What's in the box, 1/14/15 edition

In the box this week:

Butternut squash, rainbow carrots, potatoes, kohlrabi, hakurei turnips, leeks, pea tendrils, popcorn, and daikon radishes. No purple top turnips, although I still have last week's sitting in the fridge.

Why I didn't do a lot of cooking at home last week:

On the left hand side of the photo above, taken at sunset, you can see a Clearpath Robotics' Kingfisher robot. I was invited to participate in a robot testing session at McGill's Bellairs Research Institute in Barbados, where I saw many robot systems over the three days I was there.

Rainbow carrots in the box; real rainbow on the beach.

Sounds like there's more butternut squash coming my way...

The Boston Globe had a story on CSAs last week. In it, Farmer Chris mentioned that the farm has 20,000 pounds of butternut squash ready for an institution like a college or hospital. As I read the article, I found myself thinking that there's more squash in my future....

Salad bar: Beets, panzanella, and pomegranates

Some of the salads I made over the past couple of weeks:

A beet and clementine salad, with feta and walnuts, dressed with peach balsamic and olive oil.

I left out a half baguette by mistake, so turned the stale bread into panzanella. I roasted some escarole to chop into the salad. Not traditional, but I thought it worked well. Dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

I made "Oregon salad", but substituted pomegranate seeds for the hazelnuts. The colors were quite intense before the salad was dressed.

Finally, a composed salad of spinach (from the winter market at Russell's), yellow beets, blood orange, goat's milk feta, and pepitas. I dressed the salad with peach balsamic, olive oil, and a grind of fresh black pepper.

What's in the box, 1/7/15 edition

First box of the new year: carrots, watermelon radishes, butternut squash, green cabbage, potatoes, leeks, purple top turnips, and pea tendrils.

I'm wondering if the pea tendrils could be made into soup. I'd have to blend it very well to make all of the stems disappear, most likely. Perhaps I'll give it a try.

Links: Soups, salads, and quesadillas

Joy the Baker's citrus and greens salad. I'd probably modify the recipe to remove the celery and possibly change the parsley to mint (although I'm not sure about mint and avocado together). But it looks like a good idea to combine many types of citrus with some salad ingredients.

Food52's persimmon, radish and watercress salad, continuing the fruit and greens thought.

Beets and citrus, although we don't have very many beets left in the fridge. We don't tend to get too many storage beets from the farm in the winter, but perhaps this winter will be different. More beets, please!

Two butternut squash soup recipes, because I still have 4 large butternut squash in my pantry:

• Butternut squash soup with miso and coconut
• Thomas Keller's butternut squash soup with brown butter

I'm going to try the one with miso and coconut milk first.

Mushroom, kale and goal cheese quesadillas from Joy the Baker. This reminds me of the mushroom, goat cheese, and caramelized onion quesadillas from Whole Foods, of which I am quite fond.

Parsnip puree with hazelnuts

I asked the husband to peel me some parsnips the other night. He made art: a parsnip forest.

I used the parsnips to make a puree with chopped hazelnuts. Boil the parsnips, chopped into evenly sized pieces, until soft. If you don't have really big chunks, it'll probably take 10-15 minutes. During this time, roast some hazelnuts on the stove top and then chop them (after they cool a bit).

Drain and puree the parsnips with some milk, butter, salt and pepper. Then stir in the chopped hazelnuts.

I found that the hazelnuts added some good flavor and texture to the puree. Husband suggests that a finer chop of the hazelnuts might have been better.

We also made some leeks to accompany our dinner, using this recipe for leeks cooked in butter and brown sugar.

 We served the parsnip puree and leeks with scallops (for me) and trout (for the husband).

Happy 2015!

Happy new year! We rang in the new year with chocolate mousse with olive oil and salt, something I've made a few times for special occasions. It's really easy to make.

The recipe calls for at least 70% chocolate. I used two bars of 85% and one half bar of 90% to get to 9 ounces of chocolate. It turned out very dense and a bit bitter. Go for 70% if you'd like it a bit sweeter. I think I'll go back to 70% the next time I make it.)

I chopped the chocolate in the food processor, as suggested in the recipe.

I then heated one cup of whipping cream and poured it over the chocolate in a metal bowl.

After 2-3 minutes, gently stir the melting chocolate and cream together.

Move it to a small bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit on the counter for at least 4 hours.

Serve with a good olive oil and good salt. If you want less, cut the recipe in half. At this amount, it makes enough for 6-8 servings.

If you have leftovers, it can be refrigerated, but will need to be brought back to room temperature before serving it again.