CSA: Greensgrow Farm Share

Posted by Erin L. in CSA - Community Supported Agriculture and tagged with aubergine, basil, beet, beets, blog, brown rice, carrot, carrots, cheese, cooking, csa, cucumber, dinner, eggplant, eggs, entree, farm, farm share, farms, farmshare, feta, food, greensgrow, herbs, kale, mushroom, mushrooms, onion, parmesan, pasta, peach, peaches, pepper, Philadelphia, photo, pics, pictures, plum, plums, produce, radish, red pepper, rice, saute, scallion, scallions, shrimp, snap peas, spicy, squash, strawberries, strawberry, stuffed, Superior, tomato, tomatoes, vegetables, white wine, wine, yellow August 25, 2010

This summer, I had an especially good reason to be in my kitchen – my share from Greensgrow Farms. An urban farm tucked amongst residences off of Port Richmond’s Aramingo Ave., Greensgrow Farms is a shining gem of hope in the effort for more farm to table/home options. Lush latticed chain link fence surrounds a full city block of greenhouses, vegetable starters, fresh herbs, flowering & fruit plants – just about anything you could imagine to fulfill your urban gardening needs.

Every other week, my sister and I split a surplus of vegetables, fruit, & dairy from the self-serve farmstand. I had alot of fun exploring the freshest of ingredients, especially those I’ve never cooked with before. Along the way, I managed to capture some moments for your viewing pleasure and in the hopes of encouraging you to eat & buy local.

Urban Greenhouse

Courtesy of Cactus Dan

Plant Pots

Welcome to the Greensgrow CSA

CSA Week 1

(1) bunch each of Scallions & Asparagus - Week 1

(1) bunch of Radishes - CSA Week 1

Greensgrow CSA - Week 3

Beet, Carrot, & Squash Saute w. Brown Rice

CSA Week 9

Spicy Red Pepper Pasta (Superior Pasta Co.) & Pesto

Spicy Shrimp Stuffed Aubergine

I love every part of the current surge in farmer’s markets, CSAs, urban farms, eating local, and eating fresh. It feels good to be a part of the Greensgrow CSA and to cook with meaningful ingredients. I’m just as excited to be hosting a Farm to Table Dinner at Marathon in early October with produce supplied by and benefiting Emerald Street Urban Farm.

To Taste: Flavored Finishing Salts collabo w. Sunshine

Posted by Erin L. in To Taste ~ Recipe and tagged with bacon, basil, Blog Full of Jelly, breakaway, breakaway cook, chef, chicken, chicken breast, cook, cooking, craft, crystallized, eric gower, finishing salt, flavored, flavored salts, ginger, grey salt, healthy, herbs, jar, label, lime, mango, oregano, parsley, recipes, salt, salts, sel gris, strawberries, strawberry, Sunshine, thyme, tomato, tomatoes, Vimeo June 13, 2010

Sunshine turned me on to this awesome how-to video on how easy and rewarding it is to make flavored finishing salts. Eric Gower, the handsome personality behind Breakaway Cook, introduces diverse suggestions for ingredients to flavor moist sel gris. I’m beyond envious of his spice shelf and could watch his videos over and over and over.

Creative Use of Salts from Eric Gower on Vimeo.

Sunshine suggested and I agreed that this was a great inspiration for a crafty foodie collaboration! She had also found some mini jam jars that would be perfect vessels to store our new seasonings. We chose an afternoon during my week of leisure between jobs and got to planning our approach.

In the video, Eric Gower makes 4 different salts with lavender, matcha, smoked paprika, & saffron. We couldn’t get our hands on any of those ingredients, so we thought of great flavorings of our own. Sunshine finally located the sel gris at Trader Joe’s that is suggested as the base for our blends and we prepared our ingredients for blending. We heated the oven to about 275degrees and started drying our lime wheels, herbs, mango, & bacon:

Lime Wheels, Bacon, Herbs, & Mango

While our fresh ingredients dried in the oven, we set up the food processing attachment to the Cuisinart stick blender Dre got me for VDay. Quickest way to my heart is through a kitchen gadget! First up was some crystallized ginger we located on a last minute trip to the Asia mart. We ground it and added in about 2 T of the sel gris. A few more seconds of blending and we had so simply made our premier flavored salt.

Crystallized Ginger Salt

Luckily, we saved some fresh mango slices to sample the salt on. It was a perfect pairing!

Crystallized Ginger Salt on Mango

We still had some time to kill while our items dried in the oven. Sunshine found some really fun Victorian-inspired banner designs that we printed out as labels for our jars. We cut and arranged them on the lids with pencil-written names. One already filled and four more to go!

Labeled Salt Jars

The fresh herbs were first to be fully dried so we ground up the basil, thyme, oregano, & parsley. The result looked like a bowl of emerald-speckled diamonds and tasted amazing on fresh tomato slices.

Herb Salt

We whirled up our lime batch next, but I somehow missed getting a decent pic of it. Once the mango was crispy, we added it to two separate batches: one with just mango and another with the addition of bacon for a sweet & smokey approach. Both looked and tasted beautiful.

Mango Salt

Bacon Mango Salt

By this point in the afternoon, we’d downed quite a few Absolut Boston (elderflower & black tea vodka) and Arizona Lemonade cocktails. We moved the party to the patio to snack and focus on sampling all of our salts. I pan-fried chicken breast and sliced some more tomato as simple hosts for the variety of salty tastes.

Flavored Salt Sampling

They were all amazing but our stand-out favorite was definitely the crystallized ginger. We finished up our meal with sliced fresh strawberries… with salts, of course! I’m sure our cholesterol levels were staggering by the end of the day.

Strawberry w. Mango Salt

Even the Baby Kitty joined us for a great afternoon on the patio. She loves to stalk flies from the edge of the garden.

Baby kitty stalking flies

I’m so glad Sunshine stumbled upon this project as it is one of my favorites to date. We have alot of fun ideas on using our salts, so keep an eye out for exciting updates.

Flavored Finishing Salts

Check out Sunshine’s blog post on our crafty flavored finishing salts project on Blog Full of Jelly!

Restaurant Rewind: Max Brenner & the Family

Posted by Erin L. in Family-Style, Restaurant Rewind and tagged with avocado, bun, burger, cilantro-avocado mayonnaise, dinner, family, french fries, fries, lettuce, margarita, Max Brenner, mayo, mayonnaise, Mother's Day, Philadelphia, pickle, restaurant, sandwich, tomato, veggie, veggie burger, waffle fries May 25, 2010

The weekend before Mom’s Day, my sister & I met up with my parents for Sunday dinner. Kerry decided on Max Brenner, a global chain focused on inspiring a new “chocolate culture.” Many a man has named a restaurant after himself and this bald guy seemed a bit suspect. But in the spirit of celebrating Mary Ann’s birthday, it made sense to give our family chocolate lover an indulgent experience. And that is was!

The menu consisted of familiar items with a “Max Brenner Chocolate Culture” twist. It was hard to focus on savory dinner items with a bible of chocolatey confections tempting you, so we made up our minds on dessert before placing our dinner order. I ordered the Veggie Conscious Burger. The soft, herb-flavored patty topped with tomato & avocado engulfed a brioche bun smeared with avocado-cilantro mayo. chili-chocolate powder dusted waffle fries with some yummy spiced mayo dipping sauce sat opposite on the long oblong wooden serving plank. My dad ordered The Brenner Burger and we loved both!

NOTE: 2 pickle spears and I didn’t even have to ask!

Veggie Conscious Burger @ Max Brenner

Dad & I decided to share a side dish as well and were fully impressed with the Black & Tan Beer Battered Vidalia Onion Rings w. Dark Chocolate Ranch. You heard that right – time to get some chocolate Ranch dip in your life!

Black & Tan Beer Battered Vidalia Rings w/ Dark Chocolate Ranch Dressing @ Max Brenner

Kerry was underwhelmed by the fish tacos, but Mary Ann seemed to really enjoy her Deep Bleu Cobb Salad. A sampling on my part deemed it quite tasty & crisp. Rabbit food (complete with ears) done right!

Deep Bleu Cobb Salad @ Max Brenner

Now, on to the important stuff, CHOCOLATE! We were quick to place our dessert order since our minds were already made up. Spoons in hand, the four of us waited for our two selections to arrive. Mary Ann went with the Melting Chocolate Heart, a classic chocolate bomb with a oozing raspberry filling, for a tart & rich end to a great meal.

Melting Chocolate Heart @ Max Brenner

I chose my favorite approach to a dessert crepe – Banana & Hazelnut – finished with a side of ice cream, berries & molten chocolate syrup. Took me back to the La Crêperie truck of my Temple days. I loved it – every last bite & every moment with the fam!

Banana & Hazelnut Cream Crepe @ Max Brenner

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARY ANN!

Quickie: Yogurt & Granola w. Blackberries + BLT w. Sriracha Mayo

Posted by Erin L. in Quickie and tagged with bacon, blackberries, blackberry, blt, bread, breakfast, brunch, food, granola, lettuce, lunch, mayo, mayonnaise, sammie, sandwich, sriracha, toast, tomato, vanilla, yogurt April 25, 2010

Seeing that I work 6 day weeks for 5 weeks straight, I had to make the most of my one & only day off this week. Once I peeled myself out of bed after a much needed sleep session (interrupted too often by allergy/cold induced coughing fits), I knew I needed some fuel to get through the chores on my list. I set out for the kitchen on a quest for Sunday Brunch for 1. 15 minutes later, I came out with a bowl of Dannon Light & Fit Vanilla Yogurt topped with Cascadian Farm Oat & Honey Granola and fresh whole blackberries for the breakfast half of brunch.

Vanilla Yogurt & Granola w. Blackberries

A classic BLT with Sriracha mayo was a perfect match to complete my brunch couple. And so the rainy day laundry & cleaning & bloggin begins…

BLT w. Sriracha Mayo

To Taste: Catfish & Shrimp Po’Boys

Posted by Erin L. in To Taste ~ Recipe and tagged with blog, catfish, celery, cooking, cornmeal, deep fried, dirty rice, Emeril, food, garlic, hot sauce, ketchup, lettuce, long roll, mayo, mayonaise, mustard, New Orleans, po boy, recipe, remoulade, shallots, shrimp, sriracha, Superbowl, tomato, Tony Chachere's February 11, 2010

Last Sunday, the Colts took on the Saints for Superbowl XLIV. I wanted to cook up a dinner in the spirit of the game, but even though we were rooting for Peyton Manning to pull out a win, there’s not much to say about the cuisine of Indiana. Dre suggested a New Orleans flair and requested Po’Boy sammies. We had just gotten thru the first round of Snowpocalypse 2010 and it was a slow, slippery trip to Acme to pick up the rest of the supplies.

Thank goodness for Dre! He found the Green Bean under 28"+ of snow!

I’m still very much in the honeymoon stage with my new Deep Fryer, so I was excited to fry again! I defrosted (2) Catfish fillets & a half dozen U20 Shrimp, rolled them in Cornmeal Flour seasoned with Tony Chachere’s, dipped them in milk, and rolled them in the Cornmeal mixture again for a double layer of flavor & crisp. The Catfish & Shrimp fried up perfectly in only about 5 minutes!

Cornmeal Crusted Catfish Fillet

You can’t make a Po’Boy sandwich without a delicious Remoulade to spread on your roll. I deferred to Emeril’s recipe and pretty much followed it exactly (which is a rarity for me!). The batch ended up being WAY more than we needed for our sammies, and I certainly wished I had cut the recipe in half until I realized I’d have a delicious spread for other sammies all week. I ended up using it on a Griddled Ham, Turkey, & Swiss Sandwich for dinner Tuesday night and on a Ham, Egg, & Swiss Sandwich on a leftover long roll for my snow day breakfast. It was perfectly creamy & spicy with LOTS of flavor!

Spicy Remoulade w/ Shallots, Celery, & Green Onion

I discovered some amazing fresh long rolls from the corner store when picking up salt for the sidewalks. They were no Louisiane French Bread, but were soft & crusty. We split them, spread them with the Spicy Remoulade, and topped them with Romaine, Roma Tomatoes, and our Fried Catfish & Shrimp. Dre prepared Zatarain’s Dirty Rice to pair with our Po’Boys for a perfect New Orleans dinner. Way to go Saints!

Shrimp on our Superbowl Po'Boy Sandwiches

CATFISH & SHRIMP PO’BOY SANDWICHES w/ SPICY REMOULADE

Cajun Fried Catfish & Shrimp
Emeril’s Remoulade Sauce
Romaine Lettuce, Sliced Roma Tomatoes, & Crusty French Bread

Split French Bread or long roll and spread Remoulade Sauce on both sides.
Add Lettuce & Tomato Slices and top with the fried Catfish & Shrimp
Enjoy!

Cajun Fried Catfish & Shrimp

Prepared for (2) people

Catfish Fillets – (2) whole fillets – rinsed, patted dry, & cut in half
U20-25 Raw Shrimp – (6-8) – de-veined, de-shelled, & de-legged
Cornmeal Flour – (1.5) cups
Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning – (3) T
Milk – (1.5) cups – you choice on fat level & use buttermilk if you have it!

Pre-heat deep-fryer or pot of oil to about 350 degrees. Set prepared Catfish & Shrimp aside.
Combine Cornmeal Flour & Tony Chachere’s in a bowl and then spread evenly on a plate.
Lay Catfish Fillets on seasoned Cornmeal mixture and flip to coat each side. Dip each fillet in a bowl of milk and return to Cornmeal mixture to coat again.
Drop coated Catfish filets into hot oil and allow to cook for 5-8 minutes. While cooking, prepare the Shrimp with the same coat with Cornmeal then dip in milk then coat in Cornmeal process.
Remove Catfish once crispy and drain on paper towels. Make sure the oil comes back up to temperature and drop in coated Shrimp. Cook for about 3-5 minutes, until crispy. Drain.

Emeril’s Remoulade Sauce

Makes about 1.5 cups from Emerils.com

Mayonnaise – (1) cup – prepared or homemade
Ketchup – (3) T
Creole Mustard – (3) T – I used Inglehoffer’s Original Stone Ground Mustard
Hot Sauce – (1) tsp – I used sriracha, but any kind you’d like works fine.
Celery – (1) T – julienne, then minced
Shallots – (1) T – minced
Garlic – (1/2) tsp, minced
Green Onion – (2) T, minced
Fresh Ground Black Pepper – to taste

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl.
Chill in fridge at least 15 minutes or until you are ready to use.

Catfish & Shrimp Po'Boy w/ Dirty Rice

To Taste: Red Curry Chicken Pitas & Mashed White Beans

Posted by Erin L. in To Taste ~ Recipe and tagged with beans, cannellini, cannellini beans, chicken, chicken stock, curry, curry paste, dinner, garlic, Greek yogurt, lettuce, mashed, pita, red curry, romaine, S&P, shallots, thyme, tomato, tzatziki, white beans, yogurt February 9, 2010

Friday night, a blizzard was heading our way so I wanted to make a spicy dinner to warm our bellies. I drew inspiration from my Summer Feast with the ladies and decided on to make Chicken Breast marinated in Red Curry Paste & Greek Yogurt again. I whipped up a simple Tzatziki with fresh Dill, Cucumber, Scallions, Garlic, & the remaining Greek Yogurt. They combined perfectly with some Romaine & Tomatoes on Whole Wheat Pitas.

Red Curry Chicken Pitas w/ Cucumber Dill Tzatziki

I came across a recipe for Mashed Cannellini Beans on elly says opa and thought it’d be a perfect side dish for my Red Curry Chicken Pitas. I switched up the rosemary for fresh thyme and simmered the beans with Garlic & Chicken Stock. They look good enough eat even before I mashed them!

Simmering White Beans

After a few smashes with the potato masher & a dash of chili powder, the White Beans were a perfect consistency & pairing for our snowed in dinner. Next time I have to remember a splash of white truffle oil!

Mashed Cannellini Beans w/ Garlic & Fresh Thyme

RED CURRY CHICKEN PITAS w/ MASHED WHITE BEANS

Red Curry Chicken
Cucumber-Dill Tzatziki Sauce
Chopped Romaine Lettuce & Roma Tomatoes
Whole Wheat Pitas
Mashed White Beans w/ Garlic & Fresh Thyme

Stuff Pita halves with Lettuce, Tomato, & Red Curry Chicken. Top with dollops of Tzatziki.
Pair with a hearty scoop of Mashed White Beans and finish them with a dash of Chili Powder on top.
Enjoy!

Red Curry Chicken

Prepared for (2) people

Chicken Breast – (2) breasts – rinsed, patted dry, & cubed
Greek Yogurt – (1/3) of a 6oz container – I prefer Fage Total 0% or 2%
Red Curry Paste – (1) T

Combine Chicken cubes, Greek Yogurt, & Red Curry Paste in a mixing bowl and coat thoroughly. Marinate in fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Heat a saute pan on Medium and add (2) T of Olive Oil.
Once the oil is glistening, add the chicken and brown each side until cooked through. Or you can kebab the marinated Chicken cubes and throw them on the grill.

Cucumber Dill Tzatziki

Makes about (1/2) cup

Greek Yogurt – (2/3) of a 6oz container – I prefer Fage Total 0% or 2%
Cucumber – (1/2) cup – peeled, seeded, halved lengthwise, & sliced thin
Garlic – (1) T, minced
Shallot – (1/2) bulb, sliced paper thin
Fresh Dill – (1) T , chopped
Lemon Juice – (2) tsp
S&P – to taste

Put sliced cucumber in a colander and salt generously. Toss to coat and allow to rest in sink for about 5 minutes to draw out moisture.
Combine drained cucumber and other ingredients in a mixing bowl and fold gently.
Chill for at least 15 minutes in the fridge before using.

Mashed White Beans w/ Garlic & Fresh Thyme

Adapted from elly say opa!’s recipe

Cannellini / White Beans – (1) 15oz can, drained
Garlic – (1) T, minced
Chicken Stock – (1) cup – feel free to use veggie stock instead
Lemon Juice – (2) tsp
Fresh Thyme – (2) tsp
S&P – to taste

Bring a saute pan or wok to medium heat and add about (2) T of Olive Oil. Once glistening, add Garlic and brown about 1 minute.
Add beans and saute about 3 minutes.
Pour in chicken stock, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer over Medium-Low heat.
Once stock has almost completely evaporated (about 10-15 minutes), add Fresh Thyme and combine.
Immediately turn off heat, add Lemon Juice, and mash beans with a potato masher or puree in a food processor until desired consistency. Add splashes of additional chicken stock to smooth if necessary.
Serve immediately with a dash of Chili Powder on top.

Leftover Lightning! Smoked Mozz, Bacon, & Roasted Chicken Hoagie!

Posted by Erin L. in Leftover Lightning! and tagged with bacon, chicken, chicken breat, hoagie, mayo, mozz, mozzarella, mushroom, Philadelphia, roll, sammie, sandwich, Sarcone's, smoked mozzarella, sriracha, sub, tomato December 15, 2009

While out shopping for my Black Friday dinner, I popped into Chickie’s Italian Deli in South Philly to finally try their Fried Tomato Special. The base is Fried Tomatoes, Bacon, Roasted Peppers, & Lettuce on a famous Sarcone’s Roll. I added on Turkey, Fresh Mozzarella & Mayo. DELISH! And on top of that, the kind lady behind the counter handed me a complimentary full Sarcone’s Roll. They’re perfect – soft and airy on the inside, with a crusty sesame seed crusted shell. It was like the sammie gods were calling upon me to create a delicious one of my own!

Sarcone's Roll

I had some Roasted Tomato, Mushroom, & Smoked Mozzarella Chicken Breasts left over along with some cooked Bacon and extra Smoked Mozz. I sliced the roll, whipped up some Sriracha Mayo, and piled on the goods. And, oh, was it GOOD!