Week Three

Week three, and guess what?  Even more oregano!  Another healthy bunch came in this week's box, I'll have to get Scott to make up a batch of pasta sauce this weekend.  To be honest I have been overwhealmed with the sheer quantity of oregano!  I've used some here or there (in salads, for chicken soup, etc) but most of it from the last two weeks I've ended up drying for later use.  I think whatever I don't use this week I'll freeze so it ends up tasting more like fresh.  I don't think the idea of so much oregano would be as bad if it wasn't for the fact that I have a bunch of it that is just starting to really come back from seed from the plant I had last year. 

Also in this week's box was sorrel, Swiss Chard (the leaves are getting to be a really good size now), sage, garlic scapes, and 3 little radishes.  I'm guessing the greens must've looked pretty bad on the radishes, from what Miked talked about on Friday I figured we'd be getting any edible part of the plants as long as it was in good shape.  I think he did mention something about a bug that gets to them and that's why they don't carry the radishes through summer, just spring and another ceop in fall.

I'll be bunching this week's sorrel with last weeks and finally get around to making some sorrel pesto.  The sage smells wonderful, I'll have to think of what I can do to take advantage of that, if nothing else comes to mind I can always get some frozen winter squash or canned pumpkin and make some squash pasta sauce, I like to go a little heavy on the sage.   Scott will make quick work munching on the radishes (I can eat them, but they're not my favorite). 

We're having hotdogs tonight, so I'll see if Scott won't mind grilling up the garlic scapes as well.  From what I've found, grilled scapes are great straight, on pizza, or if you have enough in pesto or risotto.

Here's the breakdown:
Oregano: 7.2 oz,  $17.85 (again going with 25% more stem than what is boxed)
Sorrel: 2.1 oz, $6.93
Swiss Chard (again using spinach as an equavalent): 11.1 oz, $1.75 non-organic, $2.72 organic.
Sage: 0.7 oz, $2.31
Radish: 3 small, 1.1 oz.  I'm guessing here, but I think they might be about a quarter of a bunch that I've gotten at stands or farmers markets for $1, so until I get updated numbers, 25 cents.
Garlic scapes: 3 scapes (0.2 oz) I'm not sure what price to put on these.  I found an online organic garlic seed company that sells them for $3/lb plus shipping, so, not including shipping I have about 3 cents worth.  Other than the odd places like that, I don't recall ever seeing them 'in person' before - either at specialty groceries or at the farmers markets in Detroit.  Either way, it's just enough for seasoning something or a small bite, so I'll keep it at 3 cents.  I know we didn't get a bunch since the Paquettes are lettign a bunch of garlic go to seed so they can propigate it themselves instead of buying new seed. 

Total: $29.12
Total minus oregano: $11.27

And for the curious, last week minus oregano is $16.21, 1st week minus oregano is $23.83.  When the season is over I think I'll do a breakdown of the total value by item as well.  I'm going to have to hit the farmer's markets to see if anyone else locally sells fresh herbs, spinach, and swiss chard.  I know the boxed herbs are way overpriced, and I know I could usually find more reasonable prices at some specialty markets that sold fresh herbs by the bunch or at the farmers market. 

At the farm:Cooking with Herbs

Friday evening the Paquettes hosted "cooking with herbs" to show various ways to use the herbs they provide.  It was a small group, but we had a wonderful time touring the farm (including seeing their new pigs, "Oscar" and "Mayer"), watching the cooking demonstrations and munching on the variety of dishes they cooked up for us ahead of time. 

I wish more people could have come, we learned a lot about what was going on in the farm, things they had tried in the past and things they were trying this year, pressing apple cider in the fall (I think it's nuts that we have to go all teh way to Door County to get unpasteurized cider- it almost always tastes better) a good deal about their bees and beekeeping, and oh yeah- food and cooking!

I've scanned the recipe handout, and it can be found here. 

I had a little bit of everything they had to offer, everything was great, though for one of the salad dressings I don't think I gave it a good enough shake before I used it, since I ended up with a lot of lemon juice in my salad. 

They showed us how to make sorrel pesto, which went nicely with the herbed bread and crackers they had.  They used walnuts instead of pine nuts, which have dramatically increased in price over the last couple years.  It made for a good pesto which I will be making with the rest of my sorrel leaves later today (though maybe I'll add some spinach instead of the parsley so I don't have to pick up the parsley).  The strong flavor of straight sorrel was mellowed out nicely.

The parsley soup was good, though personally when I have soups with dairy I like them thicker.  I plan to make this when we get parsley in, I think I will add a couple tablespoons of flour to thicken it up a bit, plus mince up or make the garlic into a paste instead of just discarding it when done. 

With the salad dressings, I think I had the Lemon-Thyme Vinagrette on my 1st round of salad.  It made for an excellent fresh dressing.  It called for white balsamic vinegar, but they used regular and it worked well. I don't think anyone over here carries it, and even the foodie that I am, I don't recall ever hearing of it before.  After a quick google search I found this website that says there is a little bit of difference but it's really an aesthetic thing (aka it looks better when adding to light-colored dishes).  Since the vinigarette needs the "vinegar" taste to balance everything, I think a less-aged balsamic is best.  The more a balsamic is aged the thicker and sweeter (and more expensive) it gets.  I just re-sampled some of my good stuff, and I think if you actually get the bottles that use the grape leaf system to mark age, to not go above 3 leaves, 2 or less would probably be best.  

The Lemon-Lavender Shortbread cookies were yummy, I might add a tad more lavendar  but you have to be careful because too much lavendar makes it taste like you're eating the flower. 

The Real Basil Cheesecake was awesome...  but them I'm a pushover for cheesecake. 

We also had herbed bread (just google reciped for "herb bread" or bread "fresh herb").  In the past I have used a Tablespoon or so of Penzy's Pizza Seasoning in my pizza dough or even regular bread- and make bread pizza out of it.  I would recommend that anyone that makes their own bread to give different herbs a try, it also adds nice flavor to sandwich breads.  If you want to try breadmaking a shot but don't want to have a big investment, hit the garage sales or Goodwill for a bread machine, you should be able to get something decent for $5.  I found a BUNCH at Goodwill in good condition just after Christmas.  Personally, my bread machine is really just a mixing machine.  I only leave it to bake in the machine if I'm being really lazy.  Taking it out and placing it in a regular loaf pan lets me get a normal-sized slice of bread- the machine loafs are a bit awkward on shape.


They also served up pizzas with two different pestos, I think at least one had lowfat yogurt instead of oil to cut down on calories.  They didn't provide those recipes, I'll post on their Facebook Page to see if I can get it, and put up a copy here.

Bringing a gourmet recipe down to Earth...

Baked chicken with Swiss Chard dressing and herbed potaotes (from Tuesday)

When looking up things to do with Swiss Chard besides put it in a salad, I found this recipe for Turkey Roulade.  It sounded good, but I had nowhere near the amount of chard needed. Even if I went with a chicken roulade, it was the middle of the week and if I'm going to tie anything up it would probably be my 3-year old (just kidding). 

I had some boneless chicken thighs I was thawing, so I decided to turn the stuffing into dressing for the chicken.  I didn't have many of the items called for (and even if I do ever make this mainly as called for, no way am I going to blow $16 on the pancetta alone!)  Though I'm sure my version tastes vastly different, I liked it and will probably be playing with the recipe and tweaking it a bit.  As I made it, it could probably stand more herbs, lemon zest, onion, garlic and bacon, not necessarily all at once. 

The flavor was nice and mild (I didn't get the strong 'cooked greens' taste that I don't like), and complemented the chicken nicely.  I think it would well with pork also.  Ground walnuts (or pine nuts if you want to get fancy) would also make a great addition to the stuffing. 

Before I cooked the chicken I brined it, using the guidelines on this webpage.  I ended up brining them for almost 5 hours, way to long for the thighs.  Next time I think I'd give it 2 hours for the thighs and 3 for chicken breast.  I used dried thyme (2 t) from last week and fresh oregano (4 stems) from this week, as well as a bay leaf. 


Chicken with Swiss Chard Dressing
Serves 4 as a lunch portion or 2-3 as a dinner portion
1 lb boneless skinless chicken (I used thighs, they were 6 to a pound)
Salt, sugar, and herbs/spices for brining.  I used thyme, oregano, and a bay leaf.

1/2 pound swiss chard
1/4 cup cooked rice
1 clove garlic
4 large sorrel leaves
1/4 pound bacon
1/4 cup loosely packed oregano leaves
1 oz swiss cheese (shredded parmesean should work nicely also)
4 bunching onions
1 clove garlic
zest of 1/4 lemon
1 large egg, beaten
dash of ground nutmeg
dash of ground pepper
dash of ancho chile powder (optional, I used this in place of red pepper flakes since the ancho is a milder heat)
optional: other fresh or dried herbs you may have on hand.  Rosemary, sage, basil, parsley and chive should work well in any combination. 
Optional: ground walnut or pine nut
Oil for brushing on chicken

Brine chicken according to guidelines found here if you do not already have a brine recipe you like to use.  When chicken is ready, preheat oven to 400 degrees.  

Rinse and dry chard, sorrel, oregano, onion and any other herbs you may be using.  Remove root from chard, and seperate  the leaves from stems (keep the stems). 

In a medium pot, boil at least 1 quart water with a dash of salt.  Boil chard stems until tender, then add chard leaves and cook until wilted.  Remove from water, rinse with cold water to stop the cooking, drain and squeeze of excess water.  Chop finely and put in a medium oven-safe bowl (I used a 6" diameter one).  Add rice.  Cook up the bacon, chopping it up into small pieces after cooking and add to mix (the bacon grease is not used).  Chop the garlic clove, add a dash of salt and use knife blade to work into a paste, then add to mix.  Finely chop swiss cheese (finely shredded cheese will not need further chopping) and add to mix.  Finely chop sorrel, oregano, onions (including stems), and any other fresh herbs you may be using.  Add in fresh lemon zest, egg, nutmeg, pepper, ancho powder, and any other items, stir until well blended.  Lightly pack down the top so it has an even surface. 

Spray the bottom of a cookie sheet or baking dish with oil (I use an air-pressure refillable oil sprayer), place chicken on sheet and brush or spray oil on top.  Bake chicken and dressing at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until chicken is done (large chicken breasts may take longer).  Chicken can also be grilled if preferred.  Plate chicken, add dressing on top or next to chicken. 

Eat your heart out Martha....

Yesterday I had put the sorrel and oregano together in a canning jar with some water.  When I looked at it this morning, it was just screaming to be made into a centerpiece with some flowers.  The flowers (I think they're a perennial geranium) are in a seperate container, just in case there's something that shouldn't be mixing with the herb's water.  I sort of wish my chives were doing better, I don't know if it's too early in the season here for them to bloom but that would've looked neat AND I could keep it in with the rest. 

Week Two

The photo doesn't really do today's box justice, it looks flat but there was a LOT of greens today!  I have to admit I was wondering how it would go today, with the thunderstorms that came through this morning.  The majority of Swiss Chard and spinach was not nicely bundled like the rest of the goodies, but I'm pretty sure that in the rush to beat the storm and to get the boxes finished after the storm for a timely delivery they selected to make sure we got a good quantity of vegetation over neatness.  IMHO, good choice.  I din't mind sorting out the chard from the spinach. 

Today's box included:
One 4" potted blue Petchoa. (a variety of petunia with smaller flowers)
Sorrel (probably common/garden): 3.1 oz
Swiss Chard (looks like Rainbow, I got mainly red but some yellow stemed):   10.2 oz
Oregano: 5.6 oz
Spinach:  It looks like they had two types of Spinach, a ruffeled leaf type and a regular leaf type.  I got 5 oz ruffled, 5.7 oz regular.
Bunching onions: 2.7 oz

I've also found that calculating some costs may be a challenge- I had forgotten how abyssmal Walmart's produce selection was, and I haven't gotten a chance to check out Angelis.  Though I'm not sure Angelis would have Sorrel or Chard anyways....  I checked out Festival Foods online shopping, and couldn't find either (and they have a decent produce section!)

Wal-mart's general price for boxed herbs is $2.48 for 0.75 ounces.  Even though this week's oregano has a bit more stem to leaf ratio than what was at Wal-mart, just the quantity of oregano alone would be $17.36!

Here's this weeks pricing:
Petchoa: $1.98 at least.  Wal-marts pot size was a bit smaller, 3" rounds I think.
Sorrel: $10.25, if the same rate applied to this as the other boxed herbs, and I don't think those were even organic.
Swiss Chard: could not find, but if spinach was assumed as a rough price equavalent, over $1.64 for regular and $2.50 for organic, with the assumption that the roots on my chard are about a quarter of the weight.
Oregano: I'm guessing at worst what I got had 25% more stem than the boxed, so about $13.89.
Spinach:  over $1.75 for regular and $2.68 for organic, with the assumption that the roots on my spinach are about a quarter of the weight.
Bunching onion: about 59 cents compared to non-organic. 

That's an estimated $30.10 worth of produce compared to non-roganic items!  Last week comes out at about $33.75 (Festival actually has rhubarb at $1.99/lb), and I used the pricing for standard spinach for the wild spinach- I'm guessing that if you could even find that at a specialty grocery at microgreen size that you'd be paying a pretty penny due to the labor involved. 
 
The newsletter said they had Wave Petunia, I'm guessing they might have had a variety of petunia plants. I like the smaller blooms on the Petchoa so I'm happy. When they mentioned that we would get some flowers in the description of the share, I thought it would be cut flowers, not potted ones! On my way home I stopped by Walmart and found a 10" pot with a spike plant, white petunias and white novela on clearance that I could add the Petchoa to. Some of the stems had broken off, but I found this website that showed me how to make the broken stems into cuttings.

In the Mops presentation and when we talked to Mike last Tuedsay he brought up that because they grow organically that the food may not be the prettiest,  it is still good.  Really, until what, the last 100 years (and probably less in most cases) outr ancestors had to deal with less than perfect produce- I think I can too.   Since I've home-gardened in the past, I know this to be true for many things- especially when tomatoes and other things are bred for looks and ship-ability over taste.   

Well, this week I got the first of the not-perfect produce.  The upper leaves of the oregano had some spotting similar to the photo here, though the spotting is not as dense.  Not really all that much was affected, and when I chopped the leaves to use in my potato side dish I couldn't really tell anyway, it was still very useable.

The sheer volume of oregano is a bit more than I would usually use in a week (barring Scott making a huge batch of home-made spaghetti sauce),  but I had forgotten that I could actually freeze many herbs (just do a google search, there are a couple different methods depending on the herb) instead of or in addition to drying them.  Also, to get the most out of the oregano, I think I'll end up freezing the stems to toss into soups and stews later.  I need to get a new herb ball (think oversized tea ball) since my old one went MIA in our move.  That way I can stuff the defrosted oregano stems (and/or other herbal material) in there and let it sit in a soup/stew pot and easily extract it when done. 

Becky's Herbed Potatoes:
Note:  Just about any common herb (minus mint) could be used alone or in combination with other herbs.  Rosemary, sage, thyme, basil, and oregano all play nicely wih each other.  If you're not much on lemon juice, sorrel can be used with the above herbs.  I didn't use it in this batch since it would be overpowered by the lemon juice. I use this recipe as a catch-all to clear out any fresh herbs I had in excess.  The temperature can be increased for quicker cooking time (plus I think my stove runs a bit cool), but the potatoes will have to be watched carefully so they don't burn and stick to the pan.

Potaotes: Approx 2 lbs, diced into approx 1/2" cubes
Onion: 3 oz, more or less to taste, chopped finely
Garlic: 4 cloves, chopped very finely
Oregano: 1/4 cup fresh leaves, loosely packed.  Chop after measuring.
Thyme: 2 teasp. fresh
Butter: 1/2 stick (or 4 fl oz olive oil)
Lemon juice: 2 fl oz fresh
Salt: to taste
Optional: White cooking wine: 1/4 cup

Preheat oven to 375.  Chop and add potatoes, onion, garlic, oregano, thyme to an 8" square glass oven-safe pan, sprinkle on salt, drizzle in lemon juice (and wine), mix well.  Cut butter into pats and place evenly over top.  Cover the pan (oven safe lid or foil) and cook for 1 hour, check and stir every 20 mins.  After 1 hour remove lid.  Continue to cook an additional 15 mins to 45 mins, turning every 15 mins, depending on the level of crispiness you want on the potatoes.   

First Week's Goodies

I have to admit, apprehension about the idea of cooking and eating things I've never had before was warring with my excitement to see what was in the box of goodies.  Scott and I (and the boys) picked up our box after a lunch at Blue Bike Burrito, and popped it open as soon as we got to the van. 

Being the curious person I am, I had to weigh everything out at home and compare the costs with what is in the grocery store, just to see what kind of bang for my buck I'm getting.  Although, to be honest, I know that whatever we will get will be a good value for organic produce, especially since it was all picked the same day, and not sitting around at the grocery for who knows how long!  I don't have the pricing yet from the grocery, I will add it once I remember to check it out and wright it down!

Week 1 consisted of:
2.16 lbs rhubarb
4 oz oregano
1.6 oz thyme
2.9 oz sorrel
1.1 oz bunching onions (sort of like green onion)
6 oz wild spinach (the plants/leaves were a size that I think would be classified as 'microgreens')

Along with the box Mike gave us a newsletter and a herb identification and info sheet.  The newsletter quoted some paragraphs from "Eating Seasonally: A Personal Reflection" by David Bruce that extolled the practice of eating seasonally and locally and intoned that getting a share of a CSA was a truly noble deed....I felt almost embarrassed that my main goal was just to get some decent produce up here!

I've never had sorrel before, and when I tried a piece it had a nice lemony taste.  We had pork fajitas that week, so I ended up using some of that in mine since I love lemon/lime juice in my fajitas.  We chopped up a couple of the onions for use on top of hotdogs, and ate the rest straight with a dash of salt. 

Rhubarb is also something I had never really had before (outside of maybe a strawberry-rhubarb pie a while ago, and samplings of strawberry rhubarb jam).  I found This Website that covers all things rhubarb.  I ate a small slice raw, it was very tart- but I love tart things, I figured there are definately possibilies here!  I found a recipe for Cold Rhubarb Soup and made it up one night.  Justin and I loved it (although the noodles didn't really go to well with the soup, I would recommend leaving them out), Scott didn't care much for it, since the rhubarb has a bitter taste to him.  He compared it to grapefruit, which he also won't eat.

I used the remainder of the rhubarb for fridge/freezer jam, there are several recipes I've found that are pretty simple, just rhubarb and sugar, sometimes they call for strawberry jello.  I wanted to get the full rhubarb flavor, so I went for a jello-free version, using 1 1/3 cup sugar to 1 lb rhubarb.  I chopped the rhubarb up finely, mixed in the sugar and let it sit in the fridge overnight.  In the morning I brought the mixture to a boil on the stove, then down to a simmer.  Once the rhubarb started getting soft, I put my hand blender to it and got it to a nice consistency, with a few chunks remaining.  I couldn't resist, I had to pull some and pop it in the freezer for a few minutes to try on toast that morning.  It was wonderful, sweet and tart, though for my next batch I think I'll go a little lighter on the sugar (but then, I can eat lemon straight!)

I used the recipe they provided in the newsletter for creamy wild spinach soup.  The recipe is below.  Since I was a bit short on greenery, I tossed in the rest of the sorrel and added a little of the oregano as well.  Going through and de-rooting all the little spinach plants I had to admire the dedication it takes the Paquettes to pull all those little suckers from the ground, to give everyone enough baby spinach to do something with. I would go nuts if I had to do that much!    The soup was pretty good (I LOVE to make soups, sometimes I think I could toss just about anything together and make a good soup out of it!) though I did end up with some stringy stems even after taking my hand blender to it.  That was mainly my fault since I relied on the blender to chop it up when I should have chopped up the spinach before cooking it. When I reheated it yesterday it wasn't as good as the first day, a little of the cooked spinach taste was starting to get in there.  But it was still a good soup.  I'm not too much a fan of cooked spinach, and after trying canned spinach one time I had never thought of eating it in any way until I had some spinach salad at a friend's.  Then I understood that canned spinach to fresh was the same as canned asparagus to fresh- though asparagus is my favorite veggie, canning makes it just awful. 

Aside from using some thyme and oregano in the soup, I ended up drying it since it was getting to the point of use it or lose it- we didn't really have any meals planned (or that we could add a side to, it was a hectic week) that I could use them fresh for.  Looking back, I forgot we had potatoes and I could have whipped up a batch of  potatoes with herbs, baked with butter and lemon juice in the oven. 

Overall I was happy with the box, I am revelling in my newfound love of rhubarb, and looking forward to what the next box will bring!

Recipe for Creamy Wild Spinach Soup, provided in the newsletter:
1 lb fresh wild spinach (young little ones you can chup up the stem and all)
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
3T butter
3T flour
1/2 tsp dried thyme (or 1 tsp fresh)
dash of ground nutmeg
3 cups milk
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1.  In a large pot, over high heat, combine spinach and stock.  Bring to a boil and cook, tossing with a fork, until spinach is wilted (about 5 min) (I used a smaller pot, it worked fine)

2.  Transfer to a food processor or blender and puree (I prefer to use a hand blender in-pot)

3.  In a soup pot over medium heat, melt butter.  Add flour, thyme, nutmeg, salt and pepper.  Stir until bubbly.  Add milk and stir until slightly thickened (Add a little milk at a time for the best results- I forgot to do this and ended up with some clumps of butterflour that never completely dissolved!)

4.  Return spinach to pot and mix well.  Simmer until heated through.  Ladle into bowls.

*Can serve with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream and a dash of nutmeg if desired.

Pre-Season

When I first heard at a MOPS meeting and they said the guest speaker for the next meeting owned a CSA (cummunity Supported Agriculture) farm, the first thing I did when I got home was to look them up and talk to Scott about getting a share.  We had been tossing around the idea of buying a share when we lived in the Detroit area, but with the abundance of farmers markets (with a really nice one in our city of Royal Oak) we decided that for our money, it was best to get what we wanted each week at the Farmers Market.  Although Marinette and Menominee do have farmers markets, last year we found that usually the best selection could be found at the various farmer stands set up throuought the cities. 

I was excited to find out we had CSA farmers locally, and we had a share before Bridget and Mike Paquette gave their presentation about organic gardening at the Mops meeting.  It was fun and informative, and I found out about square foot gardening, which we will be constructing this summer and hopefully get a fall crop of lettuce, spinach, and cabbage. 

Each full-season, 17 week share is $200, or $11.76 a week for a half bushel box (14"x10.5"x7").  I think that once the growing season really gets going that this will be a good value, especially since they are grown using organic means (they can't claim organic this year since they are renting farmland from a neighbor who had used chemical fertilizer). 

In early April the winter garden the Paquettes had set up for their personal use was so successful that that they offered anyone willing to stop by some kale, bok choy, and spinach.  I headed over after a Mops meeting and picked up a couple plastic grocery bags full.  They had started to wilt a little when I got home, so taking a few tricks I learned from Alton Brown I put them (roots and all) in containers of water in the fridge with plastic bags over them.  They took up over half a shelf in the fridge, and we had the bok-choy with some stir-fry, I made  Kale Chips (which are best eaten fresh, after a couple days they're not as crunchy), and we had kale and spinach salads for dinner for about a week.  I couldn't wait for the regular season to start!