Pinot & Pineapple

It’s lucky Week 13! Unfortunately, some of the tomatoes were not so lucky as they were placed at the bottom of the box and were a bit smooshy by time I received them. It’s a real shame, actually. I would hope that the individuals packing these boxes would have more respect for food than the recent packing jobs I’ve seen would indicate.

Sorry for the negativity. I try to always be positive, but smashed produce offends my foodie sensibilities.

Today we received Swiss chard (mostly yellow with some white), carrots, yellow plum tomatoes, bell peppers, red tomatoes (the smooshy kind), red beets and mixed baby greens.

Those are some gorgeous yellow plum tomatoes, huh?!? I’m going to spend the rest of the day fantasizing about what I’m going to do with them

As we only received 5 items in this week’s farm share, it was super easy to get it all eaten in time for tomorrow’s delivery.

When my husband cut into the watermelon, we discovered it was canary yellow inside! What a happy surprise! One of my friends kept suggesting that I make margaritas with it, but I am not one to succumb to peer pressure. My husband and I simply ate the whole thing, by the slice, with our bare hands. It was so incredibly juicy, the sweet liquid poured out with every bite, rolling down our hands and all the way down our arms. YUM!!! Here are some photos:

The tomatoes and green bell peppers were used to make chicken cacciatore which was a perfect Sunday family (my husband and I, with our cat looking on) meal. One of the carrots was thinly sliced with a mandoline and topped a salad of mixed baby greens with a ginger-soy vinaigrette. The rest of the carrots were cut into sticks and were happily packed in my lunch throughout the week.

That’s all folks. Not a lot of cooking, but that was fine by me. It’s nice to be able to enjoy vegetables (and fruits) in the raw. Now, let’s see what we receive tomorrow…

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Link of the Week!  Each week I will feature one of my favorite websites and provide a link to it so that you may enjoy it as well.  The featured website may or may not revolve around food and wine but it will be enjoyable.

This week’s featured website is Save The Legs!!!.  Save The Legs!!! is a cycling blog that covers the in’s and out’s of professional cycling from the enthusiast’s point of view.  It is intelligently written while also maintaining a good sense of humor.  I have learned a lot about the world of professional cycling from this blog and highly recommend it to my readers as well.  Professional cycling is such a civilized sport (read: non-contact) with awesome culture, tradition and camaraderie associated with it.

Growing up in Florida, I used to always ride my bike to the beach with my brother and never considered my bike to be anything more than a source of cheap transportation.  Now I have learned the value of cycling as an excellent source of aerobic exercise.  In inclement weather, I can be found in my gym’s spinning class and in warmer, drier weather, I can be found buzzing up and down the Hudson River Park bike path.  I’ve even biked Bike New York’s Commerce Bank Five Boro Bike Tour.  All 51 miles of it!

If you are a cycling fan, whether professional or amateur, I encourage you to check out Save The Legs!!!.  It’s quite an inspiring read…

My husband and I have just returned from enjoying this month’s Foreign Food Night at A La Turka on the Upper East Side.  This month was my husband’s turn to choose which cuisine we would explore and he chose Turkish.  We used to live in the same neighborhood as A La Turka and we always said we’d like to try it sometime but never got around to it.  It was nice to get back to the old neighborhood and after the meal we just had, I think we’ll be doing it more often…

We arrived in a deluge of rain thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Hanna.  We almost thought of postponing Foreign Food Night until tomorrow night but we were feeling particularly adventuresome and set out to enjoy our evening.  As soon as we entered the restaurant, we could smell the heavenly aroma of grilled meats.  My mouth started watering and my stomach started growling.  We were sat at the front window, per our request, and perused the menu, taking note of the soulful music in the background.  As soon as we ordered, we were brought a basket of soft, warm flatbread with 3 dipping sauces (chili sauce, yogurt sauce with cucumber and dill, and flavored olive oil).

We shared a couple of hot appetizers - Sigara Boregi: pan-fried phyllo scrolls stuffed with feat cheese and dill; and Spicy Cigars: pan-fried phyllo scrolls stuffed with ground lamb with a garlicky yogurt sauce.  Both appetizers were out-of-this-world good!

With appetizers as good as these, our appetites were properly whetted and ready for our entrees.  My husband had the Beyti Kebab: hand chopped ground lamb seasoned with garlic, red pepper and parsley.  He L-O-V-E-D it!  I had the Fresh Turkish Okra with Lamb: baby okra cooked with tomatoes and onions served with rice.  Oh my… the lamb was so incredibly tender, I was in rapture.

For dessert, my husband had Baklava.  He can not see Baklava on a menu and not order it.  I ordered the rice pudding, which is my new comfort food dessert of choice.  It was so rich and creamy I would love to have some of it while sitting in front of a fireplace in my pajamas.  But, I digress.  Needless to say, we both enjoyed our desserts very much.  I do apologize, we did not take photos of our desserts as I, acting like a deranged woman who must have her dessert NOW, dug into my rice pudding before my husband could grab the camera.  So sorry.

As far as service is concerned, we were delighted by the wait staff that served us.  Everyone was exceedingly friendly and knowledgeable.

I must point out that we had to use our point-and-shoot camera this evening as our new digital SLR is simply too large to discreetly take photos in a restaurant.  Still, I think the photos turned out nicely.

My rating (out of a possible 5):

Yes, you read correctly, I have awarded this restaurant 5 TC’s.  The first 5 I have given since starting this blog!  That is high praise indeed.  I implore you to try this restaurant soon.  We were so thrilled with our meal and I want you to experience it for yourself!

This week’s Farm Share delivery had a huge surprise in it… a watermelon! See the photo below:

The watermelon pulverized one of our 4 tomatoes and made a humongous mess in the box so we had to clean off all of the vegetables and discard the box immediately (hence, no box shots). In addition to the watermelon and tomatoes, we also received carrots, green bell peppers and a bag of mixed baby greens.

I can not begin to tell you how excited we are to have received a watermelon. Especially my husband as he is more of a fruit eater than a vegetable eater. We can not wait to enjoy this unexpected treat!

As I told you last Wednesday, the tomatoes we received were on their last leg and had to be used ASAP.  So, that night, after work, I went to the market and got 1 pound each of ground beef and ground pork, 1 can each of black beans and kidney beans and a bottle of vegetable juice and set about making a big pot of chili.  For this dish, I used all the tomatoes, the tomatillos, the bell peppers and the onions.  The chili was fantastic and there was left overs for Thursday night’s dinner too.

So that only left me the patty pan squash, beets and mixed baby greens to work with.  The patty pans were sliced and added to a stir-fried chicken teriyaki dish on Friday night.  The beets were roasted and used in a salad with the mixed baby greens, pecorino romano and balsamic vinaigrette.  See the photos below…

Be sure to stop by tomorrow to see what we receive!

Happy Labor Day!  As today is the unofficial end of summer, tomorrow is (unofficially) the beginning of Fall!  Fall makes me think of apples and apples make me think of applesauce and applesauce makes me think of my Great-Grandma Hollingsworth who used to make homemade applesauce for me and my brother when we were little.  My brother liked his applesauce to be red, so Grandma would add some red food coloring to it.

I never got Grandma’s applesauce recipe before she passed away so I spent last Fall tinkering in the kitchen, trying to replicate her applesauce so that I can, one day, make it for my children and grandchildren.  Luckily, I came up with a more natural way to make my applesauce red.  I love the texture, flavor, aroma and color of this applesauce and hope you will enjoy it too.

Homemade Applesauce

6 pounds apples (use a mix of sweet varieties such as Gala, Fuji and Empire)
Good quality cranberry juice (no sugar added)
Ground cinnamon, to taste
Turbinado sugar (optional)

Wash, peel, core and dice apples; place in large saucepot.  Add just enough cranberry juice to keep apples from sticking (start with 1/2 cup).  Add cinnamon to taste (1 teaspoon is a good place to start).  Add sugar to taste, if you are using it.  Stir to combine, cover and slowly cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally.  Cook until apples are soft and cranberry juice is completely absorbed.  If the cranberry juice is completely absorbed before the apples are fully soft, add a little more juice and continue cooking until apples are soft.  Run cooked apples through a food mill or potato ricer (I use a potato ricer).  Chill before serving.

Enjoy!

Well folks, we are at the half way mark for our farm shares. The time is really flying by and I am having a lot of fun working with the awesome variety of vegetables that we receive each week. If you are not yet a member of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), I encourage you to do so. My Links page has several links that can help you find CSA’s in your area.

Today, we received red beets, bell peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos, mixed baby greens, onions and patty pan squash. The tomatoes are a source of concern for me as they are a bit soft already which puts pressure on me to use them quickly. Like tonight. Or now. I may have to stop by the market and get some ground beef and beans and make some chili. This dish will also help me use the bell peppers, onions and tomatillos. Actually, I could even put the patty pan squash in the chili. Wow, that doesn’t leave me much vegetables to work with for the rest of the week…

Here are the photos. We bought a new digital SLR camera last weekend and these are the first photos we’ve shot with it. We (and by “we”, I mean my husband) are still learning how to use the camera with all of its settings and lenses and whatnot. Can you see a difference between today’s pics and the pics from previous weeks? Personally, I see the difference in the bottom photo in that the patty pans are nice and clear and you can even see the wrinkles in the skin of the tomato to the right of the patty pans.

Good Morning, Dear Reader. I had a great time “playing” with my food this week. Luckily, my mother never taught me not to play with my food… what fun I would miss out on!

The photo below is an awesome salad I made with the 2 larger cucumbers (seeded), grape tomatoes, parsley, the light yellow-green cubanelle pepper and feta cheese. I am still thinking (and salivating) about this salad.

The 2 smaller cucumbers were simply cut into sticks and packed in my lunch. The red and green peppers were used in pasta sauce. The 4 red tomatoes were seeded then quickly sauteed with the spinach and garnished with garlic chips (totally delicious!). The Swiss chard and eggplants became a yummy vegetarian dinner for me last night; the chard was sauteed with onions and garlic and the eggplant was sliced, marinated then pan-fried.

All of this reminiscing is making me hungry!

Check back tomorrow to see what we receive…

I have a question… Which is the best way to buy: Local or Organic?

There are many ways to debate this question and tons of research to support each side, I’m sure. Buying local products reduces the amount of fossil fuel burned in transporting the products to us, thereby reducing the emission of greenhouse gases (which have their own snowball effect of global disaster) into the atmosphere. Buying organic products reduces the amount of chemical pesticides and fertilizers (which can cause a variety of medical problems) we ingest.

If we had to choose one or the other, which would be the best option? Obviously, I would like to always be able to choose local and organic. I am, after all, a girl who wants to have her cake and eat it too (as long as it’s local and organic). Unfortunately, this is not always possible. One source of comfort for me is that buying a product that is either local or organic has to be better than buying a product that is neither.

So I ask you, Dear Reader, to offer your advice on this matter. Please leave me your comments and if you have friends who might be able to impart some wisdom on this subject, please send them over. I appreciate any and all opinions.

Thank you!