April 30, 2013

CSA Day!

Between the end of the winter share and being on vacation, it feels like forever since we picked up a share.  But we're back on track to bring you more delicious meals.  We're really excited to get fewer potatoes and squashes, and a wider variety of fruits and veggies as the weather warms up.
I'm really excited about the sorrel, an ingredient I've never cooked with before, and to have garlic scapes to work with.  Stay tuned to see how we use them!

April 29, 2013

Glen's Garden Market

If you live in DC, or are planning a visit, you need to make your way over to Glen's Garden Market, just north of Dupont Circle.  It's a great neighborhood grocery store, offering "good food from close by".  And where else can you grocery shop while sipping beer or wine?

Everything in the market comes from local vendors, in DC and the surrounding areas.  The meats are cured and smoked in-house, along with a variety of salads, prepared foods, and stocks.
The piece de resistance is the curing box.  When we stopped by this past weekend, it was filled to the brim with a variety of sausages.  The great thing about this box is that it has climate settings that can be set to mimic the climate of a variety of regions around the world.  And since I happen to know the chef that's curing and smoking all of these meats, he tossed me a link of finocchio sausage, as well as a bite of the smoked pork loin he was working on.  Both were amazingly delicious.

In addition to the grocery items, they have a bar serving up $4 pints, and a wine dispenser that offers two-, four-, and six-ounce glasses, so you can taste wines before purchasing.  If beer or wine isn't your thing, they also offer coffee and tea to sip while you shop.

Since we couldn't leave empty handed, we walked away with some pork spare ribs, collards, and sunchokes.  With the weather warming up, we fired up the grill, and threw the spare ribs on to slow cook.  We simply rubbed the ribs with some Dinosaur BBQ cajun rub, applewood smoked salt, and a liberal brush of Dinosaur BBQ sauce mixed with a touch of grapeseed oil and honey.
We cooked them on the rack of the grill so they got indirect heat.  After about 10 min, we brushed on more sauce and gave 'em a flip.
While they finished cooking, I thew together the sunchokes and collards.  The sunchokes were par-boiled and then pan fried, much like we've done when we've made the kale & farro hash.  Once they were crisp, we tossed in some thinly sliced red onion, minced garlic, and the collards.  We deglazed the pan with a splash of sherry vinegar, and in minutes, our side dish was complete.
It was a great, summertime meal, from a great new grocery store.  So get on over to Glen's and check it out!
*pictures of the market sourced from Glen's Garden Market, Urban Daddy, and The Washingtonian

April 26, 2013

Paleo Shake-n-Bake...and I helped!

We had some umami dust leftover from our burgers, so we decided to jump a little outside the box, and try it on some pork chops.

Let's start with the cauliflower.  It wasn't too different from when we made the kimchi brussels sprouts.  The cauliflower was chopped up into more manageable, bite-sized pieces, and we crisped up some pancetta bits.  We poured a bit of the rendered fat over the cauliflower before popping it into the oven to roast.
Once the cauliflower was a bit charred, we pulled them out of the oven, and tossed them with the crisped pancetta, sliced kimchi, and some freshly sliced green onion.
Now, onto the pork chops.  Since we can't use panko or bread crumbs, we used some unsweetened, shredded coconut, and mixed some of the umami dust, minced garlic and ginger, and some black and regular sesame seeds
Then we just coated the chops in the mixture, and popped them into the broiler on some cooling racks.  Doing that allows the air to circulate around the chops, so all sides get crispy.  If you just place them on the baking sheet directly, the bottom will end up soggy.

To finish the dish, we placed our chop on a bed of creasy greens, lightly dressed in some rice wine vinegar, a dash of black vinegar, garlic, ginger and sesame oil.  The greens added a bit of acidity to the umami chops, while the roasted cauliflower added a nice kick of spice.

April 25, 2013

CSA Recap

Helloooo!  Apologies to our loyal followers...I know we've been a bit silent over the last couple weeks, and that was not intentional.  Justin and I were over in China for the last couple weeks, and had been planning to post a few things while we were gone, until I was reminded that China blocks Google and blogs.  Whomp!  Whomp!  We'll have a recap of some of the delicious things we ate while we were traveling, but I still need to get settled back in first.  So let's pick up where we left off...our CSA recap...
And here's how we used everything...
We ended up just eating the peanuts while watching some basketball, and the potatoes were used for some home fries for a weekend breakfast.  We'll get back on track with our regular posts...promise!

April 10, 2013

Welcome to the Tropics

Now that the weather is really warming up, it's time to start cooking with spring/summer fruits and veggies.  We got things started with some pork chops topped with mango salsa.

Here's my trick for cutting a mango.  The seed in the middle is typically pretty wide, but not very thick.  So, start by slicing off the sides.

Then, score your two sides into whatever size cubes you like.  You don't want to cut all the way through the skin though.  Then flip it inside out.
Now, all you have to do is is run your knife through the bottom of your chunks to separate them from the skin.  To finish off the salsa, we added some sliced green onion, red onion, cilantro, and some lemon.
Give it a good stir, add a little salt and pepper, and you're good to go!  This would also be great with a little cucumber or some avocado, and some jalepeno if you want a little heat.

For the pork chops, we simply seasoned them with salt, pepper, cayenne, and a little grapeseed oil, and stuck them under the broiler for a few minutes on each side.  You'll want to keep an eye on them so they don't overcook and become tough.  And to finish off the meal, we had a simple salad, lightly dressed with some lemon juice, grapeseed oil, a drop of maple syrup, salt and pepper.

April 8, 2013

Food Bloggers Against Hunger

Today's post is part recipe, part public service announcement.

Growing up, did your parents try to get you to finish your meal because there were "starving kids in Africa" that could really use that food you were about to waste?  What about all the starving people right here in the US?  1 out of 5 kids in America are starving, and when you scale that to the entire population, 1 out of 6 Americans are starving.  People that use food stamps are only given $4 per person per day to supplement whatever food budget they have.  Just over a month ago, A Place at the Table, debuted in theaters, and became available On Demand and on iTunes.  It is a documentary by the same folks that produced Food Inc., and 3 families struggling with food insecurity.

We decided to put ourselves in their shoes for a day, and see just what $8 (since there's 2 of us) could get us for breakfast lunch and dinner.  As you can see, it didn't buy us much.  All we could afford was a half dozen eggs, some sirloin tips, and a bag of frozen veggies.
The eggs can be used for breakfast, and we'll use the steak and veggies for a stir-fry for dinner, but as you can see, there was nothing for lunch.  Frozen veggies are a great, healthy alternative to buying fresh vegetables however, about a third of the options, when it came to mixed veggies, had a sauce.  Nutritionally, that's where you run into trouble because you have no control over the salt, sugar and fat content.  So even just finding a bag of plain, mixed veggies that fit our budget was tough.

The stir fry itself was easy to throw together.  Since the veggies were frozen, we threw those into the wok with some coconut oil and grated ginger.  Most people probably don't have that on hand, but you can use canola/vegetable/grapeseed...whatever oil you have on hand.

Once they had defrosted a bit, we threw in the steak, which we'd cut into strips.  We also added some black bean & garlic sauce that we already had on hand.  Again, this probably isn't a "staple" item that most people have in their pantries, but you can add garlic and soy sauce, or whatever other sauce you have on hand.

That's the nice thing about stir fry...there really aren't any rules when it comes to them.  You can just throw together whatever you have on hand to make a tasty dish.  Because we had a tiny bit of our homemade kimchi left in the fridge, we chopped it up and added it to the mix for some added spice.  An alternative would to be to use a little cayenne pepper or hot sauce.  We topped off each dish with some sesame seeds.
Now granted, our little experiment was a bit skewed since we used items we had on hand that may not be considered "staples" in most households, and we were trying to buy food for just one day.  Had we taken advantage of our economies of scale, and bought food for an entire week with $56, we probably could've found creative ways to make 3 meals a day.  There were whole rotisserie chickens on sale for about $4, which could be stretched to last at least 2 meals.  Cans of tuna and sardines were on sale for $1 each too.  But as you can see, your money doesn't stretch very far unless you have the time to be one of those extreme couponers.  And with sequestration, there will be less and less food assistance available.

So, here's what you can do to help.  Take a minute to complete this form and send a letter to your congressmen, urging them to protect federal nutrition programs.  Take a couple hours out of your day to watch A Place at the Table.  I'll get you started with the trailer...

This was a really enlightening experience. We are so used to cooking for fun and making creative use of a seemingly endless choice of ingredients.  Knowing we had an $8 budget for the day when we passed ads for $3 for 2 breakfast sandwiches at a fast food chain (that will remain anonymous) really showed us how much easier it would've been to just grab 2 sandwiches than to shop and cook on that tight budget.  It's understandable to see why people would just resort to the $1 menu at fast food joints. But with a little creativity, and some patience shopping around the grocery store, you can put together a healthy meal on any budget.

April 2, 2013

CSA Day AND Chicken Marsala

That's right...you're getting a two for one deal tonight!  So let's get things started.

Here's what we hauled in today...
We're really excited about this whole chicken.  The peanuts and potatoes will be a little trickier since they are both off limits with the Paleo diet, but since we allow ourselves one cheat day, we'll find a way to incorporate them into meals then.

Now...for tonight's dinner, we whipped up some chicken marsala and roasted turnips.

We started by making a "marinade" for the chicken.  I use that term loosely since it wasn't your typical saucy marinade, but that's how the recipe phrased it, so that's what I'm sticking with.  We started by slicing and dicing some green onion (since we didn't have shallots), white onion, garlic, thyme, rosemary (our little twist), and sage, and adding in a bit of grapeseed oil.  Then we layered in our chicken, making sure each piece was nicely covered in the aromatics.
The recipe says to cut your chicken into chunks, but we went more with cutlets.  So I stacked them up, making sure to get the onions and herbs in between each piece, and let them sit for about 10 minutes while we prepped the turnips.  We kept them simple and just roasted them up, similar to how we did the cauliflower here.  Once the chicken had a chance to marinate, we browned them in a pan, and then popped 'em into the oven just to stay warm (so turn your oven no higher than 200).

Using the same pan, we added the remaining onions and herbs to the pan to soften, and then added in the mushrooms.  We used both the oyster and shitake mushrooms that we picked up in our share.
Once the mushrooms have cooked down, add in your marsala wine to deglaze the pan.  Be sure to scrape up all the delicious brown bits that may be stuck on the bottom of your pan.  If you use a non-stick pan like we did, you won't have to worry about those stuck-on bits.

Once the alcohol has cooked off, add in your chicken stock.  Give everything a good stir, and be sure to season your sauce with salt and pepper.  Then you just let it simmer and reduce for about 10 minutes.  Up until this point, it was Paleo-friendly.  But we had to add a tiny bit of cornstarch to thicken the sauce.  The recipe called for arrowroot as the thickening agent, but we didn't have any on hand.  Considering there was only about 1/2 tsp of cornstarch, I'm going to say this was still Paleo-friendly.

Once your sauce has thickened to your desired viscosity, you can toss your chickens in so they can absorb some of the sauce.  Then you're ready to serve!

April 1, 2013

Easter Feast

We spent Easter weekend down in NC with Justin's parents, taking in some sun, catching a glimpse of the ocean, and just relaxing.  It was a nice little getaway.  But we didn't stay out of the kitchen for too long.  Since we had to drive back to DC on Sunday, we decided to do Easter dinner on Saturday night.  After an impromptu happy hour on the balcony, we got cookin'.

We tried to keep the menu pretty simple and with spring in mind.  We started the meal with a pea soup.  It's supposed to be a chilled soup, but we ate it at about room temperature, and it was perfect.  The sweetness of the peas was balanced out by the mint, which gave it a refreshing punch.  We couldn't find morel mushrooms, so we used chanterelles instead, and they were delicious!

For the main course, we went with lamb chops (of course!), with a curry cream.  Shout out to my aunt for the recipe!  The lamb gets marinated in some white wine and whole grain mustard.  The curry cream is really where it's at!  It's a simple mixture of whipping cream, paprika, tumeric, cayenne, fenugreek leaves, garlic and lemon juice.  Fenugreek can also be called kasuri methi, and is a common ingredient in Indian food.  Because the rest of our menu was more spring like, we did add a bit of mint to the sauce, to help tie everything together.

For side dishes, we went with asparagus wrapped in pancetta, and the kale/farro/sunchoke hash that we've made a couple times before.
The saltiness of the pancetta was balanced out by the citrus sauce that was drizzled over the top.  And although the kale-sunchoke hash was a bit of the hearty side, relatively, it really helped round out the meal.
We had good intentions to make a dessert of coconut macarons and ice cream, but we all fell into food comas following dinner.  Dessert will have to wait until next time.

CSA Recap

Happy April!  It's time once again for our CSA recap.  Here's what we picked up...
And here's how we put the deliciousness to use...
We ended up just eating the apples as snacks/part of our lunches, and the bacon is in the freezer since we still have some from the last share that we need to eat.  Stay tuned tomorrow to see what we pick up next!