CSA Summer 2012 - The Goods - Week 8 (and week 7)

Week 8: The stone fruit continues.   The good news is that my colleagues like it, and so I bring peaches to work and spread joy.  I hope apricots work the same way.  The better news is that both Sous Chef Brian and I had some recollection of not liking blackberries and we were both wrong.  

Checking in

Hey there.  How are you?  You're awesome, aren't you?  Thought so.

No exciting recipes right now, but here's what I've been up to.  (Food-wise, that is... I do other things too.)

Buying Club 2011 - The Goods - Week 13

I skipped two weeks.  Not of getting food, but of telling you what I got.  I didn't get anything revolutionary.


This week I got spinach and spring mix from Rineer Family Farms in Lancaster County.  Huge carrots and red onions from Landisdale Farm in Lebanon County.  And 'shrooms from Mother Earth Organic in Chester County.  I'm just not feeling squash these days and there's not a lot of veg left out there. 

And bacon from Forrest Acres Farm in Lancaster (no website) and milk... I clicked the wrong button for the second week in a row and got tiny milk - from Maplehofe Dairy in Lancaster County and FreshaPeel Hummus which I think is here in the city. 

I got a ton of tofu from Fresh Tofu in Allentown.

And a giant ass can of Jersey Fresh tomatoes.  I put a shot glass next to it for scale.  That's 6.5 pounds of tomatoes.  I'm making sauce. 

I got chickpeas and jalepeno jelly and dried tomatoes and catnip (!) from Margerum's.

So, of course, since we were having leftovers for dinner, we tried out the catnip. 

It was a hit.  Even the little one, who's far too skittish for action photos, got into it.

Vegetarian Cat

I heard there weren't enough cats on the Internet, so felt compelled to post this.

I mentioned in the 100th post that I had posted several pictures of my cat over the last few months.  That's true, but it made me feel bad - like I only have one cat.  Sabrina is the one who is typically photographed with meat.  She's into it.  Ainsley, however, is weird.

We adopted Ainsley when she was too young, and I blame that for most of her problems.  Not that we took her away from her momma, we got her second-hand from someone who rescued her.  Third-hand, really.  Anyway, she's "off."  She's tense and skittish.

If we're eating or cooking meat or dairy, Sabrina is nearby, howling.  Ainsley is in another room, typically staring off like a depressed teenager (that's her thing).  But if we're making a salad, Ainsley is right on hand, waiting to catch whatever drops.  She doesn't know what's in her kibble, so she thinks she's a vegetarian.

Here's a fairly blurry action series of Ainsley, Sous Chef Brian, and a leaf of red leaf lettuce.  Ignore the messy office in the background, please.

She's into greens. Speaking of into greens... NYT recently had an Friday on Meatless Mondays, and the title cracked me up: Meatless Mondays Catch On, Even With Carnivores.   No, only with carnivores, right?  Because other folks are already going meatless on Monday and everyday.  So carnivores are your target population.   If you're working on convincing vegetarians to go meatless, you're doing it wrong.

If you haven't entered the Saturday's Mouse 100 Posts Contest yet, you're missing out.   We're giving away some fabulous kitchen goodies.  You have until Thursday, June 23rd, so get to it.

Veggies Parmesan

It's getting to be the end of oven season, but of course, I've said that before.  It's actually chilly and rainy now, but for two weeks, every other day Sous Chef Brian has been planning on setting up the air conditioner in the bedroom, and then by nighttime it's no longer a priority.  The weather is iffy.  But soon oven season will be over.   So let's bake up some dinner.

Chicken Saltimbocca

I wish dinner wasn't delicious.

What's my point here?  I guess if it wasn't delicious, I could post this as a fail and move on.  Big picture?  This blog is not about "check out my innovative new recipe you've never heard of" or "look at my impeccable technique."  It's about "look what I made for dinner."  Sure, I want it to say, "you too can make awesome sandwich bread/crackers/sweet and sour seitan," but I guess the part that follows that is "since I did it, and I'm not good at this sometimes."  I just posted a fail (there was the invisible cashew cream sauce with the chicken and black bean egg rolls) and I hate to do it again...  but this is about what I made for dinner.

Some nights I don't want to cook.  I don't know why I can't just take the tortilla soup out of the freezer and go with that, but I make something new instead.   Tonight, I didn't even have to think of something to make - it came from the comments, when I asked what to do with the leftover prosciutto from the spaghetti squash, Cheryl said "saltimbocca."  I've stuffed chicken before.  This is not a technique that I'm unable to handle.  But somehow, everything about it was.

Pot Roast

Meat.

I wanted to say that first, so that the people who will not read this because it's meat have a head start and can go back to looking at cuteoverload.com or whatever.  I'll throw in a cat picture too.   This is Sabrina, aka, Bear, looking at me, telling me she knows there is meat.  

"if you loved me, you'd just cut it up and put it in my dish."