Upcoming Winter CSA!

Yes, a winter CSA in New Hampshire is totally a thing! This year Kearsarge Gore Farm and Greenhill Collective Farm are teaming up for a 10 week winter CSA that will be the best that NH has to offer this time of year. Weekly packages of organic root veggies, greens (yes, greens! grown in the greenhouse, available during the second half of the CSA), breads, dried herbs and mushrooms, teas, garlic and maple syrup will be dropped off for the CSA recipient to pick up at The Local on Main St. in Warner every Tuesday. This 10 week program, running from January 6 to March 10, is $300, boiling down to just $30/week for local, wholesome, trustworthy goods. If you are in the Kearsarge area, I urge you to try this CSA! I promise you will not be disappointed! 

Here are what I find to be some wonderful advantages to a weekly CSA; 

• Supporting local economy
• Getting to know the sources of our food (food security!)  
• Receiving the highest quality and most nutritious products
• Minimizing time and money spent in the grocery store
• Easy to plan meals when you have a weekly package of food to work with 
• Food travels less (think 15 miles vs 1500)  
• Minimizes overall environmental impact 

If you are interested in this CSA but not sure if you can make pick-ups in Warner, please message me and we can talk about arranging some sort of delivery. I would be happy to make this possible for absolutely anyone interested!  

Giving this Season!

I wanted to share some thoughts I have on the season of gift-giving that is upon us. We all know that Christmas has become quite devastatingly commercialized, which literally strips all of the magic and love out of the holiday. So I say, let's take it back! Here are some ideas I have on choosing thoughtful gifts that truly resonate with the spirit of love and giving that is Christmas!

• Shop locally
• I am certainly not the first person to suggest this, but it is an idea worth repeating! Don't know what to get someone? Check out local shops and artisans, where you know whatever you choose is made with time and skill from a community member who will certainly appreciate your business. I know there is a program in New London to encourage people to shop locally, with a card you punch every time you patronize a local business and discounts every Saturday this month. I have also seen many encouraging advertisements for local holiday markets  at restaurants and pop-up markets this month. Keep your eyes open for these opportunities! 

• Food
• Everyone needs to eat! Food as a gift is a wonderful idea, both practically and symbolically - giving the gift of nourishment and good health, what could be better?! Right now in New Hampshire farmers markets are still kickin', and you can find all sorts of root vegetables, squash, maple syrup and canned goods. Who wouldn't want a handmade basket full of potatoes, onions, garlic, canned green beans, salsa, maple syrup and ginger root? Well, this is possible, local, and incredibly thoughtful! Last year I got all my family members meat from Eccardt Farm in Washington, NH and wrote up a little blurb about the farm, what they offer and where to find them. This was a great way for me to share information about a local business as well as my passion for wholesome local food! And everyone loved it! Try it out, it is very rewarding for everyone! Making baked goodies, like yummy breads or cookies, is a classic Christmas passtime and works great as gifts, too! 

• Make your own
• I know not everyone has the time to make gifts, or maybe the confidence, but I think homemade gifts are the absolute best way to demonstrate love and the spirit of giving! Making cards is always a great place to start! Print out a couple pictures and put them in a nice homemade card or frame. Homemade candles and lotion are a couple things that I am excited to test out this year (shh), and beyond that I feel like there is a world of opportunity! 

• Donating in someone's name
• Trying to find a gift for someone who has everything? Want to break out of the materialism of modern Christmas? Making a donation in someone's name is a fantastic way to overcome these common gift-giving predicaments. Think about what causes or organizations your loved ones are interested and invest in their honor. Try this website, Kiva, to search for potential donation outlets and make Christmas special on so many levels!  

• Give your time
• One of my favorite gift go-tos - the homemade voucher. Sure, this idea comes from my childhood and college days when I had nothing to spend at Christmas time but my good intentions. But what could be more thoughtful then the gift of your time? Making homemade vouchers for babysitting, cleaning, massages, mechanic work or whatever skill you may have to offer is right on track with the spirit of love and giving that is Christmas. 

I don't see any magical at all in feeling compelled to go out for a hectic day of shopping, spending a bunch of money at giant commercial stores where everything is mass produced and cheap. I want to stimulate my local economy, know that my money is going to the people who deserve it, and show my loved ones just how much I love them! Cheers to that! 

Some random but totally awesome kitchen tips!

Sharing kitchen knowledge is a great way to stay connected to one another and progress in our kitchen endeavors. Little tips you learn along the way can help you be more efficient with your tools, ingredients and time, as well as make cooking and crafting more exciting! Learning kitchen secrets, which aren't always intuitive, is a skill worth honing! This is why I feel compelled to share a few completely random yet totally helpful kitchen tips that have been rocking my world lately. Pass it on!

• Soak potatoes to release starch (courtesy of mom!):  Love crispy homefries or hash browns? Potatoes have a lot of starch in them, which can cause them to be mushy and/or stick to the pan when frying. Soaking potatoes in cold water helps to remove a lot of that starch, allowing the potato to get nice and crispy, be it in home fry or hash brown form. Cut or grate the potatoes into nice cold water, let them sit until the water gets nice and cloudy (as it extracts the starch), rinse and repeat one more time. Rinse again and dry thoroughly before adding the potatoes to the skillet. Works like a charm!

Grated potato, twice-soaked in cold water, on its way to becoming crispy delicious hash browns! 

• Shaking garlic cloves in mason jar to remove skin (courtesy of chef Isaac): I don't know why, but peeling garlic skins just seems like THE biggest pain in the butt to me. Maybe it's because I use a ton of garlic in everything. If you feel the same way, you MUST try this incredible trick! Simple put individual cloves, or a whole head, of garlic into a mason jar, screw on the lid and shake baby shake! Get a nice vigorously up and down motion going so the garlic is beating against both ends of the jar. Like magic, the cloves are all peeled and ready to go! Beautiful!

• Vegetable scraps = totally easy and awesome vegetable stock: Minimizing food waste is like my number 1 kitchen priority. Making vegetable stock with vegetable scraps could not be easier or more convenient. Ya know how you always have ends of carrots and onions or hearts of celery or cabbage left after preparing for a meal? Well, throw all of those things into a crock pot with some water. Add sprigs of herbs, like parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme (thanks Simon and Garfunkel ;) ). Turn it on low and let it all infuse for as long as you want! Set it and forget it! You can add absolutely anything to this, like apple cores (from making all those apple pies!), citrus rinds, squash skins, beet juice from boiling beets - anything. Just filter it once its done, put it into a big mason jar and have it on hand for all sorts of things, like making soup or boiling potatoes or rice. 

Seasons Eatings!!

Choosing Food this Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is upon us again! It is a time for celebrating the food we are blessed with, so I'm thinking why not choose the food most worth celebrating?! For me, this really boils down to sustainable local foods grown in a healthy and balanced way. I absolutely realize that it is unrealistic for all of us to eat 100% local, especially on this upcoming day of abundance. I do know, however, that there is much room for improvement in terms of choosing local. For my own benefit as well as whoever is interested (and that's probably you if you're reading this!), I have compiled a list of things that I know can be found locally right now to help make Thanksgiving dinner a meal worth celebrating.

• Potatoes - for mashed potatoes...duh! A staple in any Thanksgiving reportoir. These babies are abundant in New Hampshire now and through the winter. 
• Onions - the foundation of so many yummy things. These are also abound in NH now and through the winter
• Carrots - same story as the other guys! Don't be afraid of the funny-looking carrots you may find at a farmers market...these are often the tastiest! 
• Pumpkin - Poor pumpkins get kicked to the curb after Halloween...forgotten in the cold. But lets not forget these delicious local goodies are super edible and super integral to Thanksgiving. Try to make a pumpkin pie from scratch this year and support your local pumpkin grower!
• Squash - So many delicious varieties of squash are plentiful in NH right now...gotta try them all! 
• Celeriac - A funky looking root vegetable that is new to me! It is a reliable NH crop this time of year that I am sure has the potential to add incredible flavor to Thanksgiving necessities like stuffing.
• Kale - Kale might not be a traditional Thanksgiving food for most, but this hardy green lasts well into the fall in New England. Maybe try some steamed kale as a delicious side dish this year!
• Beets - Maybe you aren't used to having beets at Thanksgiving, I know I'm not. But this year I am trying a beet salad to honor this NH classic and try to keep it local!
• Cranberries - One of the last few traditionally North American crops that remains a staple in our diet today. We are lucky to have cranberry bogs abound in New England, especially Massachusetts and Maine. 
• Maple syrup - Pies are a Thanksgiving must and usually have a lot of sugar added to them. This year, maybe replace some of that sugar with local maple syrup! YUM!
• Apples - Apple season just came and went but lots of great NH apples are still floating around...and everyone knows apple pie is a Thanksgiving classic.
• Eggs - If you are using eggs this season, for desserts or what have you, don't forget that there are great New Hampshire eggs all around, including at the grocery store! 
• Dairy - Dairy is a classic New England industry at the heart of our local agricultural system. It won't be too hard to find local dairy products, but don't forget to do some research on the best, most humane and healthy products! 
• TURKEY! - Turkey is obviously the heart of most Thanksgiving meals, but I am willing to bet without a doubt that the turkeys sold at the supermarket are far from a meal worth celebrating. Do some research, find local and humane turkey farms or hunt one yourself! 

Personally I am shopping for Thanksgiving at the Kearsarge Gore Farm and Greenhill Collective Farm this year to see what I can gather before stepping foot in a grocery store. I understand that access to local food might be a very real barrier between you and choosing local (which may or may not be the focus of a little project I am working on with friends, soon to be revealed!) but start looking around and you might be surprised at what you might find! Contact your local farm through Facebook, find a farmers market and look for local food in your supermarket.

Finding even just a few local items to be integral parts of Thanksgiving dinner will impact the quality of the meal substantially and help us to move toward a more locally-sourced diet. I know I want to feel good about the products I am buying, who I am supporting and how it affects the health of my loved ones and the planet. Thanksgiving is a wonderful place to start making a shift toward healthy food worth celebrating! CHEERS! 

Black Bean and Roasted Cauliflower Veggie Burgers

I don't think it's any secret that veggie burgers have the potential to be pretty terrible. In fact, I would say that it is far easier to get your hands on a less then desirable veggie burger than a truly tasty one. But, hey, maybe that's just me. At any rate, last night I set out to make a delectable veggie patty to assuage my burger craving.

I'd like to just preface this with some food for thought (sorry, I had to). I am not a big fan of meat substitutes, such as your Tofurkies or your "Chick'n" Nuggets or vegetarian hot dogs. That is, things that are trying desperately to replicate meat in every way but really just beg the question, What exactly am I made of? I used to be super into these things, thinking I could enjoy a hot dog guilt free! What could be better? Until I realized that the ingredients list was practically a novel composed of impossible-to-pronounce words. I have since tried to steer clear of these mysterious chemicals and randomness, which is, I think, definitely for the better.

That being said, these black bean and roasted cauliflower veggie burgers were made from scratch, using lots of CSA veggies, so I could avoid questioning their contents. Problem solved.

Here is what happened.

I roasted some cauliflower, coated in olive oil, in a 350 degree oven.

When the cauliflower was nice and soft and flavorful, I mashed it up along with some black beans. To that I added eyeballed amounts of:

• chopped green onion
• cilantro 
• olive oil
• lots of garlic!
• milled flax seed
• breadcrumbs
• garlic powder
• onion powder
• cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper 
• and one beaten egg to hold it all together

Then it was just a matter of making the patties (which is always easiest, albeit messiest, by hand) and frying them up in a skillet, trying to get the outside as crispy as possible without the patties falling apart. Just like with regular burgers, I find it is best to pop them into a hot skillet and not touch them until it is time to flip them, flip them once and don't touch them until they are done. It is unbelievably tempting to poke at them and mess with them to see how they are progressing, but it is really best to fight those urges, for the good of the burger!

I added a generous amount of sharp cheddar cheese just at the end to get all melty. 

Served on a bun with fresh tomato and lettuce, along with homemade baked french fries. Very yummy and much healthier and less fattening then a regular burger. This doesn't necessarily mean that a veggie burger has the capacity to always replace a real burger, but I think any time it is chosen over it's beef counterpart is a win for everyone. 

And THEN, this morning for breakfast I added a patty to a breakfast sandwich (or really I just added an egg to the burger). Either way it was wonderful. 

Some things I might have done differently, or might try next time, are leaving bigger chunks of veggies in the patty and flash frying each side for a crisp and then baking them. One of the worst things about a veggie burger is there potential to be mushy and lack a solid form. I will certainly be looking for ways to reduce this risk as I continue to experiment with veggie burgers and let you know! But overall this was a success! 

The Fantastic Falafel!

Before you write falafels off as "dirty stinking hippie food", let's talk about how great they can be!

Falafels, or little balls of chickpeas either fried or baked, are incredibly tasty and full of protein, which makes them a great alternative to meat. Easy to make, healthy and versatile, the falafel is, or should be, a staple on any household menu!

Like anything, I am sure there are many ways to make a tasty falafel. And once you have that down, you can make a falafel and pita, falafel salad or falafel appetizers with a yummy dipping sauce. Here is what I whipped up the other night.

First of all, I got the idea to make some falafel goodness because I had a lot leftover hummus from a little dinner party the night before (made by chef and life superstar Lauren Howard). This was a chickpea and edamame hummus, a simple yet incredibly delicious spread made by mashing the chickpeas and edamame and adding garlic and lemon.

Since I had so much leftover, I figured I would just use that mixture and enhance it just a bit with new flavors to create the falafel balls. I got some naan on which to craft delicious falafel sandwiches.

To the hummus I added some bread crumbs, olive oil, finely diced onion, cumin, coriander, onion powder, and cayenne pepper. I would have added an egg to help it all stick together and remain moist, but I didn't have one. It all worked great, so no stress if there is an egg missing from the equation. I rolled the new mixture into little balls by hand and placed them on a baking sheet.

I baked them in a 350 degree oven. You can deep-fry them as well and of course they would be to die for, but the healthier way is definitely to bake them. They still get a nice crisp and crunch in the oven.

While those cooked, I made a crunchy slaw to serve on my falafel sandwich. I thinly sliced or grated red cabbage, green cabbage, salad turnips and carrots.

 

Then I made a little sauce. Traditionally, falafel sandwiches are served with a tahini (or sesame) based sauce. Sometimes I find the tahini sauce, while being super delicious, can also be rather dense. This time around I kept it super light with a cucumber yogurt sauce. To make the sauce, I eyeballed portions of the following:

• Plain greek yogurt 
• Sour Cream
• Lime juice (I used a whole lime)
• Grated cucumber (from my CSA, of course!)
• Garlic 
• Cilantro

This turned out to be sinfully delicious, I highly recommend it! Would be great to have a jar of this in the fridge to bust out for all sorts of dishes.

When the falafel balls looked and smelled done, I pulled them out of the oven.

And then the fun part.

I stared with some soft, warm naan (pita works great too, or any kind of flat bread really) and onto it I spread a healthy amount of hummus (I kept some of the original aside).

Then, some crisp CSA lettuce.

Followed by the slaw.

Then I drizzled a generous amount of the cucumber yogurt sauce and topped it with several falafel balls.

Finally, I topped it all off with more of the cucumber yogurt sauce, some sriracha and cilantro.

Boom! Truly fantastic, I must say. And yes, it might start out as a sandwich and turn into a salad and that's OK! These things can be messy but the flavor remains amazing!

Crock pot Creations!

The crock pot! 

What a marvelous creation. I am a huge fan of kitchen tools that serve multiple functions, and the crock pot is an excellent example of how to get the most of cooking. Whether you want to save time, make a big batch of delicious goodness to freeze for later, warm up with a hot bowl of stew or combine a bunch of random stuff in your fridge for one awesome result, the crock pot is your guy. Variations on the idea of the crock pot include the slow cooker, but from where I'm standing both do the same thing: they allow you to throw a bunch of food into one big cooking machine, turn it on low and let it all come together for hours and hours. Niiiice and sloooow. This is a fantastic way to easily create rich, deep and hypnotizing flavors. And since we are in full fall mode here in New England, now is definitely the time to dust off the crock pot, plug 'er in and go rake some leaves while a delicious meal is basically made for you. What could be better?

If the idea of the crock pot is new to you, check out crockpot 101. If you would like to see a comprehensive list on what you can do with your crock pot, check this out, or do some research on your own. It is way to easy to find great ideas on how to get the most out of slow cooking.

I had a great time using my crock pot for the first time this fall just the other day. I had a very specific goal in mind: find a way to combine some leftovers in the fridge with fresh veggies while expelling minimal time and energy for one warm and tasty result. This is what happened.

First, I collected my fresh veggies and chopped them all into comparably sized chunks so they would cook evenly in the crock pot. I used the basics, all from CSA or local farms:

• Squash
• Carrot
• Onion
• Celery
• Potatoes

I threw it all into the crock pot, turned it on HIGH and poured in a little white wine to prevent any burning. I kept it on HIGH for one hour so the veggies could come up to cooking temperature. Then I turned it on LOW and let just those veggies cook together for about 6 hours. 

Then I added some lentils and let it all cook on LOW for another 6 hours, approximately. If it is on low, let go! For me, with just a bunch of veggies in the crock pot, it could cook for an eternity and just get better and better. 

I then added garlic, a couple bay leaves, some light seasonings like cumin, salt and pepper. I added some chopped tomato, some tomato paste, and a little veggie stock. 

The vegetables release a lot of moisture when they cook and it doesn't boil off so I always wait to see how much liquid I need to add after they have been cooking for a while (if you want to thicken up your mixture, you can add some tomato paste or dissolve some corn starch in cold water and mix it all into your creation). I then added some stir fry leftovers that had been sitting in my fridge for almost a week. Still totally good to eat (passing the smell test and all) but not exactly appetizing as a meal on it's own since we had been eating so much. Throwing it in the pot at this point, it will just blend into everything and enhance the richness and flavor. I let this all cook for a couple hours. 

Then it is really ready to go any time! Of course, something like this is best served with some crusty bread.

Warm, delicious, healthy and easy! Just one of truly infinite ways to use the crock pot!