Dicing Carrots

Always looking for good cooking tips to make my preparation faster without compromising quality. The below YouTube video was somewhat helplful to bear in mind in the future…

The chef spoke of waste. What annoyed me to no end was the lack of instruction on how to deal with the tapered pieces of carrot safely. Anyone know how to do this? Or does one just chuck the remaining carrot or use it in something else?

Mama-cita!

I was working with the below recipe the other day and my three year old twins were helping with stirring the mixture. That is until one of them splashed an enormous amount of crushed tomato out of the pot and spewed all over the floor and countertops.  I had some extra tomatoes from the CSA, which I diced and added to the pot.  The final result was a brighter-looking soup.

This is a great recipe if you have some extra salsa sitting in the fridge.

Mexican Chicken Soup For Slow-Cooker

Ingredients:

• 1 – 1.5 lb boneless chicken breast
• 1 15 oz. can fire-roasted tomatoes crushed or diced
• 1/2 jar of favorite salsa sauce (lessen amount if the jar is labeled ‘hot’)
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 2-4 cloves garlic minced
• 4 oz. or less of green chiles with juice (optional)
• 1 15 oz. can of garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 10-16 oz. package of corn (canned or frozen)
• 2 cups water
• 1 14.5oz can of chicken broth or vegetarian equivalent
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• 1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro, fresh or dried

Directions:

Place chicken, tomatoes, salsa, onion, chilies and garlic in slow-cooker.  Pour in water and chicken broth. Stir in garbanzo beans, corn and cilantro. Add all spices (see note).  Cover and cook on Low for 8 – 10 hours or 4 – 5 hours on High. Just before serving take out the chicken breasts and ‘flake’ or dice with a fork and knife, then return to the pot. Remove bay leaf.

Serve with blue tortilla chips, sour cream, and shredded cheddar cheese.

- Serves 4-6

Note: To save time, I will make snack bag packages of all the spices in advance.  Then when the time comes to add them I just pull out a bag, dump the contents into the pot, done. No need to dig into my extensive spice collection or worry that I might not have enough on hand.

Pumpkin Strings

My good Mother In Law was kind enough to pick up a couple of beautiful pumpkins with a color of what I like to describe is a near-cinnamon/orange.

We finally got around to making one of those Pumpkin Masters carvings of a cat sitting by the moonlight (I would have loved to do a more complex design, but it would probably frighten the children as is). As is with many-a-pumpkin carver, gutting the pumpkin is my least favorite task. We have always dealt with a flesh of even consistency when scooping, but this particular pumpkin it was like scooping out spaghetti-strings. I had never seen anything like it, and upon researching the Internet have not been able to identify the type of pumpkin it was.  And it drove me crazy since I could not get the inside of the pumpkin clean as well as I would like.  So the innards is not smooth, but stringy, choppy…just overall sloppy; not even a good paring knife could clean this up. Well when the candle was put in and the Jack ‘O Lantern lit up the strings made it look like spider webs covered around the carved trees. Nevertheless it was beautiful in it’s own way.

To end the night I clean, bake and season the seeds. For those who have never tried it, I promise you, it is easy.

Pumpkin Seed Snack

Preheat Oven to 325 degrees.

Thoroughly was pumpkin seeds and remove any remaining ’sinews’.  Damp dry between a clean dishcloth or paper towels.

Cover a large cookie sheet with tin foil and evenly spread seeds. Spray seeds with olive oil or canola cooking spray. Sprinkle lightly with seasonings of choice* and bake for 25 minutes.

* Seasoning Ideas

• Sea Salt
• Cayenne Pepper and Paprika
• Pumpkin spices of powdered ginger, nutmeg, and ground cloves.

A New CSA, The Hunt Is On

We have been Boxed Share members of large local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) for two summers, now.  The time is nearly here for us to decide whether or not we want to apply for early membership for 2008.  It’s going to be a tough call. 

By being a boxed share member we are bound to stay home on the weekends for the entire summer/early-fall.  We get slightly less than regular share members, who actually drive to the farm for pickup (it is an hour away from us). It has been discussed, whether to bite the bullet and deal with the weekly near-half-day trip to pick up the produce as it would get the children out of the house and into the field to enjoy the outside and to remind them that food just does not grow on shelves.

We are perusing Local Harvest to find other CSA options.  I think we paid about $575 for our boxed share delivery this year and one CSA that is closer to us for 2007 charged $780–Ouch!! I recall one colleague saying that another one cost over $800. That is not to say that we are trying to go on-the-cheap. These small farms struggle enough to keep them going and to keep their certifications as organic.

But we have been very happy with the variety of produce that we received this year, and the fall is particularly our favorite time of the year for us as most veggies I steam-blanche and store for winter. We got a lot of pac choi, bok choi, rutabaga, and beets. The big highlight will be coming shortly for the farm’s ‘pig-out’ as this is the weekend when members come in to essentially clean out whatever is left in the field.  Last year the limit was about 50 pounds of produce per member.  I think we did about 20 since we did not activate our deep freezer at that time. A mistake we do not intend to make twice.

Stay tuned…

Curried Cauliflower Soup, Success!

I have been tinkering with this soup on and off for the last year and I think I have the winning combination, would love to hear comments. Though it does call for chicken broth, I personally use a vegan boullion substitute, not because I do not like chicken, but rather I hate the store variety and I do not make my own broth/stock very often.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion diced
• 1 small bunch (about 4-5) green onions w/ whites and light green section thinly sliced crosswise
• 1 1/2 tbsp. sugar
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 5 tsp curry powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• 2 pinches of garam masala (optional)
• 3/4 lb fresh spinach, stems removed and coarsely chopped
• 1 large head cauliflower, cut up into florets (about 8 cups)
• 3/4 lb potatoes skins on, diced
• 7 cups chicken broth or vegetarian substitute

Directions

Heat oil in heave large pot over medium high heat. Add yellow and green onion and saute until translucent (3 – 5 minutes), add spinach and saute until thoroughly wilted. Add salt, sugar, curry, cumin, and garam masala and stir one minute. Add cauliflower and potatoes, stir one minute. Add broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until vegetables are tender (about 35 minutes).  Take a hand held potato masher and mash to desired consistency.

Note: I use the hand masher as I do not have a blender, which is the preferred method.  In that route, work in batches and puree.

Serve with a dollop of plain yogurt, fresh cilantro and a touch of mint.

It’s A Go! Pass The Veggie Nuggets and The Chablis…

Initially I am starting this to get a hang of blogging in general, more notably, to acclimate myself with Adobe Contribute.  I started one other blog and got rid of the inital ‘Hello World’ post that is automatically set up.  Big mistake, trust me, just don’t do it. I probably have to delete the whole thing now.

Anyhow, so the primary topics of choice for this blog is food, antics in the kitchen, fights with the kids over their veggies, and family who rolls their eyes back when they see a new dish on the table.

Bon appetite!