CSA Day!

It's that time again!  Woohoo!  Here's what we hauled home today:

Lots of good stuff to come as we jump back on the Paleo train.  Stay tuned!

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.

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!

CSA Day!

Yay Tuesday!  Yep, today was a CSA day, and boy did we pick up some treats!

So not only did we NOT get another head of cabbage or a spaghetti squash, but we got more of the pretty carrots, red kale, turnips, and sunchokes!  Plus, 3 different meats!  We're already trying to figure out exactly how we're going to use everything.  Got any ideas?

Tressed to Kill

Tonight's dinner is brought to you by the letter P, for pork and polenta!

Since we have apples from the CSA, and pork tenderloin was on sale this week, it was a match made in heaven.  We've experimented before with a recipe for pork chops stuffed with apples, hazelnuts and blue cheese, so we made a few tweaks, substituting in walnuts rather than hazelnuts, and rolling it all up into a pork tenderloin.

I got to work chopping up 2 gold rush apples and toasting the walnuts.  We seasoned the pork with salt, pepper, and chopped rosemary.  Then we stuffed it with the apples and walnuts.  Our blue cheese is currently MIA, so we had to forgo the cheese.

 Justin had the pleasure of tressing the pork and making sure all the apples and walnuts stayed up inside the pork.  And since all of the apples didn't fit inside the tenderloin, we just put them in the dish around the pork while it cooked.

For our side dish, we went with a butternut squash polenta gratin.  The bulb of the squash was roasted, while the neck was just peeled and sliced.  While the squash roasted we whipped up the polenta.

The roasted squash was added to the polenta, along with a bunch of parmesan cheese.

I only had a loaf pan, so we made layers of polenta and sliced squash.  This was all topped with more cheese, some black truffle oil, and truffle salt.  Then we popped it into the oven with the pork to cook.  About 30 minutes later, dinner was ready!

The pork was perfectly cooked, the apples added a nice sweetness, and the walnuts had a nice, toasty crunch.  I did miss the tang of the blue cheese though.

With the unseasonably warm weather on the docket for this weekend, we're hoping to fire up the grill, so stay tuned to see what we do with the bison steak and kohlrabi!

Going Stir Fry Crazy!

Its Tuesday...Tuesday...gotta get down on Tuesday...

Ok, I guess it doesn't quite have the same ring to it as Friday, but it brings the same excitement since we finally had a CSA share to pick up.  It feels like an eternity since our last share, and we were both chompin' at the bit to see what we'd get today.  So ...without further ado...

Wouldn't it be our luck that we got ANOTHER cabbage!  We're really excited about our meat share...the bison NY strip steak and the pork sausages.  For the sausages we had a choice between ham with cider, or pork butt and pork bellies.  It was an obvious choice here.  I'm pretty excited about the purple carrots and the kholrabi as well.  I don't think I've eaten kholrabi, so it will be fun experimenting with it.

And since its been a while since we've whipped something up in the kitchen, we're bringing you tonight's meal...free of charge!

We thought ahead for once and defrosted some chicken overnight, knowing we'd need a protein to go with whatever veggies we picked up tonight.  To keep things simple, and since I scored a new wok for Christmas, we settled on a Thai peanut stir-fry.

So here's what we started wth...the purple carrots, broccoli, a sweet potato, spinach and some dill from the share.  The green onions and mushrooms were leftover from the weekend and needed to be used.  So  got to peeling and chopping the sweet potato and the purple carrots.

Look how pretty these carrots are!

While I finished chopping everything, Justin was busy cutting the chicken breasts into chunks.  Then he lightly coated them in some seasoned flour.  We used coconut oil to cook everything, so that went into the wok with a few cloves of minced garlic.  Once that was nice and aromatic, we threw in the carrots and sweet potatoes, since those would take the longest to cook, along with the chicken.

Once the chicken browned a bit, we threw in the broccoli.  As the chicken continued to cook, we threw in the mushrooms, spinach, and green onions.  We also threw in a bit of sesame oil for an added layer of flavor

Once the spinach wilted, it was time to make the sauce.  We started by adding the coconut milk.  Then came the peanut butter.  

We just kept mixing and stirring until the peanut butter had melted down and everything was coated in sauce.  To top off the dish, we toasted up some sesame seeds, drizzled on some sriracha, and sprinkled on some chopped dill.

It was a great way to kick off this week's share!