CSA week 1

I thought I would post our weekly CSA here. We had a CSA last year, but I didn't take enough pictures and now this year I don't know if it is comparable. So this is how I will document from now on. The first week was pretty good for late may in zone 5. We got to choose between things for our share. Everyone got spring onions, pea shoots, turnips, and salad greens; I chose braising greens over spinach, arugula over radishes - then I traded my arugula for a head of  bok choy, which since I was the first one there, I know was the farmers stocking the trade bin with some extras that were ready. Incentive for me to be there early all the time. My munchkins polished off half the pea shoots on the car ride home, hence the torn open bag.

Note my pretty Thai take out box

What I made: Pea shoots raw in bellies in minutes, braised turnips ala mario batali, braised greens also with the turnip greens, a nice salad, grilled the walking onions eaten straight up, and sauteed bok choy with garlic

Mi cielo - chile con queso

This would absolutely be my last meal. I am originally from southern california and I lived in NYC for seven years, so by necessity I had to learn how to cook good mexican food. But there really is no comparison to this. I mastered mole, arepas, tacos, tortillas, frijoles, chile rellenos, you name it, I cook it, but these are so elusive, no matter how many times I tried I could never get them just right. It must be the fresh ocean breezes wafting in through the open air dining area. And yes I know everyone already knows about la super rica, but very few of you seem to be getting chile con queso arguably one of the best dishes on the menu, even for meat eaters. We know, we have turned many a carnivore onto these, once you have these you will understand. So if you happen to be in santa barbara, stop by the corner of milpas and alphonse and order this. Oh and their horchata is also pretty tasty.

roasted poblanos, melted cheese, just made tortillas,
and pico de gallo - my heaven on earth

Fresas

The real deal. I took my whole family and my dog 3000 miles round trip for these babies. Sure we saw the grand canyon, hoover dam, zion national park, my grandma, nephew, and aunts, sure we spent two days at our favorite beach campground in santa barbara eating awesome mexican food, sure we did lots of stuff, but what we were really doing was driving halfway across the country so I could buy the tastiest strawberries ever to make jam to last all year. We have strawberries here, and in season they taste good, but nothing, I mean nothing compares to an oxnard strawberry picked fresh that day. These strawberries don't make it to the market. If you see strawberries that say oxnard on them, they aren't the same, they were picked green. I have always bought mine at a farm stand that has been in the same place since I was a little girl. We would stop there on the way to my grandpa's boat to stock up on veggies and fruit for our weekend sails. The stand is smaller now and there are a lot of newer stands that are easier to get to, but this one will always be my go to. In fact we get excited when we have to wait for the truck to come with the strawberries just picked from the field because they are sold out. When we lived in cali we would probably go through 5-6 flats in the two short months of strawberry season. This time I had to settle on one and half flats since we were traveling with a camper and had no way to freeze them. The kids probably ate half a flat, and the rest is in my cupboard to be rationed in one a month increments. 

a sink full of heaven

I remove the top and cut in half to store them fresh in the fridge

if it ain't red thru and thru send it back

the various containers of berries 'pre-cooked' with sugar and lemon,
the only way they would keep on the long journey home

blend em' up

simmer down for a bit and add pectin

fill your hot jars

I love my claw, this is how I get them out of the boiling water

jars of heaven, I put two straight in the fridge,
no need to can what will be eaten right away

And now for the kimchi

Here is how I interpreted the kimchi recipe I made for use in the previous post on scallion pancakes. First I love kimchi, but being a vegetarian presents challenges. So there is this little thing called 'Sauce for Vegetarians' made by a Vietnamese company. You can usually find it at a good asian market. Fortunately I have one and the little lady that runs it makes these delicious homemade sesame balls, so I really can't complain when I have to keep going back because I always forget to buy sichuan peppercorns. Anyway back to the matter at hand. I pretty much followed the recipe except I used the vegetarian fish sauce and I made a paste of thai hot chili peppers instead of using korean chili powder. I can't complain. We ate a whole jar the first time we opened it and had to make another batch because the first three jars I made were almost gone in a week. Without further ado - kimchi, simple, quick, yummy, thanks caroline!

all the fresh stuff you need to make spicy/sour good stuff

trim your daikon by peeling the whole outer circle before the radial lines

chop, or have husband chop so you can take a better picture

add salt water and let sit overnight

see the veggie fish sauce, mostly fermented soy, mostly awesome

have your helper make the paste of garlic, ginger, chiles, and 'fish' sauce

look it's tomorrow and I have way more water than I started with, but save it

tossing the cabbage and daikon with the green onions and chile paste

pack in jars topped with reserved water and let sit in an outside room for 3-4 days, then refrigerate

Scallion kimchi pancake mashup

I love serious eats. It is the one food site I read everyday [Yo Kenji you rock!]. And I can say 85% of the time the recipes I bookmark turn out spot on. I have made Kenji's scallion pancakes three times since he posted the recipe. But I recently saw some delicious savoy cabbage at the market and decide to make the quick kimchi recipe I bookmarked at the beginning of year. Well after that I saw the light and brought the two together for an impromptu serious eats food wedding.

gather ye ingredients

make the dough

look ma no hands

chop up the scallions for the wee ones and the kimchi for the big ones

make the sauce

I really love my microplane

roll out the dough with your little helper

fill with spicy yummy or just sweet onion yummy

fry, fry, fry - in peanut oil I say

plate and serve

Enjoy!

The beast

Another non-cooking post, but this one is all about my kitchen. See we are renters and we moved 4 states away while I was pregnant to a house I found on craigslist with no pictures at all (the landlord doesn't own a digital camera). It is actually an awesome house on an awesome street, but it has an electric stove.

I have managed to live my whole life without having to cook on these things. Two years in and I still can't turn on the right burner. I am still constantly burning myself because the burner is only red if I have it on high, otherwise it looks innocuously cool. And my food, I can't tell you how many times I have turned the stove off only to have it be just shy, which means either super low, or more often than not, I just set my perfectly cooked spinach to high and walked away. It is only the telltale smoke and burning smell that sends me running back to the kitchen. I have vowed never again.

We did look into having a gas line run the 6 feet under the crawl space from the water heater to where the stove is, only to find out we needed city permits and all sorts of crazy that would drive the cost close to 1k, not including the cost of the gas stove that if I happened to actually be purchasing for myself would umm, be very, very expensive, did I mention we are renters. Not a home improvement I am going to pay for. We already had to convince the landlord to pay for grounded outlets so our computers didn't explode, he certainly wasn't going to spring for the gas line after that. So, please don't judge me for that crazy thing I have to cook on. I know plenty of people cook much better food on even worse.

It even looks ominous