240: Garlicky Kale and Quinoa with Sweet Potatoes

A mess. Not bad, and only a tenuous CSA connection (hey garlic!), but hard to make this one look pretty. Sauteed kale with onions, added the garlic on the late side to leave it nice and pungent. Mixed with quinoa and served with a sweet potato. It needed more moisture of time kind (wanted to add beans and have a bit of broth to it, but couldn't find them in my cupboard), or a better savory : sweet potato ratio.

Leftovers: Beet Ketchup (231) in Action

Thanksgiving leftovers, meet CSA leftovers. Can't see the Beet Ketchup in there? Here you go:

A little goes a long way with this guy. Borrowed some regular bread from the roommate (too tired/lazy to walk someplace decent), a little beet ketchup, kale, turkey and goat cheese.

It was good, but needed a little something.

Version 2.0 at work the next day. The same, but (slightly) better bread and the addition of sweet potato. The ketchup ended up a little too vinegary/clove-y, so the added sweetness helped temper that a bit. I'd probably go a little lighter on it next time, get better bread, and shred the turkey- or at least make thinner slices as opposed to the hunks featured here.

It did help make everything lovely and rainbow colored, though. Leftovers ftw.

239: Kale Salad with Garlic Beet Vinaigrette

This does have share ingredients in it- two, in fact. A little brine from my pickled beets, and some garlic. They exist in the dressing, along with a little olive oil, salt, pepper and dijon mustard. The salad itself is just kale.

In love with the color, the flavor is nice but obviously very simple. And super garlicly. Would at least add some scallions next time, maybe a little goat cheese or apple.

238: Turnips with Yogurt and Tomatoes

So my yogurt sauce separated. To be fair the picture accompanying this Saveur recipe seems to show a little separation, too. Don't get me wrong, this tastes lovely, but looks mean a lot with food and I'm not sure I'd serve this to someone else... at least until I figured out what happenend.

Part of it is my ratio- I only used one (large) turnip and scaled back everything...except still used one whole tomato. More liquid = longer heating to thicken the sauce = yogurt graininess. I also read that high fat yogurt will hold up better to heat (this was fat free), so were I try this again I'd have a few avenues for improvement. There is another yogurt dish I've been meaning to try with the remaining bits of my share, maybe I'll put it into practice there.

237: Beet and Carrot Latkes

One of my more favorite things about beets is how ...bloody they are. Cut up a bunch and it looks like you murdered someone. Make a batch of pickles and dye your onions a lovely shade of pink. And, as I demonstrated with me beet burgers a while back, make the rarest veggie burgers ever. 

So no, those aren't raw meat patties with my eggs, they're beet and carrot latkes, which I made for thanksgivukkah, despite the whole not being Jewish thing.

It was as easy as grating a few medium beets, carrots and an onion, then binding with an egg and some flour, adding salt and pepper to taste. Fry them up in a pan with oil, then let them dry out in a low oven a bit. As always I am impatient and could've stood to leave mine on a little longer to get some color and crispness, but I didn't realize my family was expecting them for breakfast and I was in a rush to get them out.

Totally recommended. Fritter all the things. 

236: Curried Brussels Sprouts

This looks so freaking...festive. I used this recipe from Saveur, though my Brussels were so small (and only 1/3 of what the recipe called for) the recipe was more a guide. But this style of curry reminds me of ones I've done before so I knew the road map pretty well and just adjusted as I went.

I used a scallion instead of onion/garlic, as that was the most readily available thing I had. Most of the spices went down to pinches, and I kept the whole tomato because, you know, tomatoes are the best. I only wish I could remember where I'd put my hing, though it was lovely without it.

My only complaint was that I lost too much of that great roasted Brussels flavor- so next time I'd probably notch down on the spices a bit, or eat it night of. The curry-ness only gets stronger if you give it time in the fridge.

(Off Share) Apple Cranberry Jam

Cold weather means I want to stay inside by the oven all day. Or at least I don't mind. I had apples leftover from the freebie bag I got the other week, so I decided to make a tiny batch of jam with fresh cranberries, as those were on sale at Whole Foods this week.

I based this off this recipe from Food in Jars, subbing out some of the sugar with honey and adding a little fresh ginger. I would post the recipe, but while I'm completely confident it's acidic enough to not let botulism grow, I don't have a pH tester (yet?), and I don't want to, you know, kill anyone just in case I'm foiled by my own hubris.

The results are crazy vibrantly red- like "ok, this is probably all chemicals" red- and, as jam generally is for me, much much too sweet to eat on its own. But it'll be lovely in oatmeal.