What else is on?

Happy Weekend!  I'm not cooking, but these folks are.

Crunchy Quinoa? Yes. Absolutely.

  


I want parsnips in my Squash Soup. 

I want to call this "polenta" and I want to eat it today. 

I'm going to make this spicy feta thing and dip everything in it.  Cereal, oatmeal cookies, whatev. 

Damn near Instant Soup. To go. 

Buying Club 2012 - The Goods - Week 21 and a note for Philly Folks

Subtitled: Secrets of a milk hoarder

I wouldn't trade my current grocery situation for a different one.  That's why I still do it.  But ordering my food three weeks in advance has serious disadvantages. Like all the damn milk I thought I'd use.  I told you this last week, but it came again this week.  Milk.

So straight to the freezer with it.  You can see the difference between this week's fresh milk and the frozen milks of yester-month.  Looking at the back of the freezer, I might be developing a yogurt problem too.  Also, looking at the freezer, I need to cook unless I just want to eat dairy forever. 

Putting it away, Sous Chef Brian was like, "I don't understand.  Will you please stop ordering milk?"

It's going to be hard, two weeks from now, to say that I won't need milk two weeks from then.  But I'll try.

All that milk is from Maplehofe Dairy.

Scrambled Eggs and Arugula - what to do with all the veg?

Remember how I had all those eggs?  Also arugula?

Peppery arugula is great in eggs. 

In the past, I've listed off the sorts of things we like to do to use up farmshare veg.  This isn't a farmshare, but I still like to look into the fridge once a week and figure out what has to get used up.  Some of that gets frozen, given away, packed into a salad, and some of it we figure out how to eat quickly. 

As CSA season starts to get close, let's talk about what to do with fridge miscellany (this list is for Sarah, who's doing her first share this year, and for all of us who have just a month or two until we're overwhelmed with produce):

Quesadillas (like this, or this)

Pizza (like this, or this, or this, or any of these)

Stir Fry (like this, or this, or this)

Pasta (for anything but potatoes, in my mind.  Like this or this, or really, go all out and do this)

and of course, eggs, like this or this, or hey, just make up some scrambled eggs. 

Buying Club 2012 - The Goods - Week 20

Here are things that I've learned from 20 weeks of this buying club:


1. Some of my favorite foods, by far, are the ones I can get from these farmers and producers.  The yogurt, the cheese, the cookies.  Ok, fine the veg, but cheese, yogurt and cookies are fantastic


2.  I am not a machine, and can't get through milk like this.  It's my fault.  No one pushes a button and makes me order milk, but every week I get a half gallon that goes right into the freezer.   There are three half-gallons of milk in my freezer right now.  This means that I will never trust the date on a milk jug. 


3.  I don't think the goat mozzarella that I bought was really any different from feta.  Still tasty.  Not mozz.


4.  Back to expiration dates, I have accumulated some eggs.  It's almost like the milk, above, but two of the three cartons have dates that go back at least two weeks.  They're still good tho.  I don't know what that's about.  I sniff.  They're fine. So I keep serving them. But I do ask Sous Chef Brian to crack them open, just in case they're "creepy."

Ginger Peanut Tofu Stir Fry

 

It's spring, and there's no denying it.  It's been spring pretty much since autumn, but now, for sure, it's spring.  It's not just the short sleeves and outdoor dining that tells me, either, it's the new veggies and the flowering trees.  So it celebrate this unexpected yet totally happening seasonal shift, I bought pea shoots. 

Pea shoots are like sprouts, plus greens.  Here's a bit more information on them, if you're up for that sort of thing. 

I didn't go out looking for pea shoots, I actually went looking for flowers to plant. Because, you know, it's spring.  We took our first trip out to this year's CSA, Greensgrow (three CSAs in three years!), and they had some veg for sale.  They had some of the wintry veg I've become accustomed to in the past few months, but they also had scallions and pea shoots.  I should have bought the scallions, they'd have gone great in this recipe, but at least I grabbed the pea shoots.

At lunch they were used in a salad and for the next night's dinner, they were the star of this stir fry.  Also, yesterday's salad dressing became today's marinade.  You know what we call that?

Buying Club 2012 - The Goods - Week 19

It's a three cheese kind of a week. 

Soak your bear - a retraction

Look, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.  I'm just making dinner, and in fact, lately I'm not even doing that.  Mostly I'm showing you pictures of my groceries, which doesn't sound that exciting, but hey, you're the one reading it, so who does that reflect on?


I mentioned in passing that the terra cotta bears that we're supposed to put in our brown sugar to keep it from seizing up don't work. 


I used this photo to illustrate that.

And then my cousin Michael, and as I've said before, I have a handful of those, but my first cousin's husband Michael, was like, "You gotta soak the bear," or something and I was like, "What?"

Local Tortillas

This one's for the locals.  

There is a limit to what I will cook on my own.  I don't make any of my own dairy products, with the exception of ricotta, because I don't have cows or unlimited free time.  I don't make my own crackers most of the time, because they go pretty fast for the time it takes to produce them.  I don't make my own peanut butter or jelly, or my own tofu, or my own seitan, even though I said months ago I would. 

Buying Club 2012 - The Goods - Week 18

Sous Chef Brian picked up the foods this week, and when I said, "I'm going to go take pictures for the blog," he was all, "Nah, I got it."

So let's let this photo series tell its own story. 

Hot Tip: Scavenging Sugar

When I make cookies, it's because we're having a cookie emergency.  I don't typically just have cookies around, so if I'm making them, it's because someone *needs* a cookie.  


A few days ago, I needed a cookie.   My chocolate chip cookie recipe is quick and easy, and relies on stuff I always have on hand (plus chips, which I try to always have on hand). 


And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I was out of sugar. 

Buying Club 2012 - The Goods - Week 18

Pretty standard goods this week, plus meat. 

Milk from Maplehofe Dairy, and the best yogurt, from Pequea Valley Farm, and eggs from L&L farms and my favorite cheese, Hillacres Pride.  This one is their pepperjack cheddar. 

not pictured: Lindendale Farms feta.  also, the eggs say "ungraded" which makes me think the chickens go to an alternative school. 

Spinach and spring mix from Rineer Family Farms, and Mother Earth Mushrooms. 

Meats.  When I opened the bag, I was surprised at how packaged the turkey burgers were.  They are, as marked, from Koch's Turkey Farm in Tamaqua.  Also a bag of ground beef from Rineer Meats. 

Potatoes. Sweet and not sweet, both from Landisdale Farm.