Green Bean Hash

I have a plethora of green beans in the fridge! The recipe I used for the beans last night originally called for broccoli. Since we have been putting more effort into local eating, we haven't had broccoli. I admit I have been missing broccoli very much! I figured subbing the green beans in a broccoli recipe just might assuage my longing for broccoli.

• 1/2 lb green beans
• 1 tbsp butter (please don't substitute olive oil!)
• 2 tbsp pine nuts toasted
• 1/4 red onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• grated Asiago or similar grating cheese

Steam the beans until tender.

















While the beans steam, toast the pine nuts. Melt half the butter in a skillet over medium heat, add nuts and swirl in pan until toasted (about 1 minute). Remove from pan with a slotted spoon and reserve.
















Rinse beans in cold water until cool to the touch. Chop into bite-sized pieces. Chop onion and garlic.














Melt remaining butter in the same skillet used for the pine nuts. Add garlic and onion and cook until tender.
















Add beans, reduce heat. Cook beans for about 15 to 20 minutes or until the onion and beans crisp around the edges. Stir only occasionally to allow for the most crispiness (this is where the broccoli is really wonderful in this recipe!).
















Sprinkle in pine nuts followed by the cheese. Serve when melted.
















Our meal included grilled BBQ pork and grilled potatoes.

Scavenging

I get our new produce orders on Wednesdays. Many a Tuesday night finds us running low on fresh produce. I usually end up scouring the cupboards and fridge for things I can throw together to make a meal. This week I adapted another NPR How Low Can You Go meal - Dal, Chilean Style .



Here's what I did:

1 cup lentils
4 red potatoes
2 carrots
1/2 large Vidalia onion
1 Serrano pepper
1 fresh tomato (because I didn't have any more fresh tomatoes, I added 3 canned and reserved the juice from the can as a substitute for tomato sauce in the original)
1/4 lb ground beef
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp beer
chopped cilantro
salt and pepper to taste

Cook lentils till soft. Drain and rinse, set aside.
Sautee onions, garlic, Serrano pepper, and cumin in olive oil. Add beer or sherry.













Add beef and cook until browned.














Add potatoes and carrots, cover with water, bring to boil.



























Add tomatoes and cook till potatoes are soft.
Add lentils and tomato sauce.
















Salt and pepper to taste. (You can add more water or beer if it's too thick, or vinegar if it's too sweet.) Add more cumin or hot sauce if you like it really spicy.
Add cilantro, take if off the heat. Serve after a few minutes.

















This was really delicious and hearty. If you have a fear of lentils, this dish just might change your mind!

Roast Chicken and Corn

This meal was almost completely local! I love it! The only non-local thing (aside from olive oil and salt) was the chopped cilantro in the corn.

The chicken is from Springer Mountain Farms in north Georgia. Though not organic, their chickens are "all-natural," meaning no antibiotics, no chemicals, no animal byproducts. According to their website, "the standards given for Organic production allow the use of antibiotics and chemical medicines the first days of life if so desired, allow the use of animal by-products, do not address food safety or animal treatment, and do not require testing of soil, water, and feed."

I've become a huge fan of roasting a whole chicken each week. For one thing, nothing on that bird goes to waste. I use all the bones, skin, giblets and the carcass to make soup stock after we've picked all the meat off. I was truly offended when a chicken I bought recently had a completely empty cavity - no heart, no neck, no liver! I need those things for my stock!! Well, I survived, but have not yet made stock from that carcass, so we'll have to see if it suffers.





It's also handy to have already cooked (and shredded) chicken in the fridge for things like a BBQ Chicken Pizza, tacos or nachos, or a quick salad topper. When you can get four or five meals out of one chicken, it's pretty economical, too.


When I roast a chicken, I usually brown it in olive oil for about ten minutes to get the skin nice and crispy and then pop it in the oven with white wine and broth. This time I tried something different and used a bottle of beer instead of wine. The flavor wasn't overpowering, but it was noticeably less tasty than with the wine. This time I stuffed the cavity with fennel stalks; they didn't give that much flavor, but they were fragrant.















While the chicken was roasting, I threw four stalks of corn in the oven, husks and all. After about 30 minutes the ears of corn were perfectly cooked. I cut the corn off the cobb and tossed it with chopped cilantro and a little salt. Delicious!

Stuffed Patty Pan Squash

This is another great way to eat summer squash. The patty pans are wonderful to stuff because of their shape, but you could prepare yellow squash or zucchini this way. Like I said yesterday, this vegan blog has some great recipes! I adapted this one based on our taste and what we had on hand. You could use just about anything and season it any way you want. I think a Mediterranean flavor with cous cous would be really good.

Here's what I did:

1/4 green bell pepper chopped
1/4 red bell pepper chopped
1/4 large Vidalia onion chopped
4 patty pan squash
1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 cloves garlic
fresh cilantro chopped
cheese to taste

In a large pot boil enough water to mostly cover squash. Place squash in boiling water and cook until just tender (about 10 minutes).
Remove and plunge into cold water.














When cool, slice off top and scoop out inside with a melon baller (I used a grapefruit spoon). Be sure to leave enough to stand up to stuffing.
Turn squash upside down to drain - I forgot to do this and the final product came out a little watery. Chop the scooped out squash.
















Saute the peppers, onion, squash, beans and garlic in olive oil until tender.
















Add cumin, cayenne, and cilantro. Cook over low heat for about five minutes.

















Spoon filling into squash and place in a baking dish. If you have extra filling, just spoon it into the baking dish by itself. The bean mixture gets a little bit crispy and is almost better than the what's in the squash!


















Bake for about 20 minutes or until browned. Top with cheese (I used an English cheddar which sounds weird with the spices, but it worked)and more cilantro.

Trout and Blackberries

Not together, of course! The box we got from the farm yesterday had all kinds of goodies. Just look at these blackberries!

Berries are difficult to transport, especially organics. By the time I got ours home, they had already started oozing dark purple juice, so I knew I'd have to use them immediately. Don't spoil your supper thinking about dessert just yet! We'll get to that.


I stood in line at the Dekalb Farmer's Market waiting for fish. Out of my hour long visit, I spent half of it at the fish counter. If you purchase a whole fish from them, they will clean it for you, cut off the head and cut it into steaks, if you like. This is great unless the five people in front of you are are each buying many pounds of fish. I was certain the speckled trout I was waiting for would be worth it.

The trout was wild from North Carolina and promised to have a buttery, nutty taste. To let the natural flavors come through I baked the fillets with a few dabs of butter each and a sprinkle of pepper and fennel fronds. I sliced a fennel bulb and tossed it into the pan. Our salads were chock full of farms items - cucumbers, carrots, delicate yellow tomato and a tangy green leaf lettuce.


I don't typically make monochromatic meals and I hate that the trout and fennel fade into the white plate so much. When I see a meal like that, I always think I really need to get some more brightly colored plates. The white dinner ware was a wedding gift to my parents from my great-grandparents on my father's side; we used them for my entire childhood, so I am attached to them. The blackberry upside down cake shows up a little better!

I found the recipe on a vegan blog that has tons of great recipes, even if you're not vegan. The recipe is for peaches, but I made substitutions for the blackberries. The cake is not very sweet, but the berries infuse it with their natural sweetness (you can increase the amount of sugar if you want it sweeter).

Blackberry Upside Down Cake

Dry ingredients:
1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt

Liquid ingredients:
1 cup milk mixed with 1 teaspoon lime juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lime zest

4 cups blackberries (I threw in some sliced strawberries I had in the fridge)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons water

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine the dry ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Combine the liquid ingredients in a separate bowl. Set aside without mixing them together.













Combine the berries with the 2 tablespoons of sugar. Wipe or spray a 10-inch, well-seasoned cast iron skillet with oil. (This step is very important if you want to be able to get the cake out of the pan.) Begin heating it and add the 1/4 cup (or more) of sugar and the water. Heat and stir until the sugar is completely melted. Continue to cook and stir until the mixture is bubbly and slightly reduced (but be careful not to burn it). Place the berries on top of the sugar and remove from heat.

Add the liquid ingredients to the flour mixture, stirring briefly just to moisten. Pour and smooth the batter over the berries, covering them entirely(my skillet was a little too small to cover them completely, but still came out great). Put the skillet into the oven (you may want to place a cookie sheet or foil on the shelf below it to catch drips) and bake until the sides of the cake pull away from the edges of the pan and a toothpick comes out clean (about 30-40 minutes).




Allow the cake to cool in the pan for about 15-30 minutes. Then, run a knife around the edges of the cake to loosen it from the pan. Place a large plate or serving platter over the top and invert the skillet. Remove the skillet carefully from the cake.

Be sure to scrape any caramelized juices from the pan and smooth them over the berries.













Serve warm or at room temperature, alone or with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Makes about 8 servings.




It was a great day for food!

Pork Chops and Fennel Salad

This meal was as delicious as it was pretty. I ordered pork chops from the farm for the first time and they were a real treat. The pork comes from Riverview Farms in Ranger, GA. The order came with two chops that were enormous. I split one of them for this meal for me and Jason.














I marinated the chops in a mixture of one tablespoon Dijon mustard and two tablespoons Caesar dressing (both store bought and not exactly local...oops) for about ten minutes before tossing them on the grill. They came out tender and full of flavor.
















I made the fennel salad while the pork marinated and cooked. The simple dressing of lime juice, olive oil and a pinch of salt quickly flavors the vegetables, but doesn't overpower their natural tastes. This dressing is quickly becoming my favorite; I substitute sesame oil when I want a little more flavor contrast.

The cucumber is an unusual variety we got in our last box - miniature white cucumber. The skins are a yellowish white and the insides are vibrant green. These had a sweet taste and were very crisp. I had the beets left over in the fridge from roasting a few days ago and used them mainly for color. They tasted great with the cucumber and fennel.

Fennel Salad

1 fennel bulb
1 small beet, roasted (raw if you prefer)
1 miniature white cucumber
juice of 1/2 a lime
2 tbsp olive oil (this is approximate, adjust to your preference)
pinch of salt

Core the fennel and cut into thin slices
Peel the beet and cut into thin slices
Peel the cucumber (optional) and cut into thin slices
Whisk lime juice, olive oil and a pinch of salt in a small bowl
Toss all ingredients in a medium bowl and refrigerate for at least ten minutes

Burgers!

Summer means burgers on the grill! If you are a meat eater and you haven't tried grass-fed beef, you are missing out on some great tasting stuff! We get ground beef from our CSA (Moore Farms and Friends). It comes from Cedar Springs Farm in Chickamauga, GA.



You can immediately taste the difference in grass-fed meats. The first time we made burgers from this beef, both Jason and I kept saying (mouths full) "this is the best burger EVER!"

Grass-fed meats are also much better for you. They tend to be lower in fat, higher in vitamins and higher in omega-3 fatty acids (read more). All that and they taste great!

We used minimal seasoning to let the flavor of the beef really come through; one or two pressed garlic cloves mixed in. We used lettuce, tomato and avocado from the CSA and homemade ciabatta for buns. No mayo, katsup or mustard. The flavors of all the ingredients were so good that nothing else was needed.




























Hers-n-His
























My burger looks tiny here, more like a slider, but it was very filling and soooo tasty!