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

CSA Recap

Here is our bi-weekly recap of how we used our CSA.  Here's what we picked up...

And here's what we made...

• Umami Burgers & Kimchi Brussels Sprouts
• ground beef
• brussels sprouts
• creasy greens
• Pizza & Salad
• romaine
• creasy greens
• Chicken Involtini, Roasted Turnips, and Apple Crisp
• creasy greens
• turnips
• gold rush apples
• Jambalaya
• collards
• green onions
• Sausage Stuffed Fennel
• sausage
• Chinese New Year Feast
• trout

The one thing we didn't use was the butternut squash and the cilantro, but we'll find some uses for them in the coming weeks, I'm sure.

Fat Tuesday

Though we're not partying down on Bourbon St. tonight, we're still celebrating with some good ol' jambalaya!  So throw us your beads and we'll show you our andouille! Since neither of us are southern or creole, we figured we'd consult our good friend, Emeril, for his take on the tasty dish.

Like most good soups and stews, we started with some onions and bell pepper.  We let this cook down a bit and get nice and caramelized in a little vegetable oil, salt and cayenne.

After about 15 minutes, we added the andouille sausage.  We'd made a trip to Union Market on Sunday where Red Apron Butchery has set up shop.  They have a great looking array of meats including porkstrami, and a variety of sausages, so we're definitely planning to go back and try their other offerings.

So the sausage went into the pot to cook up with the onions and peppers.  Since we had some collards from the share, we also added these to the pot to cook down, and add a little greens to the dish.

Once the sausage and collards had cooked, we added the chicken, which had been seasoned with some salt and cayenne.  It took about 10 minutes for the chicken to brown.  We had to keep stirring and scraping the brown bits from the sides and bottom of the pot too.

Then it was time to add the rice and water.  Then we just let it cook for about 30 minutes.  This gave the rice time to cook up, and for all the flavors to really get nice and complex and soaked up by the rice.  While the jambalaya cooked up, we also threw some honey hush corn bread in the oven.  You can find pictures and recap of the cornbread here.  Though this time we spiced it up a bit by adding a sprinkle of black pepper to the top.

In the end, we were left with a delicious bowl of food.  The andouille gave the jambalaya a nice smoky flavor that the rice soaked right up.   The only spice came from the cayenne and the sausage itself, so it wasn't too overpowering.  And the sweetness of the cornbread was a nice compliment to the dish.  Justin paired the meal with a Bell's Hopslam, which fit perfectly with the meal meshing nicely with the honey in the cornbread and the smokiness from the jambalaya.

We hope you had a great Mardi Gras too, and don't worry, we won't be fasting, so get ready for more delicious meals to come!

CSA Day!

Hooray!  Time for our bi-weekly show and tell.

We're really excited to be seeing less cabbage and squashes, and more variety in the produce.  This week we have anabundance of greens...kale, collards, creasy greens, romaine, brussels sprouts.  Tonight we had a choice between a butternut or spaghetti squash, so we opted for the butternut, since it's a bit more versatile.  We also had a choice between mild or maple pork sausage, and we went with the mild.  That way we can either use breakfast or dinner.  I think the maple sausage would've pigeon-holed us into using it for breakfast.  I'm also a fan of all the herbs we've been getting.  We've managed to stretch their shelf life by wrapping them in a paper towel, and storing them them in a plastic bag in the fridge.  The paper towel helps absorb the moisture and prevent the herbs from turning all slimy.  I think we had a bunch of cilantro or mint that lasted over a month stored like that.  So there's your helpful tip of the day...free of charge!

We haven't quite figured out what we're going to cook with this week's share, but you know we always come up with something good.  Stay tuned!