Deconstructed Cabbage Rolls

We had a head of cabbage leftover from our last CSA portion last week and the original plan was to make cabbage rolls.  But when push came to shove, I just didn't feel like taking the time to make the actual rolls so we just mixed it all up and baked it together just the same.  I made my own tomato sauce from diced tomatoes, fresh herbs, garlic, peppers, etc but that isn't necessary.

Ingredients

1/2 head of cabbage

1 1b ground beef or venison

2 C wild rice, cooked

Tomato sauce

Cook rice according to package instructions.

Brown meat.

Chop cabbage.

Mix rice, meat, cabbage and sauce in a dutch oven.

Cook, covered, for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Eat Local Wednesday!

This was our very last CSA portion of the year.  We got lots of good stuff as you can see.  For anyone who is interested for next year, the CSA we participate in is called Madison Eats.  We get weekly portions starting at the end of April and running through the end of October.  I credit this CSA with teaching me to use some new ingredients that I had never used before.  It helped us to find some new favorites as well.  See below for some of our favorite recipes using CSA ingredients we have had over the past few years.

*  Cabbage  *  Swiss Chard  *  Sweet Potatoes  *  Potatoes  *  Garlic  *  Onions  *  Carrots  * 
Winter Squash  *  Mixed Braising Greens  *

Grilled Eggplant Pizza 

Fried Green Tomatoes

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Oven Roasted Butternut Squash

Eat Local Wednesday!

Well along with all the posts our CSA posts fell by the wayside as well.  Our CSA only has one more week.  Here's what we got today...

Cooking greens  *  Lettuce  *  Squash  *  Kohl Rabi  *  A pepper  *  Potatoes  *  Onions

Crowder Pea & Corn Succotash

We had a few people coming over for dinner tonight and I made the Pioneer Woman's Spicy Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork for pulled pork sandwiches....this recipe is delicious, you should make it!  We needed a side dish to go with our pulled pork sandwiches.  So we went in the fridge to see what kind of produce we had left and we came up with crowder peas, a couple bell peppers, corn on the cob, and a few onions thus our succotash was born.  It doesn't look the prettiest, but we all agreed it was good.

Ingredients: Crowder peas (one paper lunch bag full) 1 small onion, diced 4 ears of corn, cut from the cob 2 small bell peppers, diced 4 pieces of bacon fresh parsley, chopped garlic powder onion powder 1 bay leaf, crumbled thyme 10 shakes of hot sauce 2.5 C water S&P Shell peas.   Cook bacon in frying pan.  Remove bacon from pan.   Add onion, peppers, corn, garlic powder, onion powder, bay leaf, thyme & hot sauce to bacon grease and cook until veggies are tender.   S&P to taste Add peas and water and simmer until tender and water cooks out.    Crumble bacon and stir into succotash.

Summer Veggie Recipes

We love having access to fresh vegetables in the summer and have made some really delicious meals with vegetables from our garden and our CSA.  Here are a few recipes you may have missed.       Fried Green Tomatoes  

   
Grilled Eggplant Pizza

Squash & Zucchini Pie

Cucumber & Tomato Salad

Cauliflower Fennel Au Gratin

Corn & Tomato Salad

Squash, Green Onion and Corn Naan

Squash & Zucchini Pie

Last week's CSA portion included squash, zucchini and onions which was basically everything I needed to try this recipe I saw here.  As always I made some changes but this was easy and different from what I normally would do with zucchini and squash.

 

Ingredients

3 C squash & zucchini, sliced & halved

1 small onion, diced

1 C Bisquick

3 eggs

1/2 C canola oil

1 T fresh parsley, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 C shredded parmesan

Salt & Pepper

Mix together eggs, oil, parsley, garlic, parmesan, salt & pepper.  I didn't measure the salt and pepper, just ground it over the mix generously.

Add squash, zucchini, onion, and bisquick.  Mix well together.

Pour into a greased pie pan.

Bake on 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until top is golden.

We had this as a side dish with grilled chicken but I also think it could be used as a main dish.  I think it would be good with diced ham or shredded chicken added as well if you wanted a main dish with meat in it.

Eat Local Wednesday! Our CSA

I'm super excited about our CSA portion this week.  It's the first week when we don't have mostly greens and instead we have some of my favorite things:

Squash ~ Cucumber ~ Green Beans ~ Carrots ~ Blueberries ~ Green Onions ~ Snap Peas ~ Potatoes 

We are headed to the lake this weekend so we will probably take most of this down there to cook and enjoy with friends!  Except for the blueberries, they will be gone by morning!! ;)

And a preview of tomorrow's post - Squash & Zucchini Pie

Squash, Corn & Green Onion Naan

I saw this recipe on the Elefantitas Alegres blog but it is originally from Cooking Light.  We had corn on the cob sitting on the corner and we had gotten green onions in our CSA portion last week so I only needed squash and naan to make this recipe happen. I made a few changes to the original recipe but it turned out really well.  

Ingredients (makes 2) 1 small yellow squash, thinly sliced 2 ears of corn, cut from the cob 3-4 large green onions, sliced (white & green parts) Whole grain naan (2 pieces)  1 C italian blend cheese, shredded 2 T Garlic Olive Oil Thyme, leaves removed from sprigs S&P Grill naan for 1 minute on each side.  Just enough to warm it and get some grill marks on there. Spread olive oil over warm naan. Top with squash, then corn and green onions. Cover with cheese.   Sprinkle with fresh thyme. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake at 400 degrees for 8 minutes on an oven rack close to the top.   Without removing from oven, switch oven to broil and broil for 2 minutes.  

Eat Local Wednesday!

I am super excited about this week's CSA portion because we got strawberries & Margaret's strawberries are soooo good!

This week we've got lettuce, kale, cabbage, asparagus, green onions, bok Chou & strawberries!  I'm not gonna lie I picked this up about 15 minutes ago and I've already had a strawberry snack.  Otherwise I'm excited for some fresh kale to go in my smoothies and who knows what the end result of the other stuff will be.

CSA Haul

We got lots of good stuff in our CSA portion this week: lettuce, stir fry greens, turnips, broccoli, asparagus & chard.  I'm thinking stir fry tonight or tomorrow for dinner.

Stir fry is so easy to make and the best part is you can throw whatever you have on hand in it.  We make it quite a bit and no two times is it the same.  This week's will probably include the above mentioned greens, broccoli & asparagus plus some peppers and onions we have on hand and maybe some chicken or beef.  It's so simple just to saute everything in a pan with some spices and soy sauce and serve with rice.
Here are a few past stir fry style recipes we shared.
Chicken Stir Fry

Beef & Broccoli This recipe has been the most viewed and pinned recipe in the history of the blog.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

We got rhubarb again in our CSA portion last week and I wanted to make something different since I have made strawberry rhubarb pie the last 3 times.  I happened to see this recipe on Skinny Taste and it looked simple enough so I gave it a shot.

Ingredients   1 lb strawberries, quartered 1 lb rhubarb, sliced 1/2 orange 1 T corn starch 1/4 C honey 1 C quick oats 1/2 C wheat flour 1/2 C brown sugar 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/4 C butter melted   Place strawberries and rhubarb in an oven safe dish.  I used an 8x8 square pan.     Squeeze juice of half an orange over pan and add orange zest.     Add honey and corn starch  Stir together for filling portion of crisp.     For the topping - mix oats, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and melted butter together in a bowl.     Top strawberry rhubarb mixture with oat mixture.     Bake on 375 for 40 minutes, until top is golden brown.
 

Eat Local Wednesday! (CSA Week 2)

  This is week 2 of our CSA and we are excited to have several wonderful things in store.  This week's portion includes: asparagus, bok choy, tatsoi, mixed lettuce, spinach, dill, cilantro and rhubarb.

I think a strawberry rhubarb pie is in store for Mother's Day.  Find the recipe here.  

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CSA Week 1

 

    Our CSA is back in action this week and we couldn't be more excited about it.  Our portion this week included: asparagus, lettuce, bok choy, kale, and Asian greens.  I'm thinking stir fry and maybe some Kale Almond Pesto.  Thoughts?

CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)

We signed up for our CSA again this year.  If you don't know CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  A CSA is a way to buy seasonal products directly from a local farmer.  Our CSA offers fruits/veggies/herbs, meats, and eggs.  We participate only in the fruit and vegetable portion of the CSA.  We buy a lot of our meat locally at Croftburn Market as it is and we like to pick what meat we get at what point.  Also, Eric doesn't eat eggs so we don't go through enough eggs to justify a weekly portion.  Last year was our first year participating in a CSA and we really enjoyed it.  The CSA we participate in is called Madison Eats and our food comes off of two different farms in Madison (and occasionally some of their neighboring farms).  One of the best things that we found with the CSA is that we ate a lot more fruit and vegetables than we had throughout the rest of the year and we tried new things that we otherwise may have never tried.  Next week is the first week of our CSA and we are so excited for our first delivery.  Last year I did a "series" of sorts that I called "Eat Local Wednesday" where I highlighted what we got in our CSA portion each week and how I cooked some of the goods.  I plan to continue this series again but I am not sure if it will always be on Wednesday.  I hope you enjoy!

In other news...we got new soil for our planter boxes tonight  (we had to empty them when we moved to the new house because they were SOOOO heavy) so some planting will be happening tomorrow.  I plan to update periodically about our gardening successes and failures as I did last year.  We are planning to plant: lettuce (a few varieties), tomatoes, peppers, basil, parsley, basil, thyme, dill and maybe garlic.  Updates to come!

2013 in Review!

2013 was a good year for us with several big milestone moments.  I wanted to do a quick recap through the year of some fun things that have happened.  The year started off kind of slow but things really picked up as the year went along.    

  January       ~We celebrated the first birthday of sweet HG, our friends' daughter who coincidentally will be the flower girl in our wedding.    

February   ~We went to see the Caps play which was my first ever hockey game.  Even better we had awesome seats and they were free!  

  ~ We celebrated sweet Layla Jane's birthday! She spent the day at daycare which she loves!  

    March ~We went to see Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line and Thompson Square at JPJ in Cville with friends.   

    April   ~We started this blog!   ~We planted seeds for what would be our first year of successful gardening and one of our major blog topics for the year.  

May    ~Eric built these awesome planter boxes which we used to garden.  

  ~We blogged away on this little blog with recipes and gardening.   ~We joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)  

  ~We went to Pittsburgh for a long weekend.   

  ~We went to NC to celebrate our friend Alexis receiving her PhD from UNC.  

   ~We celebrated my friend Bethany with a shower for her baby girl to arrive in June.  

  ~We kicked off summer with Memorial Day Weekend at the lake.  

June ~We went to the Kennedy Center to see Shear Madness which was part of my birthday present from Eric.  

  ~We celebrated our friends Marcus & Ashley's wedding.  

    July   ~We saw DMB in concert at Nissan Pavilion.  

  ~We celebrated 4th of July twice, with the Dennee's and at the lake.  

    August   ~We spent 2 weekends at the lake.   ~We saw Jimmy Buffett in concert at Nissan Pavilion.  

September ~We celebrated my friend Terra's baby girl on the way who made her grand appearance later in the month.  

~We went to the OBX with our friends for a week.  

  ~We celebrated my friend Megan's baby due in December.  

October ~We got engaged!  

  ~We put an offer on a house.   ~We put a contract on a house.   ~I headed out on a cruise with my mom, Gramma & cousin Shirley.  

    November   ~I finished up my Caribbean cruise and spent a few days in Florida.   ~I went to see South Pacific with my mom, Gramma & Aunt Patty at the Alhambra Dinner Theater in Jacksonville.   ~I went to Savannah with my mom, Gramma, Aunt Patty & Aunt Norah.  

  ~We closed on our house.  

  ~We celebrated Asher's 1st birthday!  

  December   ~My friend Megan had a sweet little boy.   ~We moved to our new house.  

  ~We decorated it for Christmas.  

  ~We celebrated my cousin Eli's 3rd birthday, who will be the ringbearer for our wedding.  

  ~We set a wedding date!  October 4, 2014   ~We celebrated Christmas with family and friends by hosting a Christmas brunch.