228: Kohlrabi Carrot Soup

Not a pretty soup, but a sweet and tasty one. I sort of used this recipe from Eat, Love and Be Happy! When skimming it seemed fine, but upon the reread I was generally confused as to what I was supposed to do, so I did my own thing.

Ingredients:

2 kohlrabi
3 carrots
1 head garlic
1 onion, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
~ sage, thyme, parsley
~ chiken stock
~ salt, pepper, olive oil

I peeled, cut into chunks, and roasted the kohlrabi and carrots until soft and browned. I also chopped the top of the garlic off the head, drizzled a little olive oil and wrapped in foil. That was also roasted until soft.

Meanwhile, I diced my onions and celery and started those in a pot with a little olive oil and salt. Once they got soft, and the onions started to brown, I added in the rest of the ingredients. The chicken stock was added until it just covered (I like my soups full of "stuff", not super brothy), and I let that simmer for a while, until the flavors had a chance to mingle and the herbs had some time to do their thing. Tasting, adjusting seasoning as necessary.

Roasting the kohlrabi and carrots brought out their sweetness, which extended out into the soup. Last night it seemed unpleasantly sweet, but I dug it a lot more for lunch. Next time I'd probably add roasted potatoes, but I totally forgot until it was too late to prep them.

226: Herb Butter Roasted Potatoes

Sometimes it's really good to just cook something, like potatoes, that you don't have a recipe in mind for. While I was roasting (off share) sweet potatoes, I threw a few potatoes on the other rack. I figured at worst they could hang out in the fridge until a day I was too lazy/busy to cook. And that's what happened. 

After getting my hair cut and doing my weekly extra ingredient shopping trip (an expensive one, though a good $10 was stock alone) I got home with just enough energy to eat a bowl of yogurt and whip this up. 

I thickly sliced the cooked and cooked potatoes, then sauteed them for a bit in herb butter. I meant to post about the herb butter but never got around to it- to the best of my recollection it had parsley, thyme, dill, mint, maybe some basil and cilantro. I added a bit of pepper and way too much salt, so I'm forced to use it sparingly. 

The results were perfect for a cold day, and a more than good reason to just throw something extra into the oven whenever it's on.

Delivery 23

Potatoes - 2 pounds

Orange Carrots - 1 pound

Yellow Carrots - 1 pound
Kohlrabi - 2

Sage - 1 bunch

Garlic - 2 heads

Celeriac - 1 head

Collards - 1 bunch

Beets - 2 pounds

Radish - 1 bunch

Collards

Lots of extras but here's a curry. A soup with grits. Creamed. Not sure I'd follow the filling but I could use the leaves for a wrap.

Carrots

A few soup ideas: with ginger or a little more plain.

Celeriac

Aka celery root. Smashed, gratin with potatoes, salad with parsley, root veggie slaw.

Potatoes

I can't even...

Beets

Moroccan stew (bonus for radish and excuses to buy squash), beet and radish slaw, or another round of picked beets. Beet ketchup. Borscht.

Radishes

These guys are tiny. White bean and radish salad. Roasted. Savory toast (with yogurt?!).

Garlic

Garlic confit. Honey lemon garlic tea (I'd throw ginger in there, too). Turkish poached eggs with yogurt and spicy sage butter (!!!).

Kohlrabi

Love these guys! "Ceviche" with radishes and carrots. Lots of extras, but crostini with mozz. Pickled with carrots. Nommy looking soup with carrots, potatoes, herbs I have kicking around.

Sage

Carrot and sage soup.

222: Leftover Squash and Sage Quinoa

I had some acorn squash kicking around my fridge, leftover from making that soup (which, by the way, got a little bitter as it sat around in the fridge), and was in need of a quick lunch. I boiled up some quinoa, throwing a few (maybe 4 or 5?) sage leaves in with the grains, and let it work while I took a shower. I considered throwing some of the squash in there, but knew that I wasn't going to be using it all up this on the one lunch, and wanted there to be as much flexibility for the meal component as I could.

When it was done I mixed some with the pieces of squash- being somewhat careful about my stirring, as I didn't want to completely mash up the squash pieces. Topped with a healthy bit of black pepper and a little more salt. Simple and comforting.

216: Roasted Squash and Turnip Soup

There was a recipe I was going to follow, listed in this week's delivery post, for a roasted squash and turnip soup. I guess I used that as a guideline, but mostly did my own thing.

Ingredients:

1/2 acorn squash

1 turnip, quartered

2 onions, halved

1 head of garlic

2 leeks, cleaned and sliced

~ chicken broth

~ 7 sage leaves

salt, pepper, olive oil

I roasted all my ingredients (which had been mixed with a little olive oil and salt) in a 425 degree oven until soft. As all that was near finishing I sauteed my leeks until browning, then chopped up my soft turnips and onion and threw them in the pan. Honestly these were a little under- could've used some more time in the oven, but I let them finish steaming in the pot. Squeezed my garlic out of the skins into the pot and added some chicken broth to deglaze. Let that simmer for a bit. Scooped the squash out of its skin and added that, as well as 4 or so sage leaves, let that simmer some more.

Once everything was relatively soft I picked out those sage leaves and buzzed it a bit with my immersion blender, adding stock until it blended smooth. As you can see above my soup is pretty thick, feel free to adjust to your preferences.

Added 3 or so sage leaves and let that simmer (or sputter, it's good to have a lid here as it will make a mess) until the sage was prominent enough for me, then adjusted my seasonings a bit and enjoyed with some sourdough bread.

This soup tastes so fall to me. Butternut may have been a little better (my bias), but this acorn was a lot more flavorful than the last one given to us by the CSA- maybe it was actually ripe this time?

I probably used about a cup of broth, I'll likely have another soup this week, as the chill is really starting to set in and there's nothing that I want more than comforting warm foods, especially ones that are excuses to buy and eat delicious crusty breads.

209: Kale Salad with Mushrooms and Butternut Squash

New greens mixed with last week’s leftovers. You may remember the mushrooms and butternut squash from such dishes as this pizza, though honestly, I liked the combination better here. As I mentioned there the squash is so sweet, it needs something earthy and bitter like the kale to balance that out. No dressing, per se, just a little oil. Apparently I learned a lesson (!!) from my roasted veggie salad.

I needed to cut my kale a little finer (I also need to sharpen my knife), but overall a lovely lunch side considering I threw it together in about 5-10 minutes before heading off to work.

204: Squash and Mushroom Pizza

Or maybe it's some sort of squash and mushroom flatbread. The left slice/pizza has pecorino, the right does not. I preferred the sans-cheese, but it also had mas-mushroom, so the reason is a bit of a toss-up.

I roasted my squash, sliced, in an oven (at 350ish) until soft. I had been simply dressed with a little olive oil and salt.

The mushrooms were sliced and sauteed with garlic, lots of sage, lots of thyme and lots of olive oil. I'd probably up the herbs were I to do it again- or, hell, toss those herbs on the pizza. They were at a good level on the mushrooms by themselves, but I forgot to take into account the gestalt with squash and dough.

The combination was lovely, though the squash was (as it is) on the sweet side. Leftovers will have the important addition of sriracha to take the edge off.

194: Roasted Veggie Salad

Cop out? Kinda. I'd say to really be a cop out it'd be an automatic home run, and I did have some issues with how it turned out, so there's something to talk about here.

Overall it was about a half a head of lettuce and about 3/4 cup of roasted veggies. And two scallions sliced thin for a little more oniony-ness. The dressing was just oil, vinegar, sage and pepper. I tried to make up for the lack of herb flavor from the roasted veggies themselves by adding some chopped sage to this, but it still didn't come through. I'd even left it to steep overnight- maybe I'd needed to heat the oil for it to infuse?

My standard practice of making my dressing uber vinegary didn't work well here, either. It was nice to have some contrasting acidic bite, but it was just a little too much.

Tasty salad, but a little refinement needed.

193: Roasted Veggies

So I didn't entirely enact the crazy plan I mentioned in my delivery post, but close. I took a little bit of a number of veggies from this week (butternut squash, potatoes, carrots, and turnips) and a few things that were not (onions, garlic), and tossed those with olive oil, salt, thyme and chopped sage.

Roasted them for ages (stirring every 15 minutes or so), and would've kept it going longer had my knife skills been better and my bits actually chopped the same size. As it is there's a good bit of browning and caramelized sweetness (the turnips are surprisingly sweet), but not the crispy crust you can achieve leaving them in longer.

I thought I'd added a ton of herbage, but I forget some of these things will just fall off in the cooking/stirring process. They're still lovely eaten as is, but would be good with some pasta, quinoa or another preparation I'll have for you all soon.

Delivery 20

Butternut Winter Squash - 1

Turnips - 2

Lettuce - 2 heads Lettuce Smettuce, went for another bunch of radishes again

Broccoli - 1

Radish - 1 bunch

Potatoes - 2 pounds

Garlic - 2 heads

Kohlrabi - 1 bunch

Sage - 1 bunch

Carrots - 1 pound

Hot Peppers - Jalapenos

Cauliflower - 1

I have a bit of a crazyplan this week, just to chop everything up and roast it with the sage. But then I don't have enough sheet trays/oven space/etc.

Turnips

Kinda giant turnips this week. Here's a soup. Fritters with potato and scallions. Frittata. Simple roast.

Cauliflower

Heyyy I got one that wasn't moldy this time! Faux cous cous looks neat (and I love excuses to use the food processor). Spicy roasty cauliflower steaks. Creamy curried soup. And a curry with potatoes.

Jalapenos

Part of the reason I was able to build up so many habaneros for that jelly was they were too spicy to use in normal dishes. Happy to have a few milder everyday peppers to just use as needed.

Garlic

Every time I look at this thing, I just keep thinking of Eraserhead. I'm sorry if that's now stuck in your head. I use garlic all the time, but don't want to just toss this in with a bunch of other flavors. One of my favorite things about the CSA is subtly but profoundly different ingredients taste when they're this fresh. Most likely this will just get roasted and spread on bread like butter.

Butternut Squash

Yay! Butternut squash is one of those foods I adore, but don't order it at restaurants as it's a borderline food. It can be sweet or savory, and I want none of the sweet. Or rather, additional sweet. So no cinnamon or maple syrup please, the squash brings enough of that to the party as is. Roasted squash soup. I have my own favorite soup recipe with rosemary and onions, may try that out. These wontons sound neat, if a little sweet.

Potatoes

Salad with salmon. Pizza dough. First batch that appear to have been cleaned before sending.

Carrots

Roasted carrots and avocado salad. Carrot cake pancakes. Carrots with potatoes and dill. Spoon bread.

Sage

Crispy sage. Pizza with butternut squash. If I didn't still have pate in the freezer I'd make that again.

Radishes

There was a lot of sage (and I mean a lot) on the swap table today, but thankfully my radish-hating friend left an extra bunch for me to swap out. It's more than a little ridiculous that I traded two heads of lettuce for a baby bunch of these radishes (especially when I'm on a salad kick lately), but it happened. Pickles, with cheese and chives on bread, or just with butter and salt. Or I'll just make a bunch of radish roses, and throw them at people.

Broccoli

Broccoli grilled cheese (healthy wha?). Hummus with white beans. Chilled soup (bonus for dill, which I still have from last week).

Kohlrabi

Salad with apples. Slaw with apples. Slaw with turnips.

178: Cauliflower and Eggs in Tomato Sauce

Such high hopes for the dish, but ended up being kind of bland. A few things could've accounted for this: used red tomatoes instead of yellow, used Roma instead of slicing (I make a list for shopping and misremembered which recipe these were for), it was kinda undersalted as well. 

If I were to do this again: none of this blanching/flouring business, saute small florets or roast/broil. Use onion/garlic/more spices and herbs (I threw in some rosemary and sage, because flavor). I can do some lemon in tomato, but here for whatever reason it was jarring. 

Ok, so my changes would make this into a remarkably different dish but I don't mind. Here though I felt it was a bit of a waste of tomatoes and eggs. 

163: Pate Sandwiches

I often eat meals like a cook: awkwardly standing in the kitchen, usually while working on other food (Zing!). These little sandwiches were born of leftovers and super tasty. Though honestly I think anything with pate is going to be delicious.

The bread (as it is) is from IKEA. Just an easy flatbread I picked up to keep in the freezer. It has a weird mild anisey taste so I won't eat it straight up, but it's great for stuff like this. 

I spread the pate on one side, the shallot jam on the other, and tried both kale and radish as filling. I think anything earthy and slightly bitter/peppery would work well. Next time I'd slice more radishes to get a stronger peppery kick. Totally recommended.

156: Sage Liver Pate and Shallot Jam

What happened to eating healthy? Not sure. But that picture is of something super delicious: chicken liver pate and shallot jam on bread. Last night I hate some on a sage biscuit. Sugar on butter on butter.

I used this recipe from The Bitten Word, subbing out sage for thyme. I'm not getting much sage from the final dish though, I'll add more if I do this again. Also I sliightly overcooked my livers- digging into the pate this morning I was hoping to see a little pink, but no luck. But there was bad lighting at home, because guess what I saw when I had some at work:



Slight but there! Yay! Maybe next time I get liver friendly herbage I'll be spot on.

The winner for me in all of this is the shallot jam. Remnicient of my fig jam, it's made with balsamic vinegar, but with brown sugar for extra caramelly depth. The shallots swing it nicely savory and ugh...I could, have, and will continue to just eat it with a spoon. It would be amazing on sandwiches. I need to make more sandwiches.

155: Catchall Soup

So I still had a ton of stuff left from the last delivery, and honestly I'm worn out. I started an internship at a local brunchy place on the weekends- so I do my normal 9-5 during the week, then head down to work on prep Friday afternoons, and then work from 8-6 Saturday and Sunday. Line cooking. Standing, making toast and potatoes, doing the particular dance required of four people moving around each other in a space smaller than my apartment's kitchen. I'm loving the hell out of the work, just not the lack of time off. And I'm going through a bout of insomnia. Meh. Grumpy McComplainerson.

I felt/feel a cold coming on: soup was in order. Just to warn you, a have a feeling soup will be my new salad. Simple seeming but totally baffling for me. This was fine but largely meh. I used leftover veggie broth (supplimented with some turkey stock I had in the freezer), shallots, garlic, zucchini, potatoes, chard, sage, parsley and a little thyme. Tasted, it was pretty bland.

Added lots of pepper, more salt some smoked paprika. Still, I wasn't feeling it. There was a decent improvement with some of my basil vinegar and some liquid aminos, but overall it's not worth my posting a recipe.

My standard soup for feeling sick is simple: chicken broth, lots of onion, rosemary, and either zucchini or butternut squash. This was missing something, and I'm pretty sure it was copious amounts of onion. But next time I'll actually look up a recipe before embarking on a soup adventure.

152: Sage Biscuits

Finally: biscuits. I've caved. With the cupcakes and the soon-to-be pate, I'm just going all out butter and sugar lately. It's ok, I had yogurt and veggies for lunch.

Something was a little off in the proportions for this recipe. They wanted me to make a 7"x7"x1" shape with the dough, but that definitely wasn't happening with what the ingredients created. And I'm still (per usual) having browning issues with my oven, despite leaving the dough a good extra 7 minutes to do its thing in there.

But biscuits = butter = delicious, so it's little petty squabbling. They're mighty tasty, and I'm hoping that letting them hang out overnight will help that sage flavor infuse a little more. Any leftovers will get thrown in the freezer for future breadless breakfasts.

147: Herb Scrambled Eggs and 148: Smoky Chard Stems

It's hard for me to make a simple breakfast, or I can, but need bread. Without it I'm a little lost. Also the daylight situation in my kitchen in the mornings is throwing off my photos.

Eggs were easy- wanted to use up herbage, so I chopped up some sage and thyme. Eggs in a pan with (too much health-wise, enough delicious-wise) oil and butter, started the eggs, then tossed in the herbs soon after. My scrambles tend to be on the stove for less than a minute, product of a love of soft eggs and a super hot burner.

Accompaniment was a little harder. I decided on a quick saute of chard stems. Started some onion petals in a pan with oil, cooked until they were getting soft, then turned up the heat and threw in the chard stems (thick part had been cut in half). Kept stirring so they wouldn't stick, then tossed in a little smoked paprika towards the end for good measure.

The eggs were delicious. Not completely sold on the stems. They're fibrous and a little hard to eat. Flavors were good though.

Delivery 15

Bright Lights Swiss Chard - 1 bunch

Winter Squash - 2

Orient Express Eggplant - 2

Sage-1 bunch

Mustard Greens - 1 bunch

Bok Choy - 1 bunch

Shallots - 4

Cabbage - 1

Potatoes - 2 pounds

Peppers - 2

Hot Peppers - take if you like

Bok Choy

Not my favorite, but happy to have greens again. May give this away (I know one of my roommates is a fan) or will do something simple. Like a stir fry or roast. Here's a little roundup.

Chard

Have a dinner, so may remake that dip I forgot to take pics of. Also this comic is lovely and has a few ways of cooking the veg (and I'm starting to get a little obsessed with Dirt Candy). It'd also be a good mix with the squash and sage. Here it is creamed from smitten kitchen- a preparation I haven't tried yet.

Sage

Excited, as it means I get to buy chicken liver again. Liking the looks of this recipe, especially that it includes a recipe for shallot jam! I may have a little thyme in the fridge as well. Beyond that: a huuge roundup of recipe ideas. Also: biscuits.

Shallots

The aforementioned shallot jam, but otherwise using in everything, as shallots are so tasty.

Orient Express Eggplant

I'm considering something beyond Baynan Bharta. I think it's time for a longer break until I can taste the original. I have a cool recipe for jam from the Dirt Candy cookbook, or maybe babaganoush. Here's a stir fry, and a few from Macheesmo. More roasty from Bon Appetit.

Cabbage

Peanut Slaw from Cook's Illustrated (via Martha). I'm continuing to run low on ideas haha. Also the swap table was ENTIRELY cabbage, which was fairly hilarious. Here's a roundup (these are my favs, skimming). Also: fritters.

Potatoes

I have a ton of recipes from potato's earlier appearances in deliveries. Here's some bread (tired Kelly is a carb-craving Kelly)

Squash

Roasty toasty. These are most likely carnival squash. These would be good stuffed. Oh hey here's a pinterest board of recipes! Fav, skimmin: stuffed with spaghetti (sucker for an egg yolk!). Here's a preparation for acorn that I'd totally try out with this.

Peppers

Happy I remembered spicy peppers this time- not 100% sure what the big peppers are, but will probably just dice them and throw them into something.

Mustard Greens

Yay! So happy to see this guy again. I love this spicy green, may just do a raw salad. Here are a few from Martha. Here's an Indian dish! Salad with bulgur, another with garlic mayo, and another Indian preparation to round out the ideas.

Dish 20: Sage & Chard Risotto

It had been a few years since I made risotto, so I read up on technique. It ended up tasty and comforting, though I'm not sure my temp was right during the toasting stage, and my pan to batch size ratio was probably off. The main problem with the first batch- years ago- was I'd taken the rice too far. But this still have a little bite which was nice. Some improvement. It was still wonderfully comforting and delicious- even though it got above 90 today.

I started with shallots and garlic. Butter and a little olive oil. My stock was homemade- turkey stock made and frozen a few months ago. I added the last of my sage and some of the new chard I'd gotten in towards the end. Neither of the latter flavors was especially pronounced in the final batch, though. I added a little pecorino at the end for extra creaminess. And a huge pinch of black pepper to cut through that creaminess.

There are a few servings of leftovers- have plans for some of that, too.

Notes for improvement:
- Make a larger batch or use a smaller pan
- Use less concentrated stock
- Add herbs/veg a little earlier so the flavors integrate a little more
- If using chard or another leafy veg- cut the ribbons thinner or shorter