Food In Many Forms

It's week 2 of the CSA and here's what we received: 1 head broccoli 1 cucumber 3 heads lettuce, including 1 romaine, 1 red leaf 1 bag spinach 1 handful garlic scapes 1 kohl rabi 1 rainbow chard 1 bunch of salad turnips (5-6) 1 bunch of green onions (6-8) 2 yellow squash 3 zucchini PYO basil PYO strawberries The broccoli from last week had to be frozen because we never ate it - it got blanched and bagged up on Tuesday. At the same time I steamed the swiss chard to go with some macaroni and cheese, I cooked the shelling peas leftover from last week, and I marinated some chicken for the next day's dinner. We washed all the salad greens, and I chopped up the cucumber in combination with some halved grape tomatoes. Last night, we had a meditarranean-style chicken on a whole wheat pita, with a mix of salad greens, a sprinkling of cucumber and tomato, and a drizzle of tahini. Then I made a salad for today's lunch of salad greens, cucumber, tomato, chicken an...

... it's delicious. And difficult to do well. Here's what I've learned: 1) Add butter to the melted chocolate to improve the consistency for dipping.  2) Toppings are delicious and add variety (ever seen  Shari's Berries ? Good source of inspiration). Also use different types of chocolate, like dark and white chocolate.  3) Keep your chocolate-dipped creations in the fridge , especially when you are OCD, like me. Just try to keep the moisture level down in the fridge, and wipe off any condensation that appears.  4) Buy twice as many wrappers as you think you need, some will get messed up.  5) White chocolate does not like to cooperate . My white chocolate would not stay melted for more than 15 seconds, and then I had to stir it again vigorously. From all the forums I read, there is a small consensus that Trader Joe's makes the most meltable white chocolate. Also see rule #1.  6) Keep the double boiler dry and free of excess water - any...

For the past couple of years, I have always stayed in and cooked for Valentine's Day. I never wanted to face the crowds or the extra expense, and in college these things just don't seem as important. When I would go to the grocery store on February 14th, I always laughed at the poor husbands and boyfriends struggling to find that last ingredient, or agonizing in front of the spice rack for 20 minutes before finding what they need. I love grocery stores, and learning how to cook new foods.  It will be nice to take a year off and go out to dinner tomorrow night to celebrate, but since I can no longer pretend that my gift is the dinner, I actually had to think of a gift. Luckily, I had an extra night to plan and prepare. I ended up making mostly milk chocolate and dark chocolate strawberries because the white chocolate was not cooperating. I had no idea white chocolate was so difficult to work with!  I'll be sure to post the recipe after I've been thoroughly romanc...

  My obsession with french toast began with my mother's basic white bread and egg recipe and was further provoked by repeated visits to La Madeleine for their version covered in bananas, strawberries, honey, syrup and who knows what other secret, delicious ingredients. So it is no surprise that I clipped out a recipe called " Perfect French Toast " from the Food Network Magazine and vowed to attempt all three variations -  lemon blueberry, chocolate and strawberry shortcake. I'm working in my best friend's kitchen today and I know she would appreciate the leftover english muffins, so I am going to start with the Strawberry Shortcake .... Ingredients: Basic Recipe: 4 eggs 1 1/2 cups milk 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon sugar 1 pinch salt 1/2 Tbsp butter Extras for Strawberry Shortcake Variation: 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest 3 Tbsp sugar 3 cups halved strawberries 4 English muffins, halved Honey (for drizzling) Vanilla Yogurt (for toppin...

We made mini pies and mini crumbles... The crumbles were sooo delicious... For topping we used butter, flour, brown sugar and oats. But probably need to perfect this recipe... Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®