Tonight was one of those nights when I came home from work and realized we have another delivery tomorrow, and I still had a fridge full of stuff from last week. Eek! Plus I also had a leftover container of takeout rice. (Why, you ask, did I order Chinese takeout the other day when I had a ton of CSA veggies sitting around? Because I’m a bad person, and very lazy.) But anyway, never fear, because fried rice came to the rescue! Here’s my recipe:

Heat some peanut or canola oil in a wok or frying pan. Add a clove of chopped garlic, a little grated ginger, and a chopped scallion, and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the leftover rice, crumbing it with your fingers if it’s clumpy. Stir frequently for a few minutes, and then add some chopped veggies. I tossed in broccoli, eggplant, tatsoi, green bell pepper, and hot red pepper, but you can really improvise here. Cook until the veggies are tender but still crisp. I also like to add some egg in my fried rice, so I made a little hole in the middle of the rice/veggie mixture, cracked an egg in there, and scrambled it in. Then sprinkle on a splash of soy sauce, mix it all up a little more, and it’s done. You could also add tofu, chicken, or pork for protein instead of the egg. I should have taken a picture of this, but I was so hungry I just dug in and totally forgot. But trust me, it looked delicious (and tasted pretty good too).

Sara H. sent in this pic of a yummy looking salad she made this week with her CSA share. Just chop up some wax beans, cucumber, tomato, basil, and shallot, and toss in a bowl with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Simple and delicious!

Sadly, today was our last vegetable delivery for the season (although we do still have one more week of fruit, and an option to order pork for delivery after Thanksgiving). Our shares this week included a variety of winter squash - acorn, delicata, and pumpkin. If you don’t want to eat this right away, it can be stored for a month or two in cool, dry, dark place.  Winter squash has lots of vitamins A, C, and potassium, so eat up before we head into cold season!

I often get home from work exhausted and in no mood to cook, so I love this idea for sweet and spicy acorn squash. Sounds like a perfect lazy vegetarian dinner, although it could also probably work well as a side dish. And this pumpkin bread pudding sounds really yummy too (replace the canned pumpkin with fresh, obviously).

Parsnips, a member of the umbelliferae family, closely resemble their relatives parsley and carrot. Parsnips are generally thicker than carrots and paler in color. Their flavor has been described as nutty, spicy, or peppery, and they are a good source of fiber and folate. Parsnips are available from fall to early summer - they can stay in the ground over winter and tend to be sweeter after a frost.

Storage

• Remove greens from the tops of parsnips and then store in a paper bag in the refrigerator drawer.
• Although they will keep for up to a month in the fridge, parnsips become more bitter with age and are best eaten fresh.

Preparation

• Scrub parsnips well and slice or chop as you would a carrot.
• Very large parsnips may need to have their woody cores removed. Cut off the thin end and set aside. Then cut the thick portion in half and dig out the core with a sharp spoon. Discard the core and chop the vegetable as usual.
• Parsnips can be eaten raw like carrots, but are more delicious and digestible when cooked. They are well suited for prolonged cooking, as in casseroles, stews, or oven roasting. To preserve nutrients, cook with the skin on and eat it, or peel after cooking.
• Parnips can be steamed, boiled, sauteed, or braised. Try combining parnsips with other root vegetables like beets, carrots, and potatoes. Toss with olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper and roast in a 400 degree oven, stirring occaisionally until browned and cooked through.

Recipes Ideas

• Cinnamon and Maple Roasted Parsnips
• Parnsip Chips
• Potato, Carrot, and Parsnip Soup

(Big thanks to Just Food for the Veggie Tip Sheet book)

Besides basic cole slaw, I never know what to do with cabbage, so was happy to find this post on Learning to Love Green Cabbage at The Kitchn. There are some good ideas for wine braised cabbage, cabbage casserole, and other recipes.

Celeriac is another veggie usually stumps me. My old standbys are to either combine it with mashed potatoes, or roast it with whatever other root vegetables I have on hand, but neither of these methods are terribly exciting. Does anyone have any other interesting recipes to share?

Fall is full of apples. Here is another recipe for apples that we received in this past week’s fruit share.

From CSA Board Member Heidi’s sister-in-law’s Swedish mother-in-law—great with tart apples like Mutsu or Granny Smith

8 oz. butter, melted
2/3 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 1/3 c. flour
1/2 t. baking powder
2 T. milk
3-4 medium apples

1-2 T. sugar and 1 t. cinnamon, mixed

Butter 10″ round pan
Stir together butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time.
Add baking powder to flour and blend. Mix into sugar mixture alternately with the milk.
Peel, core, and slice apples thin.
Pour batter into pan. Stick thin edge of apple slices into batter, in decorative spoke-like pattern, you should have room for 2-3 rows. Sprinkle top with cinnamon sugar.
Bake at 350° in bottom of oven 30-40 min.

Now is the time of year where we see more root vegetables come in our shares as well as apples. If you were a nut like me, you would probably have also gone apple picking upstate and obtained even more apples!

Here are some ideas of what you can cook:

With those 2-4 pounds of potatoes we got:
Potato Leek Soup
Perhaps the easiest soup in the world and people LOVE it.

Achiote Potato Stew
I made this and people loved it. It has achiote seeds and is served with avocados.

With the 1-2 squashes, carrots, turnips, sweet potatoes, celery, celeriac, etc. we got:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toss small-diced carrots, beets, turnips, sweet potatoes, celery (or any root-type vegetable you got–aka “eat it or throw it out”) with olive oil, salt and pepper, spread on a baking sheet and roast for 30 minutes until tender.

Cut squash in half and rub them with canola oil, salt and pepper and put face up on a baking sheet at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes until almost tender when poked with a fork.

While squash is cooking, saute up some garlic and onion and anything else you want (I put in kale, turnip greens and sausage) and other spices such as thyme (which feels Thanksgiving-y), rosemary, or nutmeg. I think too barbecue sauce might be kind of good (strange, but really. . .).

When squash is near done, stuff it with your veggie mix and bake until squash is tender. You can put cheese or butter on top too for some added fats. Chop up some of the CSA parsley and eat up! The stuffing is great by itself too.

10 Ways To Do An Apple
1. Apple crisp (basically bake the apples with sugar and cinnamon and top with streusel–great with other fruits added as well)
2. Diced in salad with walnuts and goat chese
3. Galette (impress your friends with your European sensibilities)
4. Apple Upside Down Pie (with pecans and caramel–really good!)
5. Roasted with root vegetables (adds nice flavor and sugars)
6. With meat (either pureed down as a sauce or stuffed)
7. Apple Sauce (insanely easy)
8. Baked on puff pastry and served with vanilla ice cream (see last month’s issue of Gourmet)
9. In soups and stews that are spicy such as mulligatawny or curries (mixes hot earthy spices with cool, sugary flavors)
10. Given as gifts to friends (when you can’t eat any more apples!)

Check out Washington State’s nice site of apple recipes as well!

Yay for food from the earth!

Here are 3 interesting recipes I found online which all use carrots. Let me know if you try any and how they come out!

This first recipe is from Alton Brown of the Food Network. I usually use carrots as one of a few ingredients in a recipe, but when I remember to, I love glazing them in butter and brown sugar and serving them as a side dish sprinkled with a bunch of dill. This Glazed Carrot recipe sounds a little different, calling for chili powder and ginger ale in the glaze.

The next recipe uses the carrots we’ll get this week, as well as the chard. I’m intrigued by this Carrot, Chard, and Ginger Soup, but would definitely use more than just one chard leaf and possibly play around with the amounts and serving sizes to make bigger portions.

And finally, I’ve got a Quinoa With Moroccan Winter Squash And Carrot Stew recipe that sounds amazing! I love finding recipes that use quinoa, which is an incredibly tasty and nutritious grain, containing all 9 essential amino acids. This one will use this weeks carrots, onions, and winter squash. I disagree with the note in the recipe claiming quinoa doesn’t need to be soaked though. I like to soak quinoa for 15 minutes and then do multiple swishes and rinses to make sure all the natural coating of saponin gets washed away. 

Those of us with fruit shares have been getting a lot of pears lately. They’re great plain just for snacking, but that does get a bit old after a while, and unlike apples and peaches you can’t just toss them into a pie (or can you? maybe I’m wrong). In any case, I found this recipe for poached pears in the NY Times which sounds simple and tasty.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups sugar
3 star anise
5 slices ginger
2 cloves
1 3-inch cinnamon stick
4 pears

Method

Combine sugar and spices with 5 cups water in a medium saucepan (large enough to accommodate the pears upright), and turn heat to high. Peel pears, leaving stems on, then core them. 2. Lower pears into the water, and adjust heat to gentle simmer. Cook pears, turning them every 5 minutes or so, until they meet little resistance when prodded with a thin-bladed knife, usually 10 to 20 minutes. Turn off heat, and cool pears in liquid. 3. Place pears on serving plates. (At this point they can also be covered and refrigerated up to a day; they should be brought to room temperature before serving.) Reduce the poaching liquid to about a cup (it can also be stored for a day), then spoon a little over each pear before serving.

This is a super easy recipe, adapted from The Joy of Cooking, for a soup that uses the Kale and Potatoes we’re expecting this week. See the bottom of the recipe for tips on making it vegetarian.

Saute in olive oil in a large soup pot until tender but not browned:

• 1 med onion, chopped
  
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced

Stir in and bring to a boil:

• 8 cups of water (or 6 cups water + 2 cups chicken broth)
  
• 4 medium potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
  
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
  
• 1/2 tsp pepper

Reduce the heat once it comes to a boil and let it simmer for about 20 minutes or the potatoes are soft. Remove the pot from heat and use a potato masher to mash the potatoes right in the pot. Alternately you could use an immersion blender, but I prefer a coarser chunky texture.

In a separate skillet, cook in olive oil until browned:

• 6 oz linguica or chorizo sausage

• 4 cups shredded kale

Simmer for 5 more minutes then stir in:

• 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Serve with warm crusty bread

Some alternatives:

For a vegetarian version, add the spiciness with some dried chiles or a jalepeno instead of the chorizo. Add a little extra garlic and use vegetable broth for extra flavor.

Try adding some shredded cabbage at the same time as the Kale