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Basket and FarmBox Breakdown: 8/4/2012

10 Aug

I have been trying to get this written all week!  We took an end of summer “staycation” to a resort in Tucson at the end of last week into the weekend, and then we had to get ready for our big start of school this week, part-time preschool and full day kindergarten for my two darlings.  It’s been just a little busy here lately!  However, the wonderful thing about our “staycation”, was that there was a Sunizona Familiy Farms FarmBox pick up and a Bountiful Baskets site, each within 10 minutes from the resort.  How awesome that both these programs are flexible enough that I can pick up in other locations so I don’t have to miss out on my produce!

Friday afternoon was the pick up for my FarmBox.  I got some of our favorites and tried a few new things this week.

 

This week, I got 1 bunch carrots, 1 seedless cucumber (to make Refrigerator Pickles), 1 bag white potatoes, 1 Big Ol’ Beef  tomato, 1 zucchini, 1 head garlic, 1 6 pack burger buns (these were amazing!), 1 Sprouted Khorasan Plus bread, and 1 head green leaf lettuce.  This cost me $27.25.  I love how fresh this all tastes!  I am so excited that the FarmBox program is now delivering a little closer to me, and I’m still working toward bringing it to my city!

I kept things simple for Bountiful Baskets on Saturday, just getting a regular basket and honey whole wheat bread.  It was neat to get to see another site and how they run things.  Here is what was in the baskets:

 

I got cherries, plums, a Galia melon, bananas, blueberries, Romaine lettuce, cabbage, red potatoes, mangoes,  and peaches.

 

Note: The type and amount of food may vary from another basket because of geographic location and because of variances in how case ends are distributed once everything is distributed evenly.

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Peach Crisp

10 Aug

 

The Apple Crisp recipe I have is one of my very favorite desserts.  So, since I had plenty of peaches from my trip to Apple Annie’s, I decided that a Peach Crisp might be something to try.  And, I was right, it was very delicious!

A hint on peeling peaches that I used for this recipe and also for the Peach Freezer Jam:  Place peaches in boiling water for a few minutes, then remove and place in ice water.  Then, the peels should slide off easily, to be ready for slicing or chopping.

 

Peach Crisp

What you need:

Filling:
4 cups peeled, pitted, and sliced peaches
1 Tablespoon flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 Tablespoons water or lemon juice

Topping:
1/3 cup margarine or butter (cold, not melted)
1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup quick oatmeal
Note: I sometimes like more crumble on top, so I will double the topping ingredients.

How to make it:

Combine the ingredients for the filling and place in a 8×8 or 7×11 baking pan.

Cream together the butter and flour for the topping.  Mix in the brown sugar and oatmeal and form “crumbs” with your fingers. Spread over the apple mixture.

Bake at 325 F for 30-40 minutes.  Let cool slightly, and serve warm. Or it tastes great cold from the fridge the next day too…if it lasts that long!

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Peach Freezer Jam

9 Aug

 

I have attempted to make jam before, and failed miserably.  It was too sweet and didn’t set right.  That was well over a year ago, so I decided it was time to attempt it again.  I recently bought some canning supplies from a friend, so I was feeling better prepared, but I wasn’t able to get to the store for lids yet, so I decided on freezer jam using the Ball plastic freezer jars.  I also felt the peaches were sweet enough, so I found a no sugar needed recipe and made sure I had no sugar needed pectin.

Here is the recipe I used: Peach Freezer Jam

It was a pretty easy, straightforward method, and it turned out decent.  It was still runnier than it should have been, so I will need to adjust the pectin for the next time.  I’ve read that in time I will learn better the pectin amount, and I need a little more work, but much better than the last time I attempted jam!

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Parmesan Garlic Green Beans and Cauliflower

7 Aug

 

This was a different combination for me, but in a good way.  When I was deciding what to make for dinner one night, Cyndi at Daily Cynema had posted what she was making, Pan Seared Cod and Garlic Green Beans, which inspired me to make this with our dinner that night (I wish I could recall what main dish I made to go with this, but it was a couple weeks ago and my memory is failing me!).  Anyway, I threw in the cauliflower with the green beans because it needed to be eaten soon, and it turned out to be a nice combination.     You could do this with just one of either vegetable too.

 

Parmesan Garlic Green Beans and Cauliflower

What you need:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lb fresh green beans
1 cup cauliflower florets
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

How to make it:

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet on medium heat.  Add the garlic, green beans and cauliflower, cooking and stirring in the oil until they are browned.  Stir in lemon juice, sugar, salt, and black pepper.  Cook another 3-4 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese and serve warm.

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Freezing Sweet Corn

7 Aug

You may remember about a month ago, I shared a burlap sack with 5 dozen ears of sweet corn from Apple Annie’s Produce &  Pumpkins with a friend.

 

So, what did I do with 2 1/2 dozen ears of corn?  First, I removed all the husks and scrubbed the ears with a vegetable brush to remove any remaining silk.  Then, I blanched the corn.  If you aren’t familiar with blanching, this site explains why blanching is needed and what times you need for blanching.  For corn, you will want to boil it for 3-7 minutes, if you will be cutting the corn from the cob, 6-10 minutes if you will be freezing it still on the cob.  After the boiling, you put it in ice water to stop it from cooking any farther.  Once cool, you can cut the corn from the cob for packaging or package the whole cobs (or, in my case, I did some whole and some half cobs).

 

I used the first of this for dinner 2 nights ago.  I let it thaw, sprayed with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper, then wrapped in aluminum foil.  I cooked it on the grill along with some burgers, and it turned out really good.  Not exactly like fresh, but still really good.  I’m pleased with the corn and that the process worked.  Now, we can have grilled corn all through winter, since we can still grill here in AZ almost all year!

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Refrigerator Pickled Beets

31 Jul

 

I recently got beets in my Sunizona Family Farms FarmBox and in my Bountiful Baskets organic basket, and instead of trading them away, I kept them and decided to try to find a way to use them.  Since the Refrigerator Pickles turned out successfully, I decided to see if I could pickle the beets in a similar manner.  Turns out you can, and it’s relatively easy.  And, after this process, my head is full of ideas on using the beets to color Easter eggs in the spring, similar to how I used onion skins this past Easter.  I’m excited!

 

Refrigerator Pickled Beets
Original recipe found here

What you need:

1 pound fresh beets
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
2 cloves garlic

How to make it:

Remove greens from beets and wash well.  Place beets in a heavy pot and add enough water to cover beets in the pot.  Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to medium.  Cook for 25-30 minutes or until beets are fork tender.  Remove from water and allow to cool.

Meanwhile, place the remaining ingredients in saucepan.  Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar into the liquid.  Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.  Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Once beets have cooled, remove the outer skin of the beets.  It may be easy enough to peel off with your fingers, otherwise use a paring knife.  If you have smaller beets, they can be pickled whole; otherwise, slice the beets.  Place sliced beets in a jar or container.  Pour the pickling brine over the beets in the container and cover.  Place in refrigerator and leave for at least 5 days to allow the pickling process to occur.

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Basket Breakdown: 7/28/2012

30 Jul

I am very behind in posting!  I have been very busy in the kitchen making new things, plus getting ready for school to start (1 more week until one starts Kindergarten and the other starts part-time pre-school, yikes!), that I haven’t had much time to sit and type up everything.  I’m hoping to get caught up here in the next few days, or at least maybe in the next week or so.

So, this week’s Bountiful Baskets, I got a conventional basket ($15), an organic basket ($25), and a 25 pound bag of lentils ($20).  Here is how it all looked:

This was the conventional basket which had grape tomatoes, red bell peppers, red potatoes, baby carrots, red seedless grapes, peaches, mangoes, plums, Rainier cherries, Romaine lettuce, cantaloupe, and cucumber.  The baby carrots and grapes are almost all gone.  The red potatoes I will probably use to make mashed potatoes (with the skins) as a side for dinner one night.  The cucumber has already been made into Refrigerator Pickles, which are half gone.  Peaches, I may try to make peach fruit leather or will freeze.  Mangoes will most likely go into a fruit smoothie.

 

 

The organic basket contained broccoli, blueberries, plums, green seedless grapes, green bell peppers, peaches, beets, eggplant, tomatoes, cantaloupe, and radicchio.  I tried to make a slaw with the radicchio and some cabbage and carrots I had, but the radicchio is just so bitter and overpowering that it doesn’t taste all that great.  I think I will make Sesame Chicken again this week with the broccoli and some green pepper.

 

Finally, the 25 pound bag of brown lentils.  What on earth can you do with all those lentils?  Well, I love lentils in soup, especially Slow Cooker Spinach, Lentil, and Tortellini Soup.  They also can be used in place of ground beef, such as in spaghetti sauce.  I’m excited to get to explore more possibilities with the lentils!

 

Note: The type and amount of food may vary from another basket because of geographic location and because of variances in how case ends are distributed once everything is distributed evenly. I also volunteered and got an extra item for volunteering.

 

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Kale Pesto

24 Jul

So, what do you do when you start making pesto and realize you don’t have enough basil?  Use some of the kale in the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator, of course!  That’s what I did tonight, and luckily it was a success!

 

Kale Pesto

What you need:

1 1/2 cups kale, removed from stems
3/4 cup fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts, optional (I omitted them)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cloves garlic, peeled and quartered
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

How to make it:

Blend the kale, basil, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, garlic, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons olive oil in a food processor until nearly smooth, scraping the sides of the bowl with a spatula as necessary. Drizzle the remaining olive oil into the mixture while processing until smooth.

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Lots of Produce!

22 Jul

This week, since I wasn’t going to be able to pick up a basket from Bountiful Baskets (I was doing a community car seat check at the same time), I didn’t participate this week.  So, I decided to once again pick up a FarmBox at Sunizona Family Farms again this week.  Instead of a standard box, I chose to get a Custom Box.  This means, that I went through their Web Store of items they currently have available to build my own box.  I selected 1 package Baby Heirloom Lettuce, 1 bunch Carrots, 1 Cucumber – Seedless, 1 head Purple-tinted Broccoli, 2 bunches Radish, 1 Squash – Patty Pan, 1 Big Ol’ Beef Tomato, 1 loaf Bread – Sprouted Khorasan Plus, and 1 1.5 lb bag Peaches – Sierra Rich.  My total was $28.25.  Here is how it all looked (also shown is a zucchini they gave me when I got there):

I was again happy with all that I got.  The peaches were not grown on their farm, but are from an orchard near them, Briggs & Eggers,  that is organic as well.  They are AMAZING peaches!  Very fresh and juicy.  The bread is again very good, this bread has added seeds and grains on top (hence, the Plus in the name), similar to the 9 grain bread that I usually get from Bountiful Baskets.  My husband immediately came home and used the bread to make a grilled cheese sandwich, also with the Big Ol’ Beef tomato.  I’m looking for a recipe to use the patty pan squash.  I’ve never had it, but I’m sure it’s similar to other squash.  Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to drive over this upcoming week, but I’m hoping to the week after.

After we were done at the farm, we headed to Willcox on the other side of I-10 to go to an orchard.  I had wanted to go to Briggs & Eggers, but we had already been in the car enough that I decided on Apple Annie’s, which also has some other goodies (homemade fudge!).  Right now, it’s peach harvest time, so we went through the orchard with a bucket and picked peaches right off the trees.  I ended up with about 9 lbs of peaches, which cost $14.

 

I will make a Peach Crisp and hopefully, some Peach Fruit Leather.  If I don’t get to make the fruit leather, I will probably freeze the peaches and make the fruit leather another time.  I haven’t had a chance to try one yet, but they look delicious.

Then, after getting all of that, I stopped in at Safeway and got even more produce!  They had 2 lb containers of blueberries for $5 again, plus lots of other produce on sale, along with my Just 4 U personalized deals, including a 20% off produce one time use coupon.  I spent $15.84, and here is what I got:

 

It is 1.41 lb broccoli crowns, 2.54 lb red seedless grapes, 1.39 lb black plums, 4 limes, 2 bunches radishes, 2.98 lb Gala apples, 1 head iceberg lettuce, 2 2-lb bags of baby carrots, and 2 lb blueberries.  Can you tell we like radishes in my house?  Well, I’m not a big fan, but my husband and 2 daughters are.  My youngest was excited to see plums, and half a bag of baby carrots is already gone between her and my older daughter munching on them.  Now, I would have preferred more of this to be organic since I’m trying to purchase more organic, but right now, my budget isn’t allowing it.  However, I’m still getting more produce in the house and snacking on this, not chips or other junk, so we’re getting there.  Baby steps, right?

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Cherry Apple Fruit Leather

19 Jul

My kids love fruit snacks and roll ups, but most are so full of crap, that I don’t like to buy them.  So, in trying to use up my cherries, I decided to give fruit leather a try.  It was pretty easy to put together, it was just the time in the oven to dry it out.  It would be a lot faster with a food dehydrator, but I don’t have one right now.  I’m working on figuring out how to use other fruits to make this in the future.  The original recipe I found just used cherries and also had sugar, but since I didn’t want to use sugar, I decided to use some applesauce I had in the freezer to add some more sweetness.  Although, honestly, the cherries I got were sweet enough, they probably wouldn’t need sugar.  If you use tart cherries, you will probably want to add sugar for sweetness, but you could probably substitute honey to give it a more natural sweetness.

 

Cherry Apple Fruit Leather
Original recipes here and here

What you need:

4 cups cherries, stems and pits removed (I used a whole bag, which was about 2 1/4 lbs of cherries)
1/2 cup Homemade Applesauce (alternatively, you could core, peel, slice, and chop an apple or 2 to cook with the cherries)
1/4 cup water
1/4 – 1/2 cup sugar or honey, depending on your desired level of sweetness

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 170 F, or the lowest setting your oven will go.  For me, this was 200 F.

Place cherries (and chopped apples) in a large pot with the water.  Bring to a boil, then simmer until fruit starts to break down, about 10 minutes.  Transfer to a blender to puree well, then return to the pot.  Or, keep in the pot and use an immersion blender to puree fruit.

Add applesauce and/or the sugar or honey, and stir well.  Simmer over low heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens.

Line a jelly roll pan or baking sheet with raised sides with parchment paper, plastic wrap, or a silicone baking mat (I used plastic wrap).  Depending on the size of your pan, you may need to use 2.

Spread the fruit mixture as thinly and evenly as possible.  The thicker it is, the longer it will take to dry out. (Note: in the picture below, I also have a pan of whole cherries that I was attempting to dry out as well.  They have taken much longer because I left them whole.)

Place pan(s) in the preheated oven.  If using 2 pans, be sure to rotate every hour.  Let sit in the low heat oven for 3-6 hours, or until fruit mixture is just slightly tacky.  Remove and allow to cool.

Cut the fruit leather into smaller pieces, as desired.  I used a pizza cutter to make a cut in the middle lengthwise, then cut into 1″ strips.  The pizza cutter cut the plastic wrap as well, so I kept it on to help prevent the roll from sticking to itself.  I used twist ties to hold the rolls together, you could also use string.  Store in an airtight container, and it should be good for a few weeks.

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