Carrot Flan and Baby Lettuce Salad

Tags

baby lettuce salad, Carrot, carrot flan, Cooking, CSA, flan, Greenmarket, Lemon, lemon vinaigrette, Recipe

A reader recommended carrot flan after another large CSA carrot pickup. This past week was by far the largest, 10 pounds of mixed carrots! In an attempt to build meals around carrots I decided to give this recipe a shot.

Overall, it was good but I have a few comments. First, my ramekins are 10 oz so I only made 2 large servings. This led to my second comment, it was a little eggy for my taste. I like eggs but there is a limit to the amount I can eat in one sitting. If the serving was smaller I wouldn’t have had an issue, but that’s my personal preference. Also, the reader, Rachel, said she had some issues with the texture. I too had them too. It was a little mealy and I think it’s just the nature of the carrot and the only way to fix that would be to put it through a sieve. Oh and I forgot to butter the dishes so mine didn’t really come out of the dish nicely which is why half of it is covered with salad.

Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket

Tags

Bread Alone, Brooklyn, Farmers Market, Flowers, Grand Army Plaza, Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, Greenmarket, Milk Thistle Farm, Phillips Farm, Tello's Green Farm

Yesterday was a beautiful day for the Farmers Market and a walk in the park. I was so excited to see that flower season is back! I bought a bunch of tulips from Phillips Farms, ingredients for dinner and a loaf of (festive) bread from Bread Alone to go with it.

Tulips and Shamrock Peasant Bread

After sitting in the park figuring out my dinner menu, I realized I needed eggs and cream so I picked them up at the farmers market on the way back home. The eggs were from Tello’s Green Farm and the cream was from Milk Thistle Farm. I never bought eggs from the farmers market before and so I had to try one to see if there was any difference. There certainly was, they have more flavor than supermarket eggs. I’ve never tried Milk Thistle before so I decided to get the cream from them. You have to pay $1.50 deposit for the glass bottles so you will be more likely to bring the bottle back. Good system. There’s something so special about milk in glass bottles.

Ina’s Brownies

Tags

Baking, brownie, Brownies, Chocolate, Chocolate brownie, Ina, Ina Garten, Recipe

I was talking recently with a friend about boxed mixes for baking and we both agreed brownies mixes are pretty good. Oddly, they are one thing I have never attempted baking. I was catching up on my DVR-ed tv this weekend and both Ina and Martha made brownies so I took it as a sign to make them too. Ina’s recipe is extremely decadent and delicious. I made a few adjustments; the original recipe calls for over 2 pounds of chocolate and since I didn’t want to spend that much money, I reduced amount and they were still plenty chocolaty. Also, it makes a ton of batter, I think I would half the recipe next time. Below is my recipe, you can find Ina’s here.

Brownies

Ingredients:

1 lb butter

1 lb semisweet chocolate chips

4 tablespoons cocoa powder

6 eggs

2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups sugar

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter and flour a 12″ x 18″ x 1″ baking sheet.

Melt together butter, chocolate and cocoa powder. I did this in the microwave but you can do it in a bowl over simmering water. Allow this to cool while doing the next steps.

In a large (very large) bowl stir together eggs, vanilla and sugar. In another bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt.

Stir the melted chocolate into the egg mixture. Once combined, add the flour to the mixture.

Pour batter into baking sheet. Bake for about 35 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Allow brownies to cool completely before cutting.

So good!

Winter CSA Week #6 – The End

Tags

Carrot, Crown Heights CSA, CSA, Fruit and Vegetable, Lettuce, Napa cabbage, Potato, Spinach, Vegetable

Tonight was the last winter CSA pickup. For the next 3 months, before the summer season starts, I will be on my own. It’s going to be a little weird not having someone else dictate what I am going to eat for the week. But it’ll also be nice to choose what I want. Luckily, we got another large bounty (34 pounds!) so I won’t have to think about it for a couple weeks. We got a couple great surprises this week, another bag of apples and 2 whole pounds of spinach and lettuce from the greenhouse! Before I started eating mostly seasonal, I never thought I would get so excited over spinach. Also, the parsnips came out of the recently thawed ground which according to Farmer Fred makes them sweeter and better tasting than in the fall.

This week’s share:

3 lbs. Winter Parsnips
5 lbs. Norland Red Potatoes
3 lbs. Mixed Variety Beets
1 pc. Daikon Japanese Radish
1 Head of Green Cabbage
1 Head of Napa Cabbage
5 lbs. Mixed Colored Carrots
5 lbs. Orange Carrots
1 lb.Greenhouse Spinach
1 lb.Greenhouse Baby Lettuce Greens
1 bag of Briermere Apples

 

Winter CSA Week #6

 

10 pounds of carrots! I guess I’ll be making some more soup but first I will be having them in salads with the baby lettuce. It’ll be nice to have a break from all this soup.

 

Spinach with Garlic, Oil and Crushed Red Pepper

I couldn’t wait to dig right into the spinach!

 

Welcome Back Dinner

Tags

Baking, Cabbage, carrots, Cooking, CSA, Dinner Rolls, Martha Stewart, No-knead bread, Onion, Potato, Recipe, red cabbage, Red Potatoes, Roasted Carrots, Vegetable

Back from the sun and sand and pina coladas and right back into cooking. It was rainy yesterday (thanks for the lovely welcome, NYC) and I had the whole day free before heading back to reality so I decided to spend it cooking and baking. I have another CSA pickup tomorrow but I still had a bunch leftover from the last time so I made 3 different veggie dishes. Check back tomorrow for the delicious dessert recipe!

After my failed sourdough attempt I wanted to give bread another shot so I tried no-knead dinner rolls from Martha Stewart. They turned out pretty well but were a little more dense than I was expecting. I halved the recipe so that may have something to do with it. You can find the recipe here.

Pre-rise dough

Shaped into rolls

Risen rolls

Baked

Mixed Carrots

I also made carrots roasted in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper until browned.

Cast Iron Potatoes

I used red potatoes which I sliced thinly with my mandolin. Melt 2-3 tablespoons of butter in a bowl with 2 cloves of pressed garlic. Melt some more butter in a small cast iron pan on the stove over medium heat. Layer sliced potatoes in the pan starting in the center, overlapping in circles.

Brush with garlic butter, season with salt and pepper. Start the next layer on the outside, butter, salt and pepper. Repeat.

This can all be done covered on the stove but I put it in the oven this time. Bake at 350F until potatoes are tender about 30 minutes.

Red Cabbage with Onions and Bacon

Slice 2 pieces of bacon thinly. Cook in a pan until crispy. Add 2 small onions sliced. Cook until translucent. Add 1 small head of red cabbage thinly sliced. Season with salt and pepper. Cook over low heat for a while until everything is very tender.

Add a couple of tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and cook until it is absorbed.