

POST #754

This is what they say we will get tomorrow:

Kohlrabi – 1 piece
Fennel – 1 piece
Carrots – 1 bunch
Cilantro – 1 bunch
Escarole – 1 head
Scallions – 1 bunch
Arugula – 1 bag
Green Romaine Lettuce – 1 head
Green Boston Lettuce – 1 head

Most people cook kohlrabi, but I slice it thin on a mandolin, and use it as a wrapper for raw vegan ravioli.  Some folks slice it thin, salt it, and then eat it like that. You can also slice it thin and make matchsticks of it, and throw it in salads. 

I chop up fennel and put it in whatever I am making. It gives a kind of licorice flavor to a salad.

Everything else will go to salad (you know me – not going to happen that often).  Since I’m getting so much salad-y kind of stuff, I expect I will again be experimenting with green smoothies (hear, here, I hate green smoothies, but I can buy some bananas and some apples and experiment with adding those to lettuce drinks.  I am committed to using all of these vegetables (especially since I am way broke, so, once again, this is all the fresh food I have — I have some canned things and dried things in the pantry, left over from last year)

If you are like me, do not try to put arugula in your smoothie (it tastes like dirty feet — okay, like dirty feet smell — I’ve never actually tasted it because the smell was so off-putting)    Arugula does tastes nice in salads, and it is also tasty mixed into sprouted quinoa, with other vegetables.

LAST SHARE OF THE SEASON! What they said, what I got, what I took home, and what I’m going to do with it

Here is the reality of our last share, and how I made out

WHAT THEY SAID	WHAT I GOT/WHAT I TRADED FOR
Potatoes – 2 lbs	Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes– 5 lbs	Sweet Potatoes
Carrots – 3 lbs	Carrots
Red Kale – 1 bun	Kale
Rutabaga – 1-2 pcs	Rutabaga
Watermelon Radish – 1-3 pcs	Red Radishes/Watermelon Radishes
Cilantro – 1/8 lb	NONE!!! A nice member gave me hers
Kohlrabi – 1 pc	Kohlrabi
Butternut Squash – 1 pc	Bok Choi/ Cilantro
Broccoli – 1-2 pc	Broccoli/ Sweet Potatoes

I was slow!  Some guy went into the share box and took out about 8 rutabagas! How is that possible? Did he trade his entire box for rutabagas?
(or is it that they only watch when I pick things out of the box, to make
sure that I put a share portion in for the share portion I take out)   Oh well! Maybe he knows somebody.

I was hoping to score some extra kale, but it was not to
be.  I’ll have money for food in 2 weeks, and I’ll get some then, if they have it in the cheap market (actually, it is probably better – I’ve found that kale is not very good for me right now – I hope that will change, because I do love my kale).   This kind of kale is not very good for kale chips – it is not very “solid”… how can I say… the leaves are fingery.  It will chop well, but it is not large enough to make kale chips.

My kohlrabi is a nice size – I will make ravioli with it.  Come to think of it, those watermelon radishes might make nice ravioli, as well.

I did keep the potatoes because Mrs. Murphy, next door, seems to enjoy them (I tried to give her a mess of sweet potatoes, but she would have none of it, yet, when I offer her potatoes, she waxes ecstatic – she’s 83 – she can blow me off is she wants to – I drop by and offer her parts of my share, and she tells me what she’ll take.  Too bad we did not have a lot of potatoes this year.  She doesn’t much care for greens, which is what we mostly get).

I am really excited about the more sweet potatoes, since my
Thanksgiving sweet potato recipe turned out so well, and, yet, gave me a couple
of new ideas to try (and, fortunately, I have most of the ingredients in-house,
so I won’t have to spend much to do the new ideas)  I am also going to experiment with
some “few ingredient” recipes with them, since I have so many.

12/2/10 CSA SHARE: this is the last one for the year

This is the last share of the season. Boo hoo!  On top of that, it looks like I won’t be able to afford to pay for the winter share before the cut-off date (paying for the airline ticket home for Christmas wiped out my last paycheck’s discretionary funds, and rent will wipe out my next paycheck — oh well. I will have to get used to shopping for food again)

This is what they say we will get:

Potatoes – 2 lbs
Sweet Potatoes – 5 lbs
Carrots – 3 lbs
Red Kale – 1 bunch
Rutabaga – 1-2 pieces
Watermelon Radish – 1-3 pieces
Cilantro – 1/8 lb bag
Kohlrabi – 1 piece
Butternut Squash – 1 piece
Broccoli – 1-2 pieces

This share is good because many of these vegetables will store for a while.
My Thanksgiving sweet potatoes came out so well that I will be happy to have more sweet potatoes to do up that way(I did the “Amazing Sweet Potatoes” recipe in my holiday recipes). I think I want to add walnuts the next time.
Kale Chips? probably
Kohlrabi makes good ravioli, as do larger radishes (will have to wait and see what the radishes look like.
Rutabaga works up nicely with my beet recipe
Squash and an apple and some spices… yummy soup. Put some cilantro on it.
I’ll trade off the broccoli if I can (I’ve just come to learn that broccoli is not all that good for me — that explains why I have been steadfastly avoiding my former favorite vegetable this year — I had been wondering about why I *just didn’t want broccoli*!)

9/23/10 CSA SHARE: What they said, what I got and what I took away

Today’s share was pretty nice, if you like lettuce-y kinds of vegetables.  I paid a few visits to the “Share Box”, which is where people put the things they don’t want, and take things they do want.  (In my experience, going early is good if you think you need to play with the share box, but going late can be just as useful, because more people may have tossed things you want.  “Playing” the share box is basically a crapshoot, but you get a wonderful zing when you do hit a good trade.

Today, I ended up trading my unwanted lettuce-y things for other people’s unwanted tomatoes.  I am still in dehydrate mode (see a tomato, dehydrate it!), but now I am sort of back to where I can eat fresh tomatoes sparingly (I had a wonderful tomato, onion, cucumber sandwich with fresh garlic oil last night)

WHAT WE GOT                   WHAT I TOOK
Lettuce mix……………………….4 tomatoes
Arugula………………………..4 tomatoes
Crinkled Crumpled Cress
Romaine Lettuce……………….1 bun. Collards
Kohlrabi 2 pcs…………………….I only got one
Plum
Collards, 1 bun.

I also got 3 huge peaches and 3 small apples

WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH ALL OF THIS?
Tomatoes: I am going to dehdyrate most of them, but, since my mom says I should, I am going to food process some and freeze them for sauces. (Mom doesn’t realize, perhaps, that this might affect her Christmas present of a big jar full of “sundried tomatoes” — ha ha! Of course, it won’t! She’s my mom!)

Kohlrabi: I really love making ravioli with kohlrabi. I have this 4-inch wide slicer that slices kohlrabi very thin, and I can make nice ravioli with nut cheezes and/or other fillings.

Collards!: I will, of course, make some massaged, marinated greens, but I think I may try to make some collard wraps. (These are a challenge to me because I do not like to bite hard things, and I do not like to chew much, so I must figure out a way to make collards soft before I wrap things in them. I’m still working on it, so that will only be about 5 collard leaves worth of experiment. I know I like the massaged greens, anyway, and I haven’t made them in a couple of months)

Peaches: I will probably make some smoothies with whatever other fruit I have the freezer (I’m almost out of blueberries).

Apples: I will probably dehydrate the ones I don’t include in smoothies.  The dehydrated apples make nice snacks.

6/17/10 CSA SHARE: What we got

This is what we got.

• Toscano Kale 1 bunch
• Red Beets
• Red Boston Lettuce
• Kohlrabi
• Baby Arugula I traded for more kale – yumm!
  
• Garlic Scapes
• Baby Spinach

I made some marinated greens with 1 bunch of the kale.  Yesterday I made a green drink with 1/2 of the lettuce, 1 small beet, an apple, and 2 tomatoes.  It wasn’t so bad, but I wouldn’t use the apple again in that mix– maybe another tomato would work.  I plan to make a cheeze with the garlic scapes, some cashews, and some jalapeno, so I can make raviolis with the kohlrabi.  I’ll figure out what to do with the rest shortly — I need food to carry to work next week.  I would like to make some kale chips at some point.

DINNER TONIGHT: FULL MENU FOOD COMBINING

Lately, I have been reviewing my Natural Hygiene/Food-Combining information, and I am working at keeping the food-combining rules when I make my meals.  It is actually not that difficult – I just must make simple recipes (and make sure that all the ingredients in the recipes work together well), and then make sure that all the ingredients in all the recipes for the food I am going to put on the plate work together.)  It gets easier if we consider that I am working from the CSA box, and keeping to what is that box mostly (I do add in nuts, seeds, tomatoes, onions, and sprouts!)

TONIGHT’S REPAST:

KOHRABI RAVIOLI WITH “JALAPENO CASHEW CHEEZ” & SHIITAKE FILLING

This is a very simple recipe.

INGREDIENTS
2 C Shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1/4 C nama shoyu
1/4 C extra virgin olive oil

1 C cashews, soaked for 2 hrs., drained, and rinsed
1/2- 1 jalapeno pepper, sliced (for milder flavor, discard seeds)
1/2 t sea salt, or to taste (I used about 1/4 less)
1/8 – 1/4 C water (as needed to make a fine paste)

1 med. kolrabi, peeled, sliced paper thin with a mandoline

• Place sliced shiitake mushrooms in a bowl with nama shoyu and olive oil.  Toss to thoroughly coat mushrooms.  Marinate for 20 minutes.
• In a food processor, combine the cashews, jalapeno, sea salt, and water as needed and process to a smooth thick paste, to make the jalapeno cheez.
• Squeeze the oil/nama shoyu mixture from the shiitake mushrooms as well as possible.
• Chop the mushrooms fine.
• On one paper-thing slice of kohrabi, place a small dab of the jalapeno cheez on one half.
• Lay a thin line of mushroom pieces at the top of the cheez.
• Fold the kohlrabi slice over the mushrooms and cheez and press down to “seal” with the cheez.
• Continue until you have made all the raviolis you want.

If you have more mushrooms left over, you can sprinkle them over the raviolis as a garnish, or add them to a salad.

MASSAGED MARINATED GREENS
I used the greens from the kohlrabi, as well as some chard and spinach that I had left over.

3 C dark leafy greens (kale, collards, cabbage, spinach, etc.)
1/4 C scallions (or onion), chopped fine
1/4 C garlic scapes, finely grated in food processor
1 T extra virgin olive oil
1 T apple cider vinegar
1 T chili powder, or to taste
5 – 10 kalamata olives, chopped fine

• Strip the greens leaves from the thick center stems.
• Lay 4 – 5 leaf pieces one on top of another, roll them up horizontally into cigar shapes, then slice each roll horizontally, to ribbons.  Place in a large mixing bowl.
• Add all other ingredients to bowl, and mash, or massage, until bulk is reduced by at least 1/3.
• Allow to marinate for 1/2  – 1 hr.

SALAD
Few leaves Boston lettuce, chopped
1/4 C scallions, finely chopped
1/2 campari tomato, finely chopped, with juice
1 T kohlrabi, finely julienned
1 t extra virgin olive oil, or more, to taste
1 t apple cider vinegar, or more, to taste

• Place lettuce on plate
• Sprinkle on scallions
• Spinkle on julienned kohlrabi
• Distribute chopped tomato and juice over all.
• Drizzle olive oil over the salad.
• Drizzle apple cider vinegar over the salad.

The concentrated protein in this meal (aside from any protein available from the vegetables) is from the cashews.
The fat in the recipe is from the cashews and the extra virgin olive oil.
The green vegetable carbohydrates are all low glycemic.
The tomatoes are your only wild card, but they do not disturb the food combining rules.