Crocktober: Fresh Ham Roast

We're Fall meat shareholders with 8 o'clock Ranch out of New York state, and in this month's box we got a 2-3/4 pound fresh ham roast. I scoured the internet for a recipe for slow cooker ham roast and didn't find anything that really jumped out at me. After reading several recipes ranging from Paula Deen to Chowhound I came across a short and simple recipe involving apples and brown sugar, sounds like a perfect fall dish to me!

Recipe:
1 fresh ham
1/2 cup brown sugar
sliced apples (I used two medium and one small apple)
ceramic slow cooker

Spray the slow cooker lightly with an olive oil or vegetable oil spray. Place the ham in the bottom of the cooker and sprinkle the brown sugar over the top. Wash and slice the fresh apples and arrange around the sides of the ham. Slow cook for 8-10 hours on low or for 4-6 hours on high.

I'll be serving this with homemade mashed potatoes using the potatoes from the farm CSA box and the cooked apples.

Crocktober: Apple Butter

Making Apple Butter
Apple butter was such a delicious treat growing up! We'd spread it on peanut butter sandwiches, in peanut butter quesadillas, add it to hot oatmeal for breakfast and eat it straight out of the jar.

To make apple butter you first need apple sauce:
10-15 pounds of apples, washed, cored and chopped (your choice to peel or not)
large stock pot with 2 inches of filtered water

Bring the apples to a boil then reduce to simmer for about 20 minutes until the apples are mushy. Remove from heat and let cool, lid removed, for about half an hour or so. Using a blender, immersion blender or food processor, puree the apples into desired consistency.

Now to make apple butter:
homemade apple sauce
ceramic slow cooker (large enough to fit your quarts of applesauce)
2 tblsp. cinnamon
honey to taste (maybe a cup)
2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. allspice

Combine ingredients in the slow cooker and set on the low heat setting (8-10 hours). Apple butter needs to be cooked down, slowly, so that the liquid in the sauce evaporates. To accomplish this the lid needs to be left ajar. I used two long bamboo skewers, kabob style, to hold the lid above the seal to let the steam escape but to prevent the bubbling liquid from splattering all over the counter.

Ten hours later you should have a very thick, aromatic sauce ready for consumption! You can freeze some for later in the season, and reserve some for use over the coming week. Enjoy!

Crocktober: October 1st - Purple Rice Pudding

I love using stoneware slow cookers this time of year! Bubbling liquids, wafting aromas and big batches of produce to "put-by" for use later in the season.

Today's recipe is inspired by Judith Finlayson's The Vegetarian Slow Cooker.

What you'll need:
1-1/2 cups Thai Sticky Rice (I'm using purple)
4 cups of water
1/2 cup of sweetener (I'm using vegan cane sugar, but I'll bet honey would be awesome!)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt (optional)
1 can of coconut milk (I like Thai Kitchen's unsweetened coconut milk)
Fresh fruit and nuts for topping

I brought the water and rice to a boil in a saucepan on the stove top, boiling for two full minutes on high. Then removed it from the heat to stir in the sugar and vanilla and a tiny pinch of sea salt.

With the slow cooker setup I gave it a quick spray of cooking oil to prevent sticking and then poured the hot, purple liquid in to cook. You can cook this on either a high setting, or start it at night to cook through to morning! I bet this would make an awesome breakfast dish with a touch less sugar.

Once it has finished cooking in the slow cooker add the coconut milk and stir thoroughly. Serve with pieces of fresh or dried fruit like banana and mango and some toasted almond slivers or a sprinkling of flake/shredded coconut. Yum!

Meal Plan for Week of July 18th

It is hot, who really wants to cook in this weather? ME, ME!!

Saturday (last) night we came home from the water park and were somehow energized to make an amazing dinner that most local restaurants could never compete with. It went like this:
- fresh mango margaritas
- sweet potato fries with cilantro garlic aiello
- plantain-bean veggie burger (the SO had a traditional frozen beef burger)

Here's what is on the menu for this week:

Monday
Breakfast: Mango Yogurt Smoothie
Lunch: Mediterranean Antipasto Salad (tuna for the SO, no tuna for me)
Dinner: Ravioli from the farmers market

Tuesday
Breakfast: Bagel from farmers market
Lunch: Leftover Veggie Burger patty from Saturday night
Dinner: Corn Chowder

Wednesday
Breakfast: Cream of Buckwheat Kasha with shredded cheese
Lunch: Risotto on a bed of salad greens
Dinner: Ravioli from the farmers market

Thursday
Breakfast: Breakfast smoothie
Lunch: Leftover chowder
Dinner: BrokeAss Gourmet's Tomato Tart

Friday I am leaving open to whatever fun things come in Thursday's box of treats, aka the CSA share.

Depending on my workload here are the desserts I am planning to work into this week's cooking:
Watermelon Yogurt Ice
Key Lime Pies

Weekly Meal Plan for June 14th

I'll admit it - I have a severe lazy streak for weekday cooking. Between long days at the office and a zillion other things I like to do with my downtime cooking often gets the short end of the stick. But I love to eat. Hrrm. So this week's meal plan is all about delicious meals that can be made quickly, or can cook while I sleep or while I'm at the office.

Monday, June 12th
Breakfast - Orange-flavored Breakfast Barley with Cranberries & Pecans (from The Vegetarian Slow Cooker pg 31)
Lunch - Mango and Avocado Salad with Cilantro
Dinner - Slow cooker Cabbage Borscht (from The Vegetarian Slow Cooker)

Tuesday, June 14th
Breakfast - Wake Up Smoothie - banana, plain greek yogurt, strawberries
Lunch - Vegetarian Reuben Sandwich
Dinner - Wheat Berry Black Bean Chili (inspired by this recipe)

Wednesday, June 15th
Breakfast - Overnight oatmeal
Lunch - Vegetarian BLT (fake bacon)
Dinner - Leftover Borscht

Thursday, June 16th
Breakfast - Creamy Grits
Lunch - Chickpea Salad Sandwich
Dinner - Leftover chili

Aquapocalypse, or boiling water isn't so bad

A few days with the boil water order brought a surge of memories from the days at Casa de las Rosas on Los Tulipanes street in San Antonio Tlayacapan. 44 kilometers from the metropolis of Guadalajara this sleepy village had a year-round non-potable water issue. But this was life in San Antonio - every morning the village had the water turned on to fill the rooftop tinaco (see the black tank in the upper right at picture above) with non-potable water for bathing and laundry. Once a week we would run out to catch the agua truck and grab a few 5-gallon bottles for drinking and cooking.

With the lobster pot at a rolling boil in Stoneham, my mind was transported to Central Mexico and the daily chore of working with two different kinds of water. But my Stoneham residence is missing an avocado tree, and we don't have Marta's piping hot tortilla service down the street so I'm happy to have the order lifted and potable water running through my faucets again! How did you fair in the great "Aquapocalypse" of 2010?

My CSA Passover

We celebrated Passover this year with a couple of great friends on Sunday evening (had to adjust for work conflicts on Monday evening, the official start of Passover). I hadn't participated in this Jewish holiday since I was 14 so it took some hours of pouring through search engine results to prepare everything.

I was able to use sweet potatoes, yukon potatoes, red potatoes, carrots, and apples from the farm share when cooking and preparing our meal.


The menu:
*Mock Chicken Soup from Vegetarians in Paradise
*Vegetarian Matzoh Balls from Epicurious
*Basic Chicken Broth Soup for the non-vegetarians at the table
*Potato Mushroom Kugel (pictured to the left)
*Apple Charoset
*Sweet Potato Kugel (pictured above)

Barley Brownies

This week's CSA gave me a bounty of Barley flour. I've used a whole slew of grain flours but can't recall ever using barley in baking before. So I did some online sleuthing and discovered the awesomeness of barley flour recipes! :-)

This afternoon I baked up a small batch of Bob's Red Mill Barley Brownies. I LOVE carob - both chips and powder - so this was quite the treat for my tastebuds. I used Himalayan salt instead of sea salt and added a smidgen more chopped walnuts than the recipe called for.

I'd love to find a version that doesn't include a half cup of vegetable oil, it seemed a little overkill for that much oil. Maybe I'll experiment with some oil and applesauce ratios...or do another google search.

(image Copyright David Thomson)

CSA Arugula: Chickpea Soup with Arugula

In February I tried Martha Stewart's Pasta with Roasted Vegetables and Arugula. It was delicious! I crumbled some Feta cheese on top which really ramped up the dish for me - I literally had 3 bowls of this before I forced myself to stop!

Last night I wanted to try something different with my CSA Arugula so I scoured the internet for recipes until I stumbled across Epicurious' Chickpea Soup with Arugula. Arugula, in a soup? Had to try it!

I used two of the carrots from the CSA box, a few leaves of just-picked basil from my AeroGarden, *two* cans of chickpeas, and the entire can of tomato paste (who uses only a tablespoon? what do you do with the rest of the can??). Oh, I also left off the cheese - it really didn't need it.

The soup was nice and the arugula wilted up a bit but still had a little crispness to it. I used the stick blender (thanks Uncle Ron and Aunt Leslie for the awesome wedding gift!) to puree about 1/4 of the soup which thickened the soup up just a bit.

The CSAs are coming the CSAs are coming!

For the first time in nearly a decade I'm involved in a CSA again. I'm tickled pink over it!

Back "home" in the mountains we had a very large organic garden with all of the accoutrements:
*Chickens - for fertilizer + eggs
*Goats - for fertilizer + milk
*Dogs - to chase the bears out of the compost
*Compost heap - those crunchy garden supply places have nothing on my momma's compost heap
*Recycled wooden pallets - for the potato growing boxes

At one time I signed up for a CSA that included manual labor as part of the program. You'd pay a reduced fee for volunteering a certain number of hours on the farm during peak planting or harvesting times. It was a lot of fun being shoulder-to-shoulder with other foodies while we tilled up the soil.

Alas my current home has the backyard equal to the square centimeters of the first class postage stamp with a 95% chance of shade from mid-June through September. I've become quite adept at container gardening but often the squirrels beat me to the harvest.

So here's my first box of the half share from Heavens Harvest Farm. Isn't it lovely? This is a half bushel of fresh fruit and vegetables - plenty for my partner and I for a week!

I can't wait to start trying out all manner of recipes as the CSA continues for the next 10 weeks.

Birth of the weekly meal planner

If you give up half of your Sunday to plan and shop for over a week's worth of meals you can't just let that go can you? Well, neither could I!

It all started with a subscription to Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine. Each month this full-color, pocketbook-sized magazine landed in my mailbox and I cherished it. Recipes emphasized seasonal cooking, relative quick preparation, but with a dash of inspiration - be an exotic-sounding spice, or a cooking technique that required a new gadget from Williams Sonoma.

Then when Fall arrived last year I started swapping meals with a friend. I'd cook a large batch of something, she'd cook a large batch of something and we'd give each other a dish that could be frozen or warmed for serving. Genius! I began making lists of different dishes I could create throughout the week, on a whim. One list read: slow cooker arroz con queso, wild rice and mushroom casserole, tortellini soup, sweet potato-peanut bisque, and so forth. At random I would pick something from this list on my fridge and make it for dinner that night. Fresh new recipes, inspired dinners, I loved being in the kitchen.

After returning from vacation recently I discovered I needed more structure. The inner workaholic wasn't giving me a break - I'd forget all of cool breakfast options I had available and *settle* for toast or a boring bowl of oatmeal. Blah!

The Weekly Menu Planner was born - I googled for the perfect template that included everything I wanted: three squares, a snack column, reminders for the following day's meal prep, a grocery list and an area for notes. Then with the help of the most recent issues of Everyday Food and EatingWell magazines I dove in. This is what my first week looks like (keeping in mind that I'm a vegetarian who enjoys a little dairy, doesn't like eggs and struggles with breakfast, lol):

*Monday 2/1*
Breakfast - Savory Polenta with mushrooms and cheddar
Lunch - Black bean, brown rice, lettuce tortilla wrap
Dinner - Whole grain rigatoni with roasted vegetables and wilted arugula

*Tuesday 2/2*
Breakfast - Jamaican oatmeal
Lunch - leftover pasta from Monday night
Dinner - Veggie stir-fry (hubby's will have shrimp) with brown rice

*Wednesday 2/3*
Breakfast - Hot rice breakfast drink (using leftover rice from Tuesday night's dinner)
Lunch - Marscapone and strawberries sandwiches, handful of roasted almonds
Dinner - Baked Tostadas (hubby's will have canned pink salmon)

*Thursday 2/4*
Breakfast - Savory breakfast muffins (with veggie bacon)
Lunch - Mango Dal with brown rice
Dinner - Cabbage soup

*Friday 2/5*
Breakfast - Blueberry, banana protein smoothie with whole grain toast
Lunch - Feta, hummus, veggie tortilla wrap
Dinner - Warm apple and lentil salad, sauteed kale (cooking lamb for hubby's main course)

*Saturday 2/6*
Breakfast - Blueberry-Ricotta Pancakes
Lunch - Chickpea salad sandwich (egg salad sandwich for hubby)
Dinner - Treat! Go out for dinner

*Sunday 2/7*
Breakfast - Breakfast burritos (without eggs for me, with for the hubby)
Lunch - Baked tamale pie
Dinner - Honey Ginger stir fry (with chicken for hubby)

*Monday 2/8*
Breakfast - Brown rice porridge with honey and almonds (using leftover rice)
Lunch - Leftover tamale pie
Dinner - Black bean soup