Fresh Ginger

Last week our CSA started.  We are splitting one share three ways.  I wanted to try a CSA out to see what it is like and get a little more variety of vegetables than I typically grow.  We have a huge garden, but most of that is produce that I can or freeze for winter, tomatoes, hot peppers, broccoli, leeks.  The broccoli rabe bolted in a day and is not coming back.  I need a warmer climate variety that can take 30 degree swings in a day more easily.

Our CSA kindly sends out an email on Sunday letting us know what we might expect on Tuesday.   It looks like this week we will have lettuce, spinach, bok choy, pea greens, greens greens and garlic scapes.  At least those are the items I am choosing.  I am passing on kohlrabi as I just can’t seem to love it.

Our new chicken coop arrives sometime this week!  Will post pics once it arrives and is in place.

Esther of the Lilac Kitchen is hosting this week’s menu swap and the ingredient this week is black currants, which are not yet in season here, but hard to find, but if I do, I will use them somehow.

What we are eating this week:

Sunday:  grilled ribs from our pig, grilled asparagus, brussel sprouts with lemon and parm and tomato cucumber salad

Monday:  On the road but back in time for a late quickie supper: pierogies  - Contes GF brand for me to try and a locally made brand for Eby to try.  Maybe a grilled sausage on the side.  Will be trying this recipe for the pierogie sauce as I love tomatoes and dill.

Tuesday: From Robert Landolphi’s new book Gluten Free Everyday: Hazelnut Encrusted Salmon with cilantro lime creme and a spinach salad with pea greens.  I am really interested in his dusting and encrusting techniques and will be blogging about my findings.  Will be making a batch of his Parmesan Popover bites too as we have plenty of eggs right now.

Wednesday:  Family and a friend in town staying at Hotel EbyHagen.  New guest policy: strip the sheets when you leave unless you are back in a week.  Not sure if folks are in town for dinner or arriving after dinner, so I am leaving this eve un-obligated.   If no one is here for dinner, we will do burgers on the grill, salad greens from the CSA.

Thursday: Thai Pad Thai with tofu and pork and a bok choy stir fry with garlic scapes.

Friday:  Heading to Bellaire for a wedding on the edge of Torch Lake.  Staying at a friend’s cottage.  We will pack for cooking up there and for pontooning.

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Back into the swing of cooking I go this week.  The last three or four weeks have been a whirlwind of night meetings and weekends away.  It happens every once in a while, but it throws off the cooking mojo.  To bring the mojo back we have a nice spicy week ahead.  Next week is the first week of our first CSA.  Once that begins, my menu planning will start the day after CSA pickup day (which is a Tuesday) so that I can incorporate whatever goodies end up in our box.

This week’s menu swap hostess is Sea from Book of Yum and the topic is Pizza, something just about everyone loves!

Sunday:  Peanut barrel for a bunless burger and a side of fries

Monday:  Korean Kalbi grilled, wonton soup, broccoli stir fry and fried rice, or maybe I will make broccoli fried rice.

Tuesday: Ethiopian - injera is fermenting on the counter now, doro wat with one of my brothers organic free range chickens, pintos Ethiopian style and a side of yellow peas and potatoes spiced up to fit the party too.

Wednesday: Pizza - we have a couple of GF crusts to compare and plenty of fresh mozz, maybe we will do calzones if we are feeling snazzy

Thursday: Pasta toss with grilled asparagus, shaved Parmesan, grilled red onion, grilled chicken breasts and fresh herbs.

Friday:  heading North to the farm for a fun weekend along with the Leland Wine and Food Festival.

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Our big news:

Chickens! A friend of a friend needed a home for his chickens and we volunteered.  The chickens arrived two weeks ago and seem to be settling in well. We are now chicken parents. I was afraid of the day, but now that it is here, no fear. They make the greatest cooing noises and seem pretty happy. They even give us 2 eggs every morning, from day one here at Ranch EbyHagen.

Right now their names are Chavez and Castro even though they are girls. I figured good socialist names were in order with the whole a chicken in every yard/pot theory and since they are our Urban Revolution Chickens, they should have revolutionary names. Future chickens names may revert to Greta and Maude or something completely different. However, these are the first city chickens and they need names that fit with the moment. These gorgeous photos were taken by our friend Kate. You can tell which ones I took down further. Makes the case for a good camera and the knowledge to use it!

I have been playing in the garden, planting my cold season starts and filling up the herb bed with cold tolerant herbs, tilling up the back 40 (ok, it is only about 24′x30′). The tomatoes and peppers are still hardening off and must wait another week to go in the ground. Raised beds will be filled with peppers and the 70 tomato plants will simply have to fit in the 24×30 plot.  Pole beans will be planted to grow up the side of the wooden fence and the berry bushes will be moved to the front yard, hopefully.   Next up, finishing our storage shed and building a luxury coop that holds a few more chickens with a lot more space. The chickens are eating our veggie scraps that would have gone in the compost and are quite happy with lots of green snacks every day.

We will give you some garden photos next week!

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What’s cooking at the urban farm this week:

Sunday:  Grilled mock porchetta, grilled asparagus (picked that morning), cheesy dill potatoes, smoked purple cabbage slaw

Monday: Shells stuffed with Parmesan, ricotta, spinach and turkey sausage with homemade marinara and mozzarella

Tuesday: Kung Pao with Tofu and  purple cabbage with sambal oelek

Wednesday: Smoked pork and potato soup with marjoram (I smoked the ham hocks myself on Sunday) and chives, lemon kissed sauteed asparagus.

Thursday: Indian shrimp curry using paneer for Eby instead of shrimp, dal and dosa’s.

Friday: Homemade pork tamales with red chile and a cucumber salad and off to Crunchy’s or Reno’s for the birthday man.

Saturday:  Some sort of eggplant dish, perhaps Moussaka with grass fed beef or Maqluba or Imam Bayildi

Happy eating!

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Spring is finally here, I mean really here and I think this time it is staying.  It seems like we are still a couple of weeks behind, but I think maybe we just always think that.  My first tulips bloomed today.  I don’t know how they are yellow as I am not a fan of yellow and wouldn’t have purchased yellow bulbs, but they are definitely yellow like butter cream.  I lean toward the very pink and purple when it comes to tulips.  These were on sale at the end of fall last year.  Lesson learned.  To prove Spring is finally in MI, here is a pic of a morel I found this week in my driveway:

I guess I should have looked for a 2009 penny or how will you know it was taken last week?

This week’s host for the menu swap is Cheryl of Gluten Free Goodness and she is seeking hosts if any of you are interested.  The ingredient this week is carob, which I don’t have any of on hand, so I will sit this ingredient out unless I run to the health food store.  We have decided to go back to planning our menu as much as possible for all 7 days so we don’t end up without a plan on the weekends and end up with spaghetti again.

Menu:
Sunday: Paella with three types of chorizo, saffron, smoked paprika, tomatoes, chicken, peas and piquillo peppers from Spain.

Monday: Grilled wild sea bass, horseradish dill creme fraiche potato salad and broccoli rabe

Tuesday: Vietnamese Banh Xeo with shrimp, (our) pork and bean sprouts, a side of do cha (diakon radish and carrot pickle) and North Vietnamese style fried spring rolls

Wednesday: Grilled flank steak with Chimichurri sauce (similar to Italian salsa verde) and grilled asparagus

Thursday: Pakistani Kunna: pork braised in a yogurt sauce from Madher Jaffery’s book, along with a fresh chickpea curry with curry leaves

Friday: Black and blue grass fed burgers on the grill (Gorgonzola cheese and plenty of my homemade blackening seasoning which I will post soon - back to the rub of the month time!), fresh cut Michigan fries and a green salad (our greens hopefully, but not likely)

Saturday: Mexican tortilla soup using my brother’s organic chicken as the base and one of the last jars of canned tomatoes from the pantry. My avocado is already ripening. Maybe my cilantro will be harvestable by next Saturday….

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Oh rhubarb, how I love rhubarb.  My rhubarb is just starting to gain a few leaves but is weeks away from any sort of harvest :(.  However, I do have some rhubarb that I froze last year to use during a rhubarb craving that I never had, so, time to use it.  I am thinking a nice rhubarb martini sounds tart and refreshing as well as a rhubarb crisp.  Eby doesn’t care for rhubarb (surprise) so it will have to be a mini crisp as I don’t like dessert leftovers.  Manda of Asparagus Thin is our menu swap hostess this week, so please check out her blog and all the creative rhubarb dishes being served around the country.

In an effort to eat less meat and more veggies Eby has been perusing the Moosewood Restaurant’s Simple Suppers cookbook.  I think they over do it with the tofu substitutes a bit, but never the less we are trying several of their recipes (and I will probably unsimplify some of them) this week.

We have signed up for a CSA for the first time ever and I am super excited to see what arrives in our box every week, as long as it is not beets, but they said they would keep the beets from my half thankfully.  Our pickup day will be Tuesdays, so I will probably have to leave the Monday menu swap or post a week late, as my menu plans will soon have to be from Wednesday to Wednesday and designed with what arrives in the box.  Perhaps we call all start a CSA menu swap.  That will probably go over as well as my deep fry Fridays attempt!  So, I will still be posting our menu, but it will just be out of sinc with Monday’s GF swap, unless they tell me ahead of time what is coming every week.

Since we have signed up for the CSA, I can focus our large backyard garden on items that we want to raise to can, store or freeze for the winter usage.  We will be growing lots of tomatoes, broccoli, broccoli rabe, greens (collards, kale and chard), leeks, onions, shallots and green and red chiles.  The red we dry and the green we roast and freeze.  I have about 60 tomato plants and 36 green chile plants that will be graciously delivered by my brother (on Wed) from my favorite green house at home, Plant Masters.  Lansing doesn’t offer the volume or variety that I seek. I didn’t get mine started on time, so to Plant Masters we turn.  We have a little greenhouse system set up in our dining room and in our basement to keep the plants growing and happy until we can plant them in MI - maybe around the 3rd week of May.  I will transplant them to larger containers in a few weeks.

As usual, we try to use as much local (or raised by us) produce and meat as possible.  The pork and beef in the meatloaf is all local, the chicken was raised by my brother, the potatoes are local, our garlic and shallots are local and tomatoes, although I am almost out of tomatoes and homemade tomato paste. Most of the fresh herbs I use I grow in pots in the house with the exception of the dill this week, no dill yet.  I need to get cracking on the cheese making.  My first few attempts haven’t been as successful as I had hoped.

Our menu for the week:

Sunday: Ginger’s meatloaf ( I love this recipe that I have developed over time so much I can’t event think of trying others, I should try to write it down, but I don’t measure anything)  with a tangy tomato sauce on top and a side of  roasted fennel, potatoes and saffron.

Monday:  Asian braised salmon with bok choy and soba noodles (i finally found some pure buckwheat noodles).

Tuesday: Creamy lemon fettuccine with garlic roasted broccoli.

Wednesday:  Moriarty style potato soup and a romaine salad with toasted pecans, red onion and orange wedges, homemade tarragon vinaigrette.  Our local pub makes this addicting brothy potato soup that we just love - the broth is key and I will concor it.

Thursday:  Buttermilk fried chicken, Southern cooked collard greens and maybe some smashed potatoes.  Rhubarb crisp - my bro is in town to help me eat it, wait, I don’t think he likes rhubarb either.

Friday:  Grilled lemon herb tofu with spinach artichoke risotto with dill.

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I like to sneak flax seeds in whenever I bake something.  I have always liked flax, little seeds of goodness.  I have both the seeds and a bag of ground flax on hand right now, so this will be a good excuse to use it.  Cheryl of Gluten Free Goodness is our flax seed and menu swap host this week.  Be sure to check out all the creative flax uses that are posted on her blog and in the swap this week.

Monday: Grass fed beef tacos with shredded cabbage, TJ’s frozen guac, salsa and pico de gallo

Tuesday: Grilled salmon with a broccoli casserole or maybe bouillabaisse with fennel if I get in the mood.

Wednesday:  PF Changs for tax day to get 15% off our meal - why not?  It makes it a bit more affordable.

Thursday:  Italian Sausage and spinach stuffed lasagna using a bechamel sauce.  I might even make my own noodles, time permitting since my closest store was out of tinkyada lasagna noodles.

Friday: Indian night:  Biryani and curry.  Probably a pork (with our pork) vindaloo with a veggie oriented biryani.

Flax:  I am in a sandwich mood again (this is rare), a sorta muffaletta mood, so I will bake a loaf of bread, adding copious amounts of flax or I may attempt to make an oatmeal, millet, flax granola.  It’s about time I made my own granola.

Update on flax:  I made some fantastic flax bagels using Pamela’s bread mix.  I added about 1/2 cup of flax and they are pretty darn close to gluten bagels with the chew and crumb of the bread.  I just finished eating one.

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Hosting this week’s menu swap is Wendy of Celiac in the House and she has picked favorite sides and salads as this week’s theme. I think we can work many of those in this week.  As I was typing this earlier, I hit save draft and went to go look up something.  When I came back to the page two minutes later, Word Press was asking for my password and hadn’t saved my post, even though I can see it saving it below every 2 minutes as I type.  I am sure this has happened to all of us, but it sorta takes the wind out of your blogging sails doesn’t it.  Trying to recreate the genius you had already typed below is impossible.  Easy to call it genius as it is gone now! So, lesson learned.  Always log into the dashboard, even if it doesn’t ask me to.  Enough griping and back to food.

Make sure you swing over to Wendy’s blog to see what all the other great GF cooks around the country are planning this week!

Sunday:  Steak and brats (steak for me, brats for Eby), grilled asparagus and some killer potato skins with bacon, cheese and chive sour cream.

Monday: Stuffed poblano peppers, inside out.  Instead of stuffing them, I roast them and chop them up and mix them with onions, tomatoes, cilantro, ground beef with Mexican seasoning, rice and cheese and then bake yourself into comfort food. A rice casserole with loads of my favorite veggies.

Tuesday:  Fish and chips and slaw!  Fish will be coated with an herby bread crumb mix and baked, fries will be cut with our new industrial strength french fry cutter that should arrive tomorrow and the slaw will have a lime and olive oil dressing with cilantro and green onions.  I really dislike mayo based sweet slaws, but love crunchy cabbage lightly dressed with tartness.

Wednesday: Caesar salad with a grilled chicken breast.  One of our favorite salads and if it weren’t for this week’s theme, we probably wouldn’t have thought of it.  This is the best way to enjoy romaine lettuce, I am convinced of it!

Thursday: I am having a hard time deciding what to cook on Thursday, so for now we are going with pasta carbonara with bacon and asparagus and a spinach salad with hot bacon dressing.  Maybe we will just do the spinach salad.  I am leaving myself some leg room on this one.

Friday:  Turkish Doner Kabobs (made with pork) with sides of tatziki, lightly marinated cabbage, pickled red onions and maybe I will make some flatbread or pita to go with it.  Of course we need a feta cucumber salad with this too and who knows, maybe some homemade baba ganoush if I find the time. Sumac is the key to great Turkish seasoning, and oregano.

Baked good:  Lemon bars, I have to have them around Easter now, so time to bake some!

May spring be on it’s way to you!

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Happy Spring!
Here is a photo of my garden to be:

One of my favorite themes for cooking here at home is the Americas, South, Central and North. To celebrate, we are embracing not one, but three Latin themed dinners this week (Eby was actually ready to do every night in a Latin theme), somehow they all involve pork or chicken, as of course that is what is in our large freezer.  Elizabeth of Weird and Surprisingly Good is the menu swap host this week.  Make sure you click on over there and check out the Latin-y menus around the Gluten Free blog world.

Sunday: GF Matzo ball chicken soup with dill - first attempt at Mazto balls, GF or non GF and well, it didn’t work.  Tasted good though.

Monday: Arepas with pulled pork and pickled onions maybe some pintos and salsa too.

Tuesday: Thai pad ped with Thai basil, beef and red curry (following my local Lamai restaurant style), fresh spring rolls with veggies and dipping sauce.

Wednesday: Puebla Chicken and potato stew

Thursday: Grilled fish (cod probably) with parsley, garlic, lemon and olive oil, grilled asparagus

Friday: Pork with Negro Mole Sauce ala Rick Bayless and Saveur Magazine.  Not sure what sides we will have, maybe a cucumber salad.

Ending with a photo of Truffle, our kitten laying next to the indoor garden in the sunlight, in bliss.

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This week we get to celebrate one of my favorite holidays, St Patrick’s Day.  I do have Irish roots and that combined with red hair makes it one of my favorite days of the year. Plus, it’s a good excuse to drink whiskey and drink hard cider with friends, be rowdy and chant Irish slogans all day in Gaelic.  I take the day off every year and will do so again this year.

The ingredient this week is nuts and our lovely host is Sea at Book of Yum who always has some tasty eats cooking.  Make sure you visit her blog to get the scoop on all the nutty menus around this week.

Sunday: The ultimate Mac and Cheese!  I found my recipe that I thought was long gone and I couldn’t remember how to recreate it as I had only made it once.  Where was it?  In my pile of recipes to blog.  Irony.  It is based on Martha Stewart’s Mac and cheese with my adjustments of course.  I will post this one.

Monday:  Pizza, when I start to crave tomato, then I start to crave pizza toppings shortly after that, so it’s time for some pizza. Using the Chebe pizza crust this go around to try it again.

Tuesday:  Happy St Patrick’s Day!  I will leave the house for the bar hopping bus crawl with a crock of Irish Stew with lamb to come home to.  Using the last of the lamb in the freezer.  Lots of leeks, carrots and potatoes.

Wednesday  Jap Chae Korean Glass Noodles ala Jaden at Steamy Kitchen and kalbi, slow braised beef short ribs.  We must have some rice and kim chi of course too.

Thursday: On the road for work, traveling with some Indian spiced cashews that I found in Chicago at the market.

Friday:  Black vinegar ribs with some of the pork ribs from our freezer, rice and maybe a green bean stir fry to go with it.

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