It’s the last day of January, which means winter is almost over, there’s a break from school on the horizon, and I’m already a good 2 weeks behind on my organizational calendar. Today was unseasonably warm (apparently it got up around 50 degrees!), so Brian and I went for a walk. It felt like spring, but I know there’s more winter on the horizon. Somehow we’ve escaped snow days and delayed openings so far this year, but I can’t imagine that’s going to last.
Regardless of the weather outside, it’s still winter CSA season.
January 13th pick up:
acorn squash, butternut squash, kale, carrots, cabbage, potatoes, garlic, onions, kohlrabi, rutabagas, spinach, eggs
January 28th pick up:
onions, garlic, butternut squash, potatoes, carrots, spinach, rutabagas, kohlrabi, eggs.
Special thanks to our friends for picking up our share this weekend when we were out of town—with biweekly pick ups it’s really depressing if you miss one. 2 weeks is a long time to go without any produce.
Apparently I need to stop arranging my vegetables in almost identical configurations every pick up. Wow.
This month I cooked a lot of the usual stand-bys: soups, curries, roasted vegetables, etc. We made use of the cabbage by trying out Slow Roasted Salmon with Cabbage, Bacon and Dill from Serious Eats. The cabbage slaw was pretty good, though a little greasy. I cooked the salmon at a slightly higher heat for the second half of the cooking time because slow roasted salmon always comes out cold for me. As a result, it turned out hot and delicious.
I only made half the recipe, so I used some of the leftover cabbage to make Mark Bittman’s Green Tea Broth with Udon Noodles (although I used soba noodles). I had high hopes for the recipe, but it didn’t taste like much. A drizzle of sesame oil helped, but it still needs some tweaking.
Another soup I made this month was Butternut Bisque, which I’d seen on Huffington Post. The first couple servings were so-so, but the texture wasn’t where I wanted it after using my immersion blender . Brian blended the remaining soup (this recipe makes around 8 servings) in our real blender and the soup became creamy and smooth. Overall, not a life changing soup—I have more butternut soup recipes than anyone could ever need and this wasn’t my favorite—but certainly enjoyable.
Here’s to less busyness (like that’ll happen!) and more interesting recipes in February!
