What I am doing with the veggies

It's a little embarrassing, but I have to admit I really need to clean up my kitchen before I can cook in any reasonable way, and so I am using a furlough day today to do just that.  So, just a few thoughts as I enjoy my last cup of coffee before tackling the job.

It doesn't take deep thought to realize a lot of this week's box consists of similar things.  Chard, dandelion greens, and spinach look alike and for the most part cook alike.  I could saute any of them in olive oil with a bit of onion and garlic, and the optional sprinkling of parmesan, and they would be delicious side dishes.  My goal here, though, is to make them the star of the main course, with enough non-meat protein to make them nourishing as well as delicious.  Obviously one way to do this is by adding high-fat elements such as eggs and cheese (the egg-and-chard bake I found at the Sunset magazine website called for 18 eggs!).  I don't really want to go there, though, and at least initially I'd like to avoid hunting down exotic ingredients such as farro.  I have so far found an intriguing-sounding recipe for chard that uses chick peas (garbanzo beans) and tomatoes, so I will probably try that.

Yesterday I was rushing to finish a project at the office, so I actually worked on it in the morning instead of spending time fixing lunch, so all I did was grab 4 of the small carrots and 4 spears of asparagus, along with an organic avocado I'd picked up at TJ's on Tuesday.  At lunch time I was going to buy a side salad from the cafe downstairs, but when I went to the kitchen to wash my salad bowl, I found the leavings of what had obviously been a salad tray for some sort of meeting--happens a lot where I work.  So I took the remaining lettuce and cut veggies, including a few olives, and put them in my bowl with a can of yellow fin ventresca tuna (note to self:  must see if there is any left at Grocery Outlet--the stuff was a steal and is so good!), the sliced avocado, and a little container of vinegar and oil dressing that had also been sitting with the salad remains.  I steamed the asparagus spears in a damp paper towel in the microwave for about a minute and a half and put that in the salad, too.

The peas, in case anyone is wondering, ended up being about a half a cup worth after I hulled them--I popped them in the microwave with a little water, salt, and brown sugar and ate them on the spot.

Last night I didn't use any of the veggies--bad girl!  But, anyhow, I hope to get the remaining stuff prepped and put away properly today.  I have a chicken from TJ's that needs to be roasted, so will probably just do a side-dish kind of prep tonight:  maybe that's a good time to make a lovely salad with the lettuce, with some canned beets and artichoke hearts.  I could stuff the chicken with some sherry-and-onion sauteed rice.  I will report.

First Eatwell Farm CSA Box

I picked up my first CSA box today.  You can see everything in this picture but the asparagus and the punnet of "bad" strawberries, which I have just consumed (delicious!).  The most challenging elements are the dandelion greens, which I have never cooked before, and the fava beans, which are a bit fiddly, needing to be pulled out of their pods and then shucked again after they're cooked.

I think I'll use one of the green garlic bulbs to replace the shallot in Mark Bittman's basic vinaigrette recipe.

Except that I hope to track down a local source of organic bacon Friday to try a Pennsylvania Dutch vinegar dressing for the dandelion greens, I don't really have a plan yet, except that I need to eat at least 2 kinds of veggies every day and have either eaten or prepared and frozen everything before the next box arrives next Wednesday.  All suggestions welcome!

Yet another start

Well, I haven't managed to keep up with my ambitions yet, but I keep picking myself up and starting over.

Last week I came to one new realization:  it's time to just say no to meat from Safeway and its ilk.  I've already signed up for and will take delivery of my first basket of goods from a CSA.  I chose Eatwell Farm, which has a weekly drop-off in Castro Valley.  According to the email I received today, my first load will consist of:

Asparagus
Strawberries (we may only have enough for a few berries per box, and if we get a lot of rain there may not be any!)
Carrots
Fresh Onions
Lettuce
Spinach
Green Garlic
Peas (We're not sure how much we'll have for this week, but you'll get at least a little bit!)
Fava Beans
Chard
Dandelion Greens OR Radicchio

A bit dull, perhaps, as dictated by the season, and I'm going to have to augment the fruit with frozen and farmers'  market, but a few of these items are a bit scary.  I've only made fava beans once, and I remember it was a pretty labor-intensive process.  Dandelion greens, hmm, vague memories of Pennsylvania Dutch bacon vinaigrette shimmer to the surface.

The meat question, though.  I did some research last week into various local CSA and other types of free-range, grass-fed, etc. meat providers. There doesn't seem to be a one-size-fits-me solution, so I may have to select a couple of providers, buy a small freezer, and go in with some friends. What's wrong with Safeway? Hormones, cruelty, eco-impact, but also the wasteful assumption that consumers only want the "good" cuts. I can remember picking a random white-paper-wrapped package out of the freezer at my parents' home when I was a kid, and it could be stew meat or steak, we used all cuts--not offal, perhaps, we are after all white bread americans, but certainly not only the grillable. I'm happy to have lamb shanks as well as leg, chops, etc. I could get around some of that by shopping in the Chinese and Mexican markets that surround my neighborhood, but I'm still left not knowing where and how the animals were fed, contained, and slaughtered. Trader Joe's, I thought, might provide a piecemeal compromise, but their lamb, at least when I went to look early this a.m., was all imported from New Zealand--hardly supportive of the world's environment or the local economy. So, in the long run, a small freezer is in my future, and some trips to outlying ranches and farms, and coordination with my friends. In the short run, I have discovered that a local market is a retailer for Llano Seco, an organic pork producer out of Chico, so I'll be checking out Porters Market in the Manor neighborhood of San Leandro tomorrow. I'll be posting photos of my haul tomorrow, and I welcome any ideas for recipes.

Getting Started: Saturday Farmers' Market

So I do a little research on what is likely to be at the market and head down there about 9:30 Saturday morning.  I end up with:

3 tangerines
2 oranges
2 baskets of strawberries

I try to hold back on fruit because I've still got a bunch of geriatric granny smith apples lazing around the kitchen.

Veggies:

1 bunch asparagus
1 small bag of mixed new potatoes
1 bunch dill
1 bunch lemon grass
1 head cauliflower
2 broccoli crowns
2 huge artichokes for $1.50 each, possibly my best coup.

Total expenditure about $25.

I'm going to get the mp3 player and go prep the produce next (listening to the Unbearable Lightness of Scones by Alexander McCall Smith), but just for now, kicking around some ideas for what to do with the swag.

Asparagus:  I can use this at least twice, one serving maybe to be steamed (en papillote?) with a halibut filet I have thawing in the fridge; this will be flavored with ginger, sesame oil, rice wine, spring onions, for a vaguely oriental effect.  Brown basmati rice will accompany this for my dinner tonight.

I'd like to use a funky recipe of Alton Brown's for some of the cauliflower and all the broccoli, which will leave me with half a head of cauliflower to bake or make soup of.

Not sure I'd've let myself be tempted by the potatoes, but with the dill being available, I felt I had to.  We'll see what I find.  The lemon grass makes me want to make some kind of Thai chicken soup; will have to go get one of my staples, frozen boneless chicken thighs, for that.  I've got coconut milk and straw mushrooms in the pantry, and kaffir lime leaves vacuum packed in the freezer.  Maybe some salmon, if it's not already in the freezer, to go with some of the dill, as well.  Artichokes...hmm, big questions is will I take the time to do a hollandaise or just pick up some low fat mayo at TJ's?

Just thoughts for now, time to go prep, then do some paying work.  I'll post back when the plan comes together.

Wednesday: Baby steps

So there I sat Wednesday morning, a work-at-home day, with an eggplant way past its sell-by date and a butternut squash of equal vintage. On my lunch hour the day before I had gone down to Safeway for some basics: low-fat milk, fat-free half-and-half for my coffee, and a cross-rib and a bottom roast, a pair of Cornish game hens, a tray of pork chops, and 3 half-breasts of chicken. I popped all but the cross-rib roast and 2 chops and 1 breast half into the freezer and roasted the beef in the oven. That accounted for dinner Tuesday night and, I afraid to say, breakfast Wednesday, when I took off at noon to pick up a ream of paper and stopped by a nearby Asian market for red Thai curry powder; I picked up a bunch of cilantro and some green onions while I was at it.

That evening, I sautéed the ancient eggplant in a blend of Indian spices and butter, then simmered it until it was soft and delicious. (Note to self: need some new cardamom pods, and where the heck are the cilantro seeds you bought last year?) A little chopped cilantro went on top. At the same time I made some lentils flavored with cumin according to a recipe I found on Chowhound. The lentils would be good for about 3-4 meals, the eggplant for two. The entrée was to be a half breast of chicken prepared according to the Cook's Illustrated methodology; however, when using a probe thermometer to ensure the proper doneness of meat, it's important to actually hook the cord up to the unit. I had some crispy chicken skin and my cat had some shredded, dried out meat.

None of this was rocket science, but it did ensure I had something to take to work for lunch on Thursday and Friday. I'm not saying there were all good dietary choices, but just getting it done is the goal for now. Friday morning I had a pita with scrambled eggs for breakfast and pan-fried the two pork chops in between showering and dressing, so I could take one, with leftover lentils, to work. This would have been great, but I had eaten it all by 10:30, so ended up going down to the Juice Joint for eggplant parmesan and a peanut butter cooking at 3 p.m. This was not in the plan.

On the plus side, I never did want any supper, just had my nightcap of two glasses of low-fat milk.

Renewing the food blog

This blog, with a different name, was originally set up to teach my friend David, who retired to Mexico a couple of years ago, to cook. I could have started a new blog, of course, but I like some of the things I had written, as well as the layout and photo, so I decided to keep them.

This is about a new venture, though, another culinary project, on a path I've been down before: using my love of cooking to help me lose weight and improve my health. My last successful attempt at this was via Atkins/South Beach and involved a lot of exercise. Now I'm older, and issues such as blood sugar, blood pressure, and possibly arthritis have reared their ugly heads, and so I think perhaps an approach that doesn't include huge hunks of fatty meat might be more suitable at this time in my life. (Oh, yeah, there's that exercise thing, too. And the ongoing challenge of defeating alcoholism and depression.)

I'm using three tools: a book by Oprah's Dr. Oz, You on a Diet, a 3-month online subscription to Weight Watchers, and Living Cookbook, software that lets you organize your recipes, meal plans, nutritional info, etc.

The idea is to watch your intake, of course, but this is not your mother's Weight Watchers, and you get credit for eating whole, filling, fiber-loaded foods rather than treating all calories as equal.

As for the ethnic part, I realize a lot of people are blogging about food now. One woman has embarked on the ambitious project of cooking a meal from every country in the world. An admirable endeavor, and you can bet your buppie I will be stealing recipes from her, but her reasons and methodology are different from mine. She is doing research and coming up with a complete, dinner-party-worthy menu for each country, and then she posts background info, music, I'd not be surprised if she makes costumes, too (and I mean that in the nicest possible way).

I'd like to give dinner parties, too, but what I am aiming at is something different: spend two weeks to a month exploring one country's or ethnic/religious/geographic group's cuisine and develop everyday meals that I can incorporate into my daily diet. I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up having some kind of dal pancake for breakfast when this is all done.

To this I want to add the locavore aspect; that is, create menus appropriate to the season. I live in California, where fresh produce of every kind is available not 30 miles from my farmers' market, so why not exploit that?

I think that my first country will be Egypt, and I've two books on order through Link+, due to be delivered to my local library in Alameda County tomorrow, with any luck at all.

In the meantime, I will try to post about things I have been cooking, focusing simply on mindfulness, making things from scratch, and figuring out how to get the stuff done so I'm not required to fall back on fast-food from around my office building or impulse-dial to the pizza man. When my kitchen is sufficiently tidy, I will start posting photos, too!

Just one more note: a lot of food bloggers take the approach: choose a recipe, go shopping for the ingredients, and a couple hours later, voila! A meal fit for Ruth Reichl. But again, I'm more interested in working out a system that works for me. Three days a week I get home at 6 p.m., which conventional wisdom suggests it pretty close to the latest you should be having supper. I have received a lot of inspiration from another two books, Monday to Friday Cooking by Michelle Urvater, and The Pleasures of Cooking for One, by Judith Jones (the editor who pushed for Knopf to publish Mastering the Art of French Cooking). I'll review these in more detail in another post, but the short version is that they both give you good ideas about planning your meals a week at a time instead of dinner by dinner.

Not exactly dieting

This is a bit off topic, but it leads to where I personally hope to be going with my new-found rediscovery of my love of cooking:

Roving Feast columnist becomes diet outlaw

Overweight and out of shape, I need to change some things about my life, and the author's focus on not-so-much of many different and delicious foods is one path I hope to be going down.

Stick around for the next installment, where I return to the task of helping David learn to have more fun feeding himself and borrow liberally from Peg Bracken's Appendix to the I Hate to Cook Book, specifically the chapter called "Alone, Cooking if: Eating with your Shoes Off"