food

It's the third installment of my Tangletown Farm Meat CSA!

Beef liver
Whole chicken
Pork center cut loin chop
Pork hot Italian sausage
Beef loin T-bone steak
Pork country spare ribs
Ground beef

Also:
Meat CSA Installment #2

I'm leaving on a two week vacation soon so I'm trying to clean out my refrigerator. This breakfast is what starts to occur as I run out of staples, like eggs...

I didn't want to cut up an onion to make a breakfast burrito, so I used mostly the white parts of scallions, with some green parts. I added a couple small jalapeños, diced.

I could have added potatoes and/or cheese, but I'm pretty sure that was a major contributor to why I gained weight after eating my other breakfast burrito so I left them out. It still turned out to be quite tasty!

Brandi made a meatloaf, and posted on Facebook that she and her friend sang Meat Loaf's "I would do anything for love" in anticipation of eating meatloaf. That got me thinking, "I'm hungry for meatloaf." Also, I had a 1.3 pound package from Meat CSA installment #2 and the next installment is due tomorrow and it's time to make space in the freezer. So meatloaf it is!

This is pretty much like Mom's meatloaf, though I hers doesn't have fresh garlic or fresh parsley in it. It doesn't have any ketchup or tomato in it; I presume this is the Japanese influence. Though I do eat it with ketchup.

1.3 lbs. ground beef (what I happened to have, and will make a small-to-medium meatloaf)
1 yellow onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 handful of parsley, minced
1 egg
Worcestershire sauce
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt
Cayenne pepper
breadcrumbs

Heat the onions and garlic in a little olive oil over medium heat in a small sauté pan until softened.

Combine the ground beef, onion mixture, and the rest of the ingredients. Add breadcrumbs as necessary so the meatloaf isn't too moist. Form into loaf shape and place in a small, lightly greased roasting pan.



Cook at 350°F.

After 20 minutes, add a small amount of water to the roasting pan and drizzle a little soy sauce over the top of the meatloaf. The water is there to prevent the juices from burning and will be the base for the gravy.

Check again after 20 more minutes. Add more water if necessary.

My meat loaf took a total of 50 minutes to be fully cooked; you can cook to an internal temperature from 140°F to 150°F depending on how done you want your meatloaf.

Remove the meatloaf from the roasting pan.

Prepare a slurry of approximately ¼ cup all-purpose flour and water to make 2 cups.

Put the roasting pan on the stove and add the slurry to the pan juices to make a gravy. Add a little soy sauce. Cook for at least 4 minutes, stirring constantly. If the gravy gets too thick, add water. Strain.


I ended up with 15 oz. of gravy and a meatloaf that I cut into six slices, two slices per serving, so each serving gets 5 oz. of gravy (by volume).

Served with broccoli from CSA Week #9.

I've always made tuna salad this way, because it's mostly the way Mom makes it. It's tuna, mayonnaise and celery, as you might expect, except Mom adds Catalina salad dressing, which gives it a sort of pink hue and a vaguely Thousand Island dressing quality with the extra mayo. I further add salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper.

I do love a good tuna sandwich, but it's also good on a bed of lettuce with a little more Catalina dressing, and, in this case, tomato and croutons.

The lettuce and tomato came from CSA Week #10.

This week...

Tomatoes
Green Leaf Lettuce
Watermelon
Green Peppers
Purple Peppers
Onions
Cherry Tomatoes
Carrots
Corn

No postings for Week #11 and Week #12 as I'll be on vacation, but there still should be a few more weeks of growing season after that still!

I ate some of the corn on the cob with a salad, and the rest I made roasted corn with and froze it,

I made a couple salads, including a salad with tuna salad with the lettuce and tomatoes.

I used purple peppers to make a purple version of Sausage and green peppers.

I also used purple peppers to make a version of Royal Orchid #24 Pad ga prao.

Also:
Week #9

2.0 oz. (dry) rigatoni
2.0 oz. thinly sliced prosciutto, cut into strips
1 tomato, diced
broccoli, steamed
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
red pepper flakes
1 oz. pepper vodka
0.5 oz. Parmesano Reggiano cheese, grated
0.5 oz. Pecorino Romano cheese, grated
2.0 oz. heavy cream
salt and pepper

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Salt the water and cook the pasta according to package directions.

Heat a sauté pan over medium heat.

Add add the olive oil to the hot sauté pan and briefly sauté the garlic, making sure it does not burn. Add the tomatoes and red pepper flakes and cook for several minutes.

Add the pepper vodka. I used my own jalapeño and habanero infused vodka, though a prepared pepper vodka, such as Absolut pepar, also works fine.

Push the contents of the sauté pan to the side to make room for preparing the cream sauce. Add a portion of the cream and the cheese, and stir to make a sauce. Adjust the consistency as necessary by adding cream. Mix into the tomato/prosciutto. Add the broccoli. Add the cooked and drained pasta. Salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 1, though it you scale up; first the pasta and tomato to serve 2, and then the other ingredients to serve more.

This compensates for the vegan broccoli soup which is delicious but has no cream or cheese. 

The broccoli and parsley are from CSA Week #9. Onions are garlic are also from the CSA.

While my cheddar broccoli soup is rich, creamy, and quite tasty, it's also pretty far from healthy. Each small 7 ounce serving has 2 oz. of cheese and 1 oz. cream, among other things, like beer, butter, and flour.

Since I still had an abundance of broccoli from CSA Week #8 and CSA Week #9 I decided to try making a healthier vegan broccoli soup, without any cheese or cream.

After searching the net I came across this recipe, which looked so good I didn't really have any major modifications to make to it.

The vegetarian soup stock recipe on the page also looked really good, and I actually had everything for it, but I didn't want to spend 8 hours making it. I used More Than Gourmet Veggie-Stock Gold, which is made from actual vegetables and has no added starches, fats, and is low in sodium. It's much better than veggie bouillon cubes! For the 16 ounces of vegetable stock I added 0.8 oz. of stock base (1:20 ratio).

I used hemp milk instead of rice since my grocery store did not carry all permutations of soy, almond, hemp, and rice in unflavored, vanilla, and chocolate in sweetened and unsweetened. I decided go to with unflavored, unsweetened hemp for this recipe since neither sugar nor vanilla made any sense in this recipe. It's a little labor-intensive but making a vegan roux (olive oil + flour cooked at low for 10 minutes) and adding in the milk substitute makes a nicely textured cream substitute.

I also only made a half recipe, but it's quite good so I might make a whole recipe next time. The half recipe makes about 28 oz., which is 2 or 3 servings. It's very healthy, so a big bowl of it is probably in order. The quantities below are already halved (the original recipe was twice these quantities):

7.5 oz. broccoli (3 cups)
16 oz. vegetable stock
0.5 oz. chopped parsley (1/2 cup)
¼ tsp. dried rosemary
½ tsp. dried thyme
freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp. olive oil
0.2 oz. garlic, minced (1 clove)
1.9 oz. onion, small dice (half a small onion)
0.8 oz. celery (1/2 stalk), small dice
1 ½ tbsp. all-purpose flour
8 oz. unsweetened, unflavored rice, soy, almond, hemp, or other substitute milk
salt

Peel the broccoli stems. Cut the stems and florets into small pieces. Some of the florets will be reserved and be in the soup directly, though most of the broccoli will be puréed.

Bring the stock to a boil. Add the broccoli. Bring back to a boil, reduce the heat to medium, and cook the broccoli until tender.

Remove about ½ cup of broccoli florets from the pan, reserve to add back into the soup at the end.

In a separate sauté pan, add a little olive oil and cook the onions, garlic, and celery over medium low heat until soft, being careful to not burn them.

Add the parsley, thyme, rosemary, and black pepper to the pot of broccoli and stock. I used whole dried thyme and rosemary, so I quickly ground them with a half dozen black peppercorns in a spice grinder before adding to the stock.

Purée the broccoli, stock, and spices. Set aside.

In a clean soup pan, add olive oil. Add the flour and cook over low heat for 10 minutes to make a vegan roux. Increase the heat to high. Stir in the milk substitute a little at a time, constantly whisking. Bring to a boil, whisking, until thick and free of lumps.

Add the broccoli purée and broccoli florets. Reduce the heat to medium and heat through but do not boil. Add salt if necessary. Serve.

The soup is a good broccoli soup that many people would like even if you didn't tell them that it didn't have any cream in it. It's an excellent vegan broccoli soup.

The soup is vegetarian and vegan. It's dairy free and lactose free. It's not gluten free, but it could be if you substituted for the flour in the roux. Veggie stock gold is gluten free and lactose free. Assuming you didn't use soy milk, it's also soy free which is somewhat uncommon for vegan 'cream' soup.

I had some extra yellow watermelon from CSA Week #8 so I puréed about 4 oz. of watermelon into a frozen margarita:

4 oz. watermelon (seedless, or seeds removed)
1.5 oz. Sauza Hornitos tequila
0.5 oz. triple sec
1 oz. lime juice
0.5 oz. simple syrup (sugar and water)
ice

Blend the ingredients together. Serve in a salt-rimmed glass.

Very refreshing!

linguini, 2 oz. (dry) per serving
2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 dozen small to medium mussels (0.55 lbs.)
1 large tomato, chopped
handful of fresh parsley, minced
crushed red pepper flakes (to taste)
3 oz. white wine
salt
pepper
fresh basil, chiffonade

Prepare linguini according package directions.

Clean and de-beard mussels. I used Prince Edward Island (PEI) mussels, and a dozen was about 0.55 pound. They happened to be on sale at my supermarket for $ 1.99 per pound, so this is a deal, indeed.

Heat butter and olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for a minute. Add the parsley and cook for a minute longer. Add the crushed red pepper flakes. Add the white wine, increase the heat to medium-high, and bring to a boil. Add the mussels. Cover and cook for 5 minutes.

Remove the mussels from the pan.

Add the tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes. (When I originally wrote the recipe I wrote it adding the tomatoes before adding the mussels, but I forgot to add them when I cooked the recipe. And I think it might actually work better to add them at the end as I did here.)

Add the basil and the cooked and drained pasta to the wine/butter sauce to coat thoroughly. (You'll also note that the pictures don't include the basil because I forgot to add it, as well.)

Add the pasta and some of the broth to a serving bowl. I used a plate here, which was probably not the best choice, either. Add the mussels on top.

Serve with crusty bread.

Serves 1 as a meal by itself or 2 as a small meal with other things. Could easily add 18 to 24 mussels and increase the amount of pasta to serve 2 or 3.

Not one of my better days of cooking, but it still turned out to be quite delicious.

The tomatoes, parsley, and garlic were from my CSA.

Okay, it's a big plate of fried food. And homemade mayonnaise. Healthy? Not really so much, but soooo delicious!

Prepare the garlic aioli ahead of time.

Beer Batter

The beer batter is used for both the jalapeños and the zucchini. It's also common to make jalapeño poppers with breadcrumbs, but since I thought I'd go with a beer batter since I was making it anyway for the zucchini.

3.7 oz. all-purpose flour (3/4 cup)
1 egg, beaten
8 oz. beer

If you're making a large amount of beer batter, you can stretch it to 1 cup of flour and 12 oz. of beer, which might make more sense if you're not drawing your beer from a keg of Switchback beer and are using a bottle or can. Or you could just drink the remainder.

Steak fries

I prepared the steak fries, seasoned, with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper as I did previously. This must be done first because the potatoes require a two-step frying process, first at 270°F and then a 360°F. The second stage of cooking can be done with other things.

Jalapeño Poppers with goat cheese, shallots, and parsley

I really like this recipe for jalapeño poppers. But fair warning: they're spicy hot!

Take jalapeño peppers, stem them, and split them in half lengthwise. I made six very small jalapeños but you may want to use bigger ones. Or make more.

Remove the seeds with a spoon. In most recipes, the seeds and perhaps even some of the ribs are discarded, but in this recipe I mince the seeds and ribs, then put them back in. That's why they're so much hotter!


In a bowl, add the minced seeds and ribs, minced shallot, finely chopped parsley, and goat cheese (about 1.5 oz., though I had some left over). Season with salt and pepper. Mix together.


Fill the halved jalapeños with the filling.

Dredge in all-purpose flour then in the beer batter.

Deep fry for 2 to 3 minutes at 360°F.

Zucchini

I used half of a large zucchini, cutting into ¼" by 4" pieces. I discarded some of the edge pieces that were oddly shaped.

Season the zucchini with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Dredge in flour and then the beer batter.

Deep fry for 2 minutes at 360°F.
Makes two servings.

The potatoes and poppers freeze fairly well. I reheated them in the oven on a lightly greased sheet pan at 400°F for 12 minutes. The zucchini does not freeze well at all, which was not really a surprise. Aioli, like all mayonnaise, cannot be frozen.

The potatoes, zucchini, and parsley were from my CSA. The jalapeños were local from the farmers' market. The goat cheese is from Vermont Creamery. The beer is local, from Burlington, Vermont.