To Have and to Hold

Ben & Jerry's Clusterfluff is peanut butter ice cream with caramel crunchies, plus peanut butter and marshmallow creme swirls.  Speaking as a true peanut butter fiend, it's kind of the living end.  I mean, if I were Prince or Jimmy Fallon, this is the ice cream I'd want named after me. 

Now I want to take it with me wherever I go.  It might not last long in blazing heat, but I carried it 6 or 7 blocks to a cat-sitting gig without incident...then ate the entire pint.




p.s. These shoes (Payless) only look decent from the top.  They're so ugly from the side! Good thing they were cheap.

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CSA Adventures 2011: Week 2

Week 02 Produce:
1/2 pound Quelite or "Red Root," a sort of Mexican wild spinach - CHALLENGE VEGETABLE
1 head of Lettuce
1 bunch of Scallions
1 bunch of Parsley


1. Sauteed Quelite
Notes:  Prepared with mushrooms, olive oil, cumin, garlic, lime, chicken chorizo, and red pepper flakes.  Rich flavor.



2. Pretzel Salad
Notes: Pretzel sticks, cheddar cheese, sunflower seeds, homemade croutons, grape tomatoes, scallions, lettuce, parsley.


3. Scrambled Eggs with mushrooms, scallions, parsley, and cheddar cheese.

4. Everything in the Fridge Salad (not pictured)
Notes: Lettuce, scallion, onion, red pepper, mushrooms, lime, tortilla, pepperjack cheese, tomatoes, Caesar salad dressing, Cholula hot sauce, parsley.

There's a little parsley left over, so we'll just continue tossing it in things until it's gone. 

Week 3 may feature garlic scapes!  Whee!

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Once Upon a Clementine

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CSA Adventures 2011: Week 1

Sneak a peek at week two's veggies, above!

Hello!  After disappointing myself, and perhaps some of you, with last year's CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) coverage, I'm back for a third season and determined to improve my game.  If you've forgotten why my follow-through was so abysmal in 2010, it was because I got pregnant in July and developed an aversion to vegetables that left me uninterested in cooking most of the items in my share during the height of the season.

I had to join a new program, as the one I'd been a member of for the past two years wasn't an option this year.  Now, I'm a shareholder in Local Roots, a new CSA in the neighborhood.  They've split the season into two halves (12 weeks each), so for now I've paid for the first 12 weeks of produce.  If all goes well, I'll buy a share in the second half of the season, too.

Dan and I actually got a half share, as the "whole share" was described as being for larger families.  So far, the amount of each type of produce seems good for the two of us (the baby is not eating solid foods yet), though there aren't a lot of different items yet.  I'm hoping that the variety of vegetables we receive each week will increase as the growing season gets underway.

The other piece to this blogging-my-CSA-adventures puzzle is taking photos to share with you, and so far I've been trying to put the baby to bed during prime "golden light" hours.  Eating in the dark doesn't make for nice pictures, either.  But I'll work on getting you some shots of what we're receiving and eating.  Can't be worse than last year, right?  Right?

Tonight begins Week Two, so I'll share a brief wrap-up of last week and look forward to filling you in on what follows. As in past years, items I mark as "challenge vegetables" are ones we're cooking with for the first time.

Week 01 Produce:
1/2 pound of Nettle - CHALLENGE VEGETABLE
1 pound of Spinach
1 bunch of Radishes
1 bunch of Scallions

Local Roots linked to this helpful video about cooking with nettle.  Don't get stung!


Nettle from Local Roots NYC on Vimeo.



With the produce from week one, Dan and I were able to make just two dishes:
1. Stinging Nettle Pesto
Notes: Dan prepared this with pine nuts, walnuts, nettle, oil, garlic and parmesan.  We ate it over pasta one night, and also had it on toasted bread.  It had a fairly mild flavor, so the garlic was a good addition.
2. Big Salad
Notes: I do like a big salad.  We used the spinach, radishes, and scallions for this one and dressed it with left over arepa sauce from Caracas Arepa Bar.

Coming Up in Week 02 Produce:
1/2 pound Quelite or "Red Root," a sort of Mexican wild spinach - CHALLENGE VEGETABLE
1 head of Lettuce
1 bunch of Scallions
1 bunch of Parsley

Did you join a CSA this year? What was in your first week's share?

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Snackscot

Spotted in a bodega: one tiny, adorable kitten.

I would imagine this must be good for business.  I know s/he makes me want to buy at least twice as many Nutter Butters.

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Poetry Tuesday: Barcelona, Eaten

Barcelona, eaten by the Pope
Familia spires served well to pick his teeth
Pillars there? Why, white asparagus.

No bikini* on the beach is safe, they say
Rovellons for buttons? Gobbled down
Patatas Bravas? Papa, Brava! Way to eat the streets!

Barcelona, eaten up by me
Every paving stone, a pastry
Each ounce of sea to wash a dish.

Paella, small plates, salads -- all are gone
The landscape's stripped, we ate it
The city's tapas? Tapped.

Not Gaudi! The Pope! And me!









































* bikini = Spanish grilled cheese with ham sandwich



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No Line? So Fine.

The problem with the original Shake Shack in Madison Square Park is that the lines are almost always ridiculously long.  When it opened in 2004, I was working nearby and managed to get in on the ground floor of the phenomenon.  The frozen custard "concretes," which are like Blizzards, and cheese fries were my special loves.  But as the lines grew longer, I stopped going.  I wasn't going to give up most of an hour-long lunch break waiting to place my order.  The food is good, but not good enough to justify the wait. 



Now, Shake Shack is expanding across this city and into others.  Until today, I had yet to try any of the new locations.  I guess I assumed the long line in Madison Square would be replicated at each.  But, happily, I see that I was wrong.  After an early afternoon at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (closed to the public on Mondays, but I have a hook-up!) seeing, among other things, the Alexander McQueen retrospective, we walked over to the Shake Shack on 86th Street.  It was about 4pm, so perhaps the time was a factor, but there was no line at all!



Dan's burger was good, he reported. My fried mushroom burger, filled with gooey melted cheese and topped with crisp onion and tomato and lettuce and pickles, was excellent.  The cheese fries were fresh, warm, and swell.  Dan's root beer didn't disappoint.  My lemonade was perfect. Our Coffee Bean Brownie (coffee-caramel-brownie-vanilla) concrete was sweet and smooth.  And, to make things even better, there was outdoor seating in a public plaza adjacent to the restaurant.  And the bathroom had a changing station.  Golly! What an afternoon of happy flavors and thoughts!



So maybe I won't wait in line for it, but I will take the train.

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