A piece I wrote about combined CSAs was published at Growers and Grocers yesterday. Of course, there’s a heavy focus on our CSA, but there’s also some resources for finding a program of your own if you live somewhere other than the St. Louis area.
As I predicted last time I posted, I had an overabundance of black beans, which wasn’t a bad thing at all. After Monday’s black bean tacos, we skipped a few nights and on Thursday I made black beans and rice. Still, that left me with nearly half of the beans I’d cooked last Saturday. So Friday afternoon I took to my refrigerator and devised freezeable ideas for a bunch of porky black beans.
You’ll never guess what I found in the fridge while digging for the beans - a lot of other stuff that we certainly wouldn’t have time to eat during what few days remained in its healthy lifespan. Like most families in this country, we throw away an obscene amount of food, from leftovers to vegetables we buy with good intentions to stuff that gets shoved to the back of the fridge and forgotten.
I’m a bit of a freak about clean fridges. If I come to your house and happen to see something past its expiration date in your fridge, I will throw it away. Just ask my mom. I’d rather not clean a fridge when it’s to the point where things aren’t salvageable. In the name of conservation, I’m trying to get better about not creating leftovers and of catching things before their expiration dates and finding ways to safely prolong their lives.
By the time I was finished, not only did I have a use for my beans, but I had another freezeable dinner I hadn’t planned. The foods I used that would have otherwise gone bad:
That’s not a small amount of groceries right there. Bet you want to know what I made with them, don’t you?
In week 2 of Fair Shares we received lots of yummy goodness, fresh herbs, bread, free-range eggs, syrup, pancake mix, popcorn, trout, cheese. And then there was the TVP, texturized vegetable protein.
Being that I used to be a vegetarian, I was open minded to meat alternatives. Tofu was my friend, soy burgers were good, how bad could this be? Dumbest question EVER!
Sorry there are no pictures to accompany my tirade but I will try to be as descriptive as I can without sounding like a fantasy novel. I decided to make a simple ‘hamburger helper without the box’ dish, kind of like a cheeseburger casserole. I read the directions on the TVP and made the mistake reading the ingredients- more non-recognizable, nonfood ingredients than I was prepared for. I still was willing to try. I’m willing to try everything once and since I’m a slow learner that usually ends up being two or three times. Not this. Anyway, I digress.
My first obstacle: its already brown so I couldn’t tell when it was ‘done’. Second obstacle: no fat, drippings or moisture whatsoever. I over came these and added the cheese, milk and pasta, mixed well and was pleasantly surprised to see that it looked like real food, but there was this funny smell, it was mild but there. I always taste and sample before feeding it to the men folk and once I did I promptly turned to Mike and asked what he wanted from the corner market’s hot deli for dinner.
TVP doesn’t taste like meat, doesn’t have texture like meat, doesn’t even taste like soy protein. It tasted like chemicals and had the texture of dry oatmeal. It reminded me of the frozen meatloaf dinners that come in little tinfoil trays, but not as good.
When I returned Mike said that he tried it and was glad I went to the market. He did say that our dog Mojo liked it because he knocked the spoon off the counter and was licking it. Of course, Mojo is a 14 year old Husky and only recently started getting table scraps so he’s willing to eat anything that comes from the counter.
Now, I don’t like writing bad reviews of food or ripping on what others might find tasty but I’m still a little ticked that I wasted milk, cheese and pasta on this so forgive my negativity for today.
What to do with leftovers, that is the quandary that often hits me. This is what I had to work with: grilled chicken breasts (2 days old), baked potatoes (4 days old), Roma tomatoes and fresh spinach that if I didn’t use it was going to be thrown out the next day and some shredded cheese. This is what I did with it all:
The chicken was covered in spinach leaves, sliced tomato and cheese and stuck under the broiler. The potatoes were diced, sauteed in a cast iron skillet with butter until browned. Then I poured in some fat free 1/2 & 1/2 and shredded cheese and also stuck under the broiler. I shall call this side dish- Poor Man’s Gratin. The carrots were just steamed. Needless to say, it came out to be a very quick, very easy, very delicious way to reinvent the leftover.
While I was thrilled with last week’s Fair Shares haul, I thought there was no way we’d make a week’s worth of meals out of it.
I forgot that we eat out a lot.
I haven’t cooked a meal since the recipe I posted on Friday, although I did come up with some plans for my pound of black beans. We eat a lot of beans in this house. Unless I’m doing good old-fashioned pintos with a hamhock, I rarely use dried beans because honestly, I’m not nearly the meal-planner that Robin 2 is. Canned beans work better my winging-it lifestyle.
On Friday night I soaked the beans, then threw them in my crockpot with the remaining pork on Saturday morning. I hoped they’d be finished in time for dinner but I always forget that black beans take longer to cook than pintos. I’m always fooled by their smaller size. So we did another night of carryout, let the beans simmer, and for good measure let them sit in the fridge until tonight. My thought: cook the beans in the crockpot with very little extra flavorings, refrigerate, and use throughout the week as I would canned beans.
A little refresher: Robin 2 and I joined Fair Shares, a combined CSA (community supported agriculture) that recently started its inaugural season in St. Louis.
What’s a CSA? The short version is, it’s a program where subscribers can buy shares of a farm up-front, generally in the off season. The farmer gets the money to invest in the farm and when harvest rolls around, the subscriber gets a share of the goods. In the case of a combined CSA, a central group organizes a bunch of local farmers and food producers. This way, the investment goes to lots of farms instead of just one, and subscribers get a bigger variety of goods.
On Wednesday afternoon Robin 2 and I hauled our warring children into St. Louis to meet our husbands for the first pick-up. Since the menfolk work fairly close to the main pickup location, they’ll usually save us the trip across the river, but R2 and I wanted to be there for the first time.
We figured that out investment works out to about $50 a week. Do you think $50 will buy this haul for you at your local grocery emporium?
Lives today are so chocked full of work, school activities and sport practices that sometimes the only option to fast food is frozen pizza. Frozen pizzas that don’t taste like the box they come in are expensive and are still loaded with preservatives and hard to pronounce ingredients. My solution to this is to make my own. Its really not hard or time consuming, really.
Freezer Pizza (enough for two crusts)
3/4 cup warm water
2 T olive oil
2 c flour
1 t sugar
1/2 t salt
2 t bread machine yeast
Place ingredients in listed order in your bread machine and set for dough. Let it do its thing.
Now, lets contemplate toppings. I’ve used just about everything but the Chinese leftovers for this. Sausage, chicken, shrimp, ground beef, pepperoni, cheese and sauce. I usually use spaghetti sauce, most pizza sauces are too sweet for me. Veggies are a little more complicated. Onions get stronger when frozen, mushrooms get mushy, black olives, tomatoes and peppers don’t freeze well either; however, there is a solution. Fresh veggies can be put on the pizza before popping it in the oven, just sprinkle a little extra cheese over them. I also wait until I’m ready to bake before sprinkling on seasonings such as basil, oregano, garlic and thyme, as herbs can turn bitter when frozen.
When the bread machine has done its duty, lightly flour your work surface. Pour out the dough and divide in half. Roll out.
Preheat your oven to 350 with a pizza stone in it. Use your fingers to press down the crust leaving the edges and giving that dough cute little dimples.
You don’t have to prebake the crust but I find that it makes it crispier.
The secret to keeping the crust from getting soggy is in the order of the toppings. For this pizza, add the cheese first. The cheese keeps the sauce from soaking into the crust. Cheese then sauce then meat toppings, if you aren’t going to freeze it the veggies can be added now, covered with a little more cheese then baked until the cheese is all melty and looks like this…
If you can hold the temptation off long enough to freeze there is no need to bake. Add your cheese, sauce and meat to the crust. Lay flat and freeze. Do not wrap before freezing otherwise your toppings will stick to the foil. Once frozen solid, remove, wrap in foil then in an airtight bag. You might want to make sure your pizzas will fit into the bags first.
To reheat the frozen pie there isn’t even a need to defrost. After adding any veggies, pop it on a pizza stone in a 350 degree preheated oven until the cheese is melted.
A month ago, I contributed to my own blog and was in the early stages of getting Frigidare Pair up and running.
As of today, I’m now contributing to four blogs. Well, three blogs and a food web network. I’m now a contributing writer at Mad About Martha and the Well Fed Network.
Because you just can’t get enough of me, right?
It’ll probably take me a few days to get into the swing of posting as I learn my way around the sites and get to know the editors. I’m crazy-excited about the opportunity, though, and I hope you’ll check out the sites.
If you’ve got something you’d like to see on either of the sites, let me know at poppydawn(at)gmail(dot)com.
We love Jambalaya. Looooove. We used to use the Zataran’s mix, then they changed it and all I could taste was salt. Even their low sodium (which is a joke) tasted like a rice covered salt lick. I looked everywhere for an easy and quick Jambalaya recipe that I didn’t have to drive to Louisiana for the ingredients to. Paula Deen saved me.
I love that Southern Belle. I haven’t had a recipe of hers yet that wasn’t the bees knees. They aren’t exactly figure friendly but, dang if they ain’t good. Besides, going to college in Tennessee gave me a love of Southern food that I still can’t shake after over 15 years.
This recipe is a two part-er. First, there is the mix of dry ingredients that you can keep in an air tight container for just about ever. I believe one year for Christmas I actually packaged it up to give as gifts. Second, is the wet and meaty.
Jambalaya Mix
1 cup long grain rice
3 T dried minced onion
1 T dried parsley flakes
4 T beef bouillon cubes ( I omit this altogether and add a can of chicken stock and reduce the water to 1/2 cup)
1/2 t dried thyme
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t ground black pepper ( I omit this too )
1/4 t cayenne pepper ( I only use 1/8th because I have to feed it to my toddler son too)
1/4 t salt ( yup, I leave this out as well )
Combine it all together and store in an air tight container.
Jambalaya
2 1/2 cups water (unless you aren’t using the bouillon cube in the mix, then it’s just 1/2 cup and a can of chicken broth)
1 (14 oz) can diced tomatoes & chilies
1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
1 lb meat of your choice ( I generally use more though. My usual is 1 lb sausage and a 1/2 lb shrimp. I’ve used it with chicken, kiel basa and ground beef too)
In a Dutch oven or large pot cook any kind of meat you might be using, except seafood. Add everything else and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cover and reduce heat to simmer and do not touch for 20 minutes. Add the shrimp at the end and cook until just pink. Let this sit for a few minutes until most, if not all the liquid is absorbed.
I serve this with, of course, cornbread!
Now, if you are looking to make dinner even easier… got a rice cooker? Throw the mix and liquids in the bottom and the cooked meats in the steamer basket. I tried this the other night and this is what I got:
It was awesome!
Want a faster version: use minute rice. Brown the meats, add the liquid and bring to a boil. Add the mix, cover and let sit for 5 minutes. That is all there is to it!
Want a vegetarian version: omit the bouillon and use the 2 1/2 cups water. Instead of meat, add black beans, pinto beans and corn.
Now how is that for versatile!
I know, everyone’s complaining about how ready they are for summer. Cliche, but damn if I’m not complaining, too. And I’m never ready for summer. I’m a fat girl in one of the most hot and humid parts of the U.S. I look forward to my annual exam more than I look forward to summer. But this winter has drug on for so long that even I’m having fantasies about bathing suits, grills, and how it’ll all be perfect.
Remind me of this in July when I’m perpetually sweaty and cursing the lack of ventilation in my kitchen, okay?
Did I mention the snow flurries on Sunday night? It’s making everyone insane. Which is probably why I found myself at the grocery on Monday, filling my cart with ground beef and black beans, my brain running amok with ideas on what can be crammed into burgers.
I’ve got some high burger standards. You see, my dad is the burger snob among burger snobs. You could take him to the French Laundry, and he’d ask for a burger. I rarely make burgers at home because so many restaurants do them so well, and I don’t have to stick my hands in raw beef.
I’m pretty sure my dad, Carnivore Pete, probably wouldn’t be crazy about the first burgers I concocted today - Smoked Salsa Black Bean Cheeseburgers - since it doesn’t contain one single cow component. The second - Portobello Gorgonzola Burgers - are loaded with beef, blue cheese, mushrooms, and just about every strong flavor I could find in my kitchen, which might kill him with sheer joy. I have a freezer filled with both options, so we’ll see next time he visits.