using up our csa share: garlic scapes

I loooove garlic, so the few weeks that all of those garlic scapes come from the CSA are like Christmas. I think they taste like a green onion and a garlic clove had babies, which are really two of my favorite vegetables (alliums, but whatever), so my weird excitement is not all that surprising. I usually make garlic scape pesto, freeze it, and add it to salad dressings, pasta sauce, meat marinades, etc. I had a ton of garlic scapes though, so I decided to make a little dip, as well. I saved a few extra scapes to just add to salads and soups that I’ve made over the past few days. Since they’re milder than an actual garlic clove, they’re really versatile.

Garlic scape pesto
Adapted from Food52

Ingredients

1 cup garlic scapes
1/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup good olive oil
1/4 cup Parmesan, shredded
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Throw all of the ingredients except the olive oil in your food processor and pulse until everything is well blended. Then, with the processor on, pour in the olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. I like to freeze my pesto in ice cube trays because that makes the perfect portions to add onto roasted veggies, mix with some extra oil for a salad dressing, spread on some tasty bread with some tomatoes for bruschetta, or to add a little something extra to pretty much any soup. Be adventurous!

Creamy garlic scape dip
Adapted from Pinch of Yum

Ingredients

1/2 cup garlic scape pesto (above)
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
Dollop of sour cream (optional)
Handful of Parmesan cheese, grated (optional)

Directions

I made the pesto, filled up an ice cube tray with it, and then used the leftover pesto in the food processor to make the dip to minimize the dishes. Just add the yogurt and sour cream (if using) to the food processor, and mix thoroughly. Serve with veggies or pita chips as a dip. Or we used this on baked potatoes, which was delicious. I also mixed it in with the yolks of some hard boiled eggs for deviled eggs too, which was super easy and tasty too. Feel free to experiment!

grilled romaine

Pizzology is one of our favorite treats – they support lots of local farms (and breweries!) by using locally and seasonally-sourced ingredients as much as possible. They have this grilled romaine salad that is so delicious. I attempted to recreate it last week, and it was so easy! I used romaine, but I think you could easily use red or green leaf lettuce too – just remove the outer leaves for a regular salad, so that you’re left with the tighter cluster of lettuce.

Grilled Romaine Salad
A Pizzology Copycat

Ingredients

1-2 heads of romaine
2 tbsp olive oil
Juice of one lemon
Fresh herbs (if available) – we used basil and oregano because that’s what we had in the garden
Handful of cheese (optional) – we used feta above, but any blue cheese or Parmesan would be delicious too
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat grill until it reaches at least 350 degrees. Wash and thoroughly dry the lettuce. Cut the romaine hearts down the middle, but not all the way, so that the base keeps them mostly intact. Drizzle the romaine liberally with olive oil and salt and pepper. Grill for a few minutes on each side until slightly charred. Remove from grill, squeeze the lemon juice on top, garnish with fresh herbs and cheese if desired. Serve immediately.

neti pot saline mixture

This is a little random, but I figured it might help a few people, especially during allergy season. Do you neti? (yes, I just made that a verb) If you don’t, I highly encourage you to try it. It’s a little freaky at first, but it’s a lifesaver if you suffer from allergies and/or sinus infections. My only beef with neti-ing is those little packets of the saline mixture that you buy…they’re so wasteful! I couldn’t find anywhere that sold the stuff in bulk, so I decided to make my own. I saved a little spice jar that was empty and started experimenting. Now this may not be the most sanitary thing in the world, but we’ve been using it every week for the past two+ years and haven’t noticed any differences in efficacy over those wasteful little packets.

It took some experimenting, but we settled on a ratio of 60 percent salt to 40 percent baking soda. We use sea salt with no additives (you definitely want non-iodized salt). I usually add  a scant 2/3 cups of sea salt and a heaping 1/3 cups of baking soda to a bowl, and then mix thoroughly. Then I use a funnel to dump it into my jar(s) of choice. When I’m ready to neti, I add a heaping 1/2 teaspoon of the saline mixture to the neti pot, add the eight or so ounces of water (I just fill to the line on our neti pot), and neti away.

I find that I only have to make this 2-3 times a year and that makes enough for both Grant and me to use it most weeks during the winter and spring.

double rhubarb crisp

If you haven’t been to Spencer’s (or your local you-pick strawberry farm if you’re not in central Indiana) yet this season, you better hurry – I think this is peak week. We’ve been twice already, and I’m trying to find some extra time to go back before the end of the week. I’ll have some more recipes to come, but this is Grant’s favorite way to use up local strawberries besides just popping them by the handful directly into his mouth. I double the topping (hence the “double” in the name) of the original recipe because Grant loves the topping best.

I picked up some rhubarb at the farmer’s market and froze it in batches, so that I can make some of this in the middle of January to remind us that spring is coming (and for Grant’s birthday in September!).

Double strawberry rhubarb crisp
Adapted from Five and Spice

Ingredients

4 cups rhubarb, chopped into one-inch pieces (fresh or frozen)
2 cups strawberries (the local strawberries don’t need to be sliced and hulled, but if you buy those supermarket ones, you’ll probably need to)
½ cup honey
1 tsp vanilla
¼ cup warm water
2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 ½ cups butter, cut into chunks

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350F. Combine rhubarb, strawberries, honey, and vanilla in a pot. Turn heat to high until the rhubarb and strawberries start to boil and cook for a few minutes more. Stir in the water and cook, stirring, until it thickens, just a minute or two. Remove from the heat.

In another bowl, mix together all the topping ingredients except the butter. Add in the butter and blend it in with your fingers until the mixture is soft and crumbly (this is a great job for a four year-old!).

Butter a 9X13 baking pan, pour in the strawberry-rhubarb filling. Spread the topping in top. Bake for 45-50 minutes until it’s bubbling and the topping is golden. Allow to cool, so that it sets up a bit. Serve on its own or with whipped cream or over ice cream. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it…

using up our csa share: rainbow chard and asparagus

I’m going to try to share what we do with our CSA share from Victory Acres each week here. It won’t be fancy and probably won’t be all that consistent, but I’ll do my best. Please share what YOU do with your share in the comments!

We used up the rainbow chard, asparagus, and some of the garlic scapes and oregano all in one dinner. I first got started on the asparagus and broccoli (not from the CSA but we had some of that for dinner too). Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and put your baking sheet(s) in the oven to preheat as well. While that’s going on, prep your asparagus. These were so fresh and pretty that I just snipped off the ends and washed them off. My favorite way to cook asparagus is just with some simple olive oil, garlic, and salt and pepper. So after prepping them, I put them in a shallow bowl and added about 2-3 tbsp olive oil, plus a few cloves of minced garlic and some salt and pepper. Then just mix everything all around in your bowl to ensure that the asparagus is well-coated. Once the oven is preheated, take out your baking sheet and dump the contents of the bowl on the baking sheet – spreading the asparagus out a bit to make sure they aren’t on top of each other. I like my asparagus al dente, so I only roasted them about six minutes, but experiment to see what you like best. I finished them off with a little squeeze of fresh lemon, but that’s totally optional. (Side note: I prepped the broccoli the same way except they needed about 12-15 total minutes in the oven).

I love rainbow chard. It’s so pretty and healthy looking. We made burgers last night, so we wanted to use the chard as our “bun,” but there wasn’t quite enough for all of us, so I added some organic baby spinach that I had on hand. This is our family’s favorite quick and easy way to add some greens to any meal – it works perfectly with kale, chard, spinach, or really any leafy green. Wash and dry your greens (this is where a salad spinner is indispensable and probably our most-used kitchen appliance besides the dishwasher). I just tore up some of the larger pieces of chard and left the smaller pieces as-is. Then heat up some fat of your choice (I used coconut oil here). Once the oil is shimmering a bit at a high heat, dump in your greens. Then add your seasonings of choice: last night, I used some of the garlic scapes (diced) and fresh oregano (just torn up), as well as some garlic salt and fresh pepper. Continue stirring until your greens start to cook down a bit, then set the heat to low and cover the pan. The steam will finish off the greens.

For this meal, we put our burgers on top of the bed of chard/spinach and then just added the roasted asparagus and broccoli. I think, from start to finish, it took 25 minutes, but that was with me manning the veggies and Grant manning the grill!

wendell for wednesday

From The Art of the Commonplace:

Another decent possibility that my critics implicitly deny is that of work as a gift. …what appears to infuriate them is their supposition that [my wife] works for nothing. They assume—and this is the orthodox assumption of the industrial economy—that the only help worth giving is not given at all, but sold. Love, friendship, neighborliness, compassion, duty—what are they? We are realists. We will be most happy to receive your check.

Wendell Berry

diy tomato cages

Along with the garden renovation, we also did some research on tomato staking to see if we should be using a better system. After lots of research, we settled on some more substantial tomato cages, rather than the many other great options out there. Traditional tomato cages (like these) are a little flimsy and too short, so our tomatoes always end up toppling over or not reaching their potential.

I settled on these directions to get me started, but I bought about 30 yards of four-foot tall fencing instead of concrete mesh. It was substantially less expensive, but still sturdy. I did fourteen cages in a nap time one afternoon (about an hour and a half) from start to finish, so these were much easier than I was anticipating.

1. I would highly recommend wearing sun/safety glasses and work gloves. I didn’t wear glasses at first, and the sharp wire edges popped back and almost hit me in the face. I quickly resorted to grabbing some very fashionable safety glasses!
2. Find something long and heavy-ish to use to hold down one end of the fencing as you un-roll it. I had a scrap 2×4 that was the perfect size.
3. Unroll the fencing, placing your heavy object on one end. I counted out about 18-24 sections. The sections in my roll of fencing were a little over an inch, so it made my finished tomato cages about a foot+ in diameter. I cut them in a random assortment of sizes, so that I could nest them in the off-season (if they were all the same size, they wouldn’t nest). Use a wire cutter to cut at your desired length. You’ll want to cut close to the end of your section, so that you only have loose wire on one side versus both sides (this will make more sense once you’re actually doing it – I promise!).
4. After you make the cuts, remove your object holding down the other end and bring the two ends together to form a rough circle. Bend the loose wire ends around the opposite side of your cage to hold them together. I made a little bit of a curly-cue with the sharp end pointing back in the direction of the wire in hopes of avoiding getting caught on it.
5. Repeat.

 

We bought some four-foot rebar stakes that we put in the garden and then affixed the cages to the rebar stakes to keep them sturdy. Some people cut off the wire along the bottom to create stakes to put into the ground, but we wanted the cages as tall as possible, and I think the rebar is sturdier. Here’s the finished product in the garden:

 

I’ll write up a full report at the end of the season, of course!

 

salad dressing

We eat A LOT of salad around the Sterley household. Salad greens is a place where I cheat on our seasonal eating rules because we need our greens. I try to be as seasonal and local as possible, but in the middle of January, we rely on our co-op for organic greens of pretty much any variety. But come April and May, it’s all local greens, all the time. We rarely buy pre-made salad dressings (have you seen the ingredient lists on most of that stuff?!) because homemade is much healthier, cheaper, and so quick and easy to whip up on the spot. I taught a class a few months ago on Real Food Basics with Trade School Indy (I highly recommend checking them out!), and, when I was trying to think of what four-five real food basics were most helpful and realistic during our short two-hour class, I easily settled on salad dressings as one topic to cover.

With these cooler temps, salad greens are sticking around a little longer than usual, so make some vinaigrette and get excited about your greens from your garden or CSA boxes or farmer’s market finds!

I don’t usually follow recipes for salad dressings – once you figure out your oil/acid ratio of choice, you can experiment with various flavors and herbs. I recommend that you start off with a ratio of one-part acid to two-parts oil. At our house, we like our salad with a bit more “bite,” so ours is a bit closer to 50/50 depending on the acid we use, but experiment and figure out what you like best.

I like to use glass jars with lids to make dressings because I just throw everything in there and shake to combine and emulsify the ingredients. Here is a basic formula to get you started:

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp fresh basil or oregano, minced
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and serve over salad. If you use fresh garlic in your dressings, then you should refrigerate it after using and use within a week. If you don’t use fresh garlic, the dressing doesn’t need to be refrigerated. If it is refrigerated, the oil will harden, so you’ll want to set it out to warm back up to room temperature before serving.

Another favorite basic recipe that has a little kick:

1/3 cup red wine vinegar
Juice of half a lime
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
Handful fresh cilantro, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
Small jalapeño, chopped
1 tsp honey

Some other tips:

• If you bring balsamic vinegar to a boil first before adding it to your dressing, it sweetens it up.
• Use the best quality vinegar and oil you can afford – it makes a big difference, and it’s most likely still less expensive than the store-bought dressings.
• Dijon mustard makes almost all dressings better. Start with adding about a teaspoon to your basic recipe and increase the amount if you like it.
• Any vinegar counts as an acid, as does really any citrus. I like to use lemon and lime juice on their own as an acid, but grapefruit and orange juice need a little added acid for my taste (red/white wine vinegar are my favorites mixed with citrus).
• Pretty much any fresh herb is a great addition to salad dressing. Dried works too, but remember that a little bit goes a long way when it comes to dried herbs.
• Diced red onions or shallots are a great addition to any dressing, especially if you have time to let it sit for a bit before serving so that the flavors meld together.
• A bit of honey is an easy way to freshen up a viniagrette.
• Experiment! Some of our favorite combinations have come from only having a few ingredients left in the pantry that we threw together.

wendell for wednesday

One of the primary results–and one of the primary needs–of industrialism is the separation of people and places and products from their histories. To the extent that we participate in the industrial economy, we do not know the histories of our families or of our habitats or of our meals. This is an economy, and in fact a culture, of the one-night stand. “I had a good time,” says the industrial lover, “but don’t ask me my last name.” Just so, the industrial eater says to the svelte industrial hog, “We’ll be together at breakfast. I don’t want to see you before then, and I won’t care to remember you afterwards.”

Wendell Berry, from the essay, “The Whole Horse”

garden progress

We revamped our garden this year into large beds instead of a mixture of beds and rows as in the past. We’ll keep you posted on our experience, but we really like how pretty and organized things look so far. With two small, crazy kids, we didn’t do starts this year. We bought some starts from Urban Farm Seeds and planted lots of seeds directly in the garden. I’ve always wanted to try planting peppers and tomatoes (plants that I’ve traditionally started indoors in March or April) directly in the garden to see how they do, so I finally did that this year. They seem to be doing okay so far – I’ll keep you posted as to their progress.

We followed these basic directions, except we used the following in terms of lumber in case you want to copy our less expensive version:

• 4 2×4 8-foot pressure treated boards (we used these instead of the more expensive and more difficult to cut 4×4 posts) :: See paragraph below re: cuts
• 8 2×10 10-foot pressure treated boards (you could also get 2×10s or 2×8s, depending on the depth you want – we went with 2x10s because our Lowe’s didn’t have 2x12s) :: No need to cut these
• 4 2×10 8-foot pressure treated boards :: Cut these in half, so that you have eight four-feet sections

These made four 4×10 feet beds. Because we used the 2x4s instead of the 4×4 posts, we were able to have Lowe’s do all of the cuts for us, so all we had to do when we got home was assemble everything and then put them in place. We had Lowe’s cut the 2x4s in one-foot sections, so that when we screwed them to the 2x10s, they stuck out about two-inches on the bottom, creating little legs for the beds. If you don’t want the legs to stick out on the bottom, just cut the boards to match the depth of your bed (which would be 10 inch sections in our case). I used some wood glue to attach two sections of the 2×4 together, in effect creating a 4×4 post in one-foot sections (but quite a bit less expensive). Then we used the four-inch screws to attach the “posts” to the rest of the bed.

If cost wasn’t an option, we would have used cedar, but after some more research, we went with pressure-treated wood. We made these back in April, so we let them set out through the spring rains in hopes of washing out at least some of the chemicals.

Since we built these back in April, we had some time before we were ready to plant (except for some cold weather stuff that we planted in our old square foot). We filled up the beds first with lots of sticks based on the hugelkultur method, then with a layer of cardboard (torn into smaller 12-inch sections), then with a layer of shredded paper, and then we had quite a bit of grass that we had dug up because we made the garden larger (less lawn, more food – hooray!), so we put it grass side down in the beds. Then we topped all of that with compost and some top soil for the lower spots.

Here are the finished products (along with our old PVC-square foot garden):

 

Have you tackled any garden-related construction projects this year? Leave your questions in the comments!