Spiralized daikon noodles

Hey there. It's been a while.

Didn't think to take a photo last night, given my lack of blogging over the past couple of years, but wanted to add a link to this recipe for peanut noodles made from spiralized daikon radish, if only so I can find it again. We have a lot of daikon in the fridge and I got a spiralizer as a gift last year, so I did some web searching yesterday. I would highly recommend the recipe. It would likely work with coarsely grated daikon as well, although it'd be less noodle-like. Matchstick cuts would probably work better.

What's in the box, 4/29/15 edition

In last week's box:

Popcorn, apples, chives, bread, parsnips, and sorrel. While the other boxes last week included stinging nettles, the farmers at Siena Farms were very nice to me and switched some extra parsnips and sorrel for the bag of nettles, given that I learned last year that I was allergic to them.

Also in the picture are some garlic shoots (lower right hand corner).

Now that the weather is finally warming up (I read in the Boston Globe that when the temperature was in the 80s on Monday, it was our first day above 70 since October), our asparagus is starting to grow.

I cut these stalks on Sunday, then another few stalks yesterday. Not enough to roast, but plenty for adding to salads (salad bar post coming soon).

Baked potatoes with chive yogurt and sautéed mushrooms

We've received lots of potatoes this winter. With the chives in the recent week's box, I decided to make baked potatoes. I washed the potatoes and cut an X into each one. Then I put them into my toaster oven at 325 for an hour.

In the meantime, I made greek yogurt with chives. I also mix in some salt and pepper.

Let chill in the refrigerator to let the chives meld into the yogurt.

I also sliced some cremini mushrooms and sautéed them in butter.

I didn't time them, but I probably cooked them about 15 minutes.

I served the mushrooms and chive yogurt...

...with the finished baked potatoes.

To eat, cut a potato open on your plate and top with as much or as little of each of the toppings. You could add a grated cheese as well, but I held off. (Long time readers will likely find it shocking that I declined an opportunity to use some cheese.)

We had spinach with almonds and raisins with this dinner. Husband had meat too, of course.

Carrots roasted on coffee beans

Last year, I saw this recipe for slow roasting carrots on coffee beans. We didn't get any coffee beans in the boxes last spring, so I didn't try it. However, this year we did get some whole beans.

I went through the carrots in the fridge to find the thinnest ones that I could find.

Peel the carrots, then toss them in olive oil, salt and pepper. I decided to skip the garlic that was listed in the recipe.

Measure out one cup of coffee beans.

Heat your pan for 5 minutes over medium heat, empty. Then turn off the heat and add the beans. Shake for three minutes.

Three minutes is a really long time....

Then put the carrots on the beans.

Roast them at 225 degrees for 2-3 hours. I took mine out around 2.5 hours, as I needed to cook my biscuits in a 400 degree oven.

I'm not really sure what I think about them. (For the husband, it was very clear. He did not like them at all.) I'd eat a small one and think, this is awful. But then I'd go back for another, thinking that the flavor was interesting. I did find myself thinking that I shouldn't eat many of them, given it was the evening and it tasted like I was having coffee. 

Overall, the coffee flavoring was too strong. If a similar thing were done at a modernist restaurant, the coffee taste would be much more subtle. There was nothing subtle about the coffee in this recipe.

I served them with vegetarian baked beans and parsnip biscuits. Husband added some country ham to his plate. The carrots definitely were better when eaten with the beans then when they were sampled on their own right out of the oven, probably because the beans provided a strong counterpart. That said, I still couldn't eat many of them, and I ended up composting many of the carrots. If you decide to try this recipe, I'd recommend trying it with just a few carrots, so that you don't waste them if you don't like the strong coffee flavor.

What's in the box, 4/22/15 edition

In this week's box:

Purple top turnips, sourdough bread, russet potatoes, apples, spinach, pea tendrils, chives, and popcorn.

We have far too many ears of popcorn in the pantry now. I'm not going to count, but I know it's at least 6 bags of 4 ears. I don't think we could ever get through this much popcorn. Is there anything you can do with it besides eating lots of it for snacks?

I've been working through the purple top turnips by making turnip soup with hazelnuts both this weekend and last weekend. At the moment, my fridge is free of purple top turnips. I am hoping that I won't find more in this coming week's box, but I'd take more turnips over more popcorn.

We also went to the new Babbo on Fan Pier in Boston this weekend, where we tried razor clams with oil and garlic...

...and pea agnolotti...

...and olive oil gelato with strawberry granita, lime curd, candied pignoli, and a basil sauce. (The basil sauce was really, really good on the olive oil gelato.)

It is excellent to have Babbo here in Boston. It's less formal than the Babbo in NYC, but the food is just as good. Mario Batali was even in the restaurant while we were there. They also serve pizzas, but we didn't try them on this trip.

Itty bitty beets

I had two quart sized bags of "baby beets" from the farm in my fridge, so I decided to roast them. It took over a half hour to peel them. (I peel before roasting. Despite what everyone says about it being easier after roasting, I think it's easier to peel with a paring knife before roasting.)

 Here they are after roasting.

I mixed them with some feta and pepitas for a simple salad.

Variations on a theme: butternut squash salad

In an attempt to use the large backlog of butternut squash, I've recently made butternut squash salad with Israeli couscous and butternut squash salad with wheat berries, pecans, and cranberries.

Since then, I've tried making it with orzo. It was a bit too mushy, but still edible.

I also made the wheat berry version again, but just with cranberries, no pecans. The cranberries were from this past week's box.

For those of you counting at home, I just have two butternut squash left in my pantry.