We find ourselves more than halfway through summer and really enjoying the CSA. I am extremely happy I joined and find it to be a solid investment.
With our extra cabbage, Timmy made some fresh coleslaw which we took to a BBQ. It was different, but I am still not in love with coleslaw.
Sooo... what's in the cooler this week? By far I am most excited about PEACHES!! We have gotten fruit again which we are all excited about. The peaches are juicy and very ripe. We got six of them and I'm sure they won't last too long. We also got some of the "regulars" that we have already received and are enjoying. Small red potatoes, beets, 6 ears of corn, fresh mint, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, white cucumber, sweet candy onion, fresh mint, summer squash, & a dozen eggs.
Through our CSA, as I believe I have mentioned before, we are also able to purchase additional items. This week June got some fresh goats milk mozzarella. She also ordered Apricot jam. The jam I ordered was super delicious, so I can't imagine that this flavor will be any less than exceptional.
This week was a busy week for us and we didn't get to cooking as much at home. June and I did take our fresh cucumbers along with us to our Muny picnic. Wednesday we rocked out to Night Ranger, Foreiner, and Journey at Riverport. Thursday we had a camogie recruitment meeting. We grilled corn and had scrambled eggs along with a salad. Tonight (Friday) for Dinner Timmy and I had the rest of the salad from Thursday, but made it better by adding some yummy blue cheese and red onions from the CSA. Yum yum. We accompanied our salad with green beans, wheat berries, homemade bread crumbs, a smidge of butter, & fancy imported Parmesan cheese. It was delicious and very simply made. We also had 3 cheese tortellini and fabulous gourmet chicken meatballs from Trader Joes. It was a great meal that was polished off with home cooked goodness, a bit of love, and a peach for dessert. Yum yum......
Friday, July 29, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Dinner with Daddy-o!
Friday we got to try our first farm fresh chicken. We got a whole chicken through our CSA. It was 4 and 1/2 pounds at $3/lb, making it $13.50 for the whole thing. It came frozen and was in my freezer for a bit before we cooked it. I left it to defrost overnight. Timmy added some of my Aunt Maggie & Uncle Dave's Spice Rub to the outside of the chicken and cooked it 'beer can' style.
We also diced up the red potatoes and tossed them with some simple seasoning (salt, pepper, olive oil, parsley). June has a convenient grill basket and what belongs to June is also partially mine. I snagged it and we grilled our taters on the grill.
We also had some sweet corn from the CSA. We didn't get a chance to soak it, so we used the cheater method. Have you ever tried this? We took the silks off the corn, took a wet paper towel, wrap up the corn and then wrap the corn in aluminum foil. It tastes great and helps.
We also diced up the red potatoes and tossed them with some simple seasoning (salt, pepper, olive oil, parsley). June has a convenient grill basket and what belongs to June is also partially mine. I snagged it and we grilled our taters on the grill.
We also had some sweet corn from the CSA. We didn't get a chance to soak it, so we used the cheater method. Have you ever tried this? We took the silks off the corn, took a wet paper towel, wrap up the corn and then wrap the corn in aluminum foil. It tastes great and helps.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
CSA Week 8
Sorry I was behind on some of our drafts. I had meant to upload pictures and had a crazy fun and busy week. So... now that we are catching up ~ I hope you are able to as well.
If I had remembered my camera, I'd insert right here an awesome picture of the U2 concert at Busch stadium last week. It was amazing, and while insanely hot, a worthwhile evening with June, Tim O, & Heather.
What's in the cooler this week? More delicious goodness for sure!! Tim O got to try some of the white cucumber. We always get more eggs -- haven't bought any all summer and that has not been a bad deal at all. We also got more corn, onions/shallots (depending on who you ask), tomatoes, squash, beans, beats, potatoes.
As is typical of most things we pull excitedly out of the cooler each week, the corn tasted delicious! June and I are going to work on something yummy to do with our pile of beets, and Timmy looks forward to trying the white cucumber. :)
If I had remembered my camera, I'd insert right here an awesome picture of the U2 concert at Busch stadium last week. It was amazing, and while insanely hot, a worthwhile evening with June, Tim O, & Heather.
What's in the cooler this week? More delicious goodness for sure!! Tim O got to try some of the white cucumber. We always get more eggs -- haven't bought any all summer and that has not been a bad deal at all. We also got more corn, onions/shallots (depending on who you ask), tomatoes, squash, beans, beats, potatoes.
As is typical of most things we pull excitedly out of the cooler each week, the corn tasted delicious! June and I are going to work on something yummy to do with our pile of beets, and Timmy looks forward to trying the white cucumber. :)
CSA Week 7
This week has been a busy and exciting week! I was lucky enough to celebrate my birthday with the family and friends. Our cooler arrived on time and full of goodies on Thursday.
In this week's delivery, we received: Cabbage, Red Potatoes, Sweet red onion; yellow Onions, Bean medley, (purple podded, yellow wax, green beans)Yellow Squash, Beets, Sweet Corn, Herb medley-Purple Basil, Flat leaf Italian Parsley,Sage, and a dozen eggs. According to our email, we were supposed to receive white cucumbers, but we haven't tracked them down yet.
Timmy already took all of our green beans and made some delicious green bean casserole (with wheat berries) for my surprise party on Friday. It was wonderful and I look forward to some leftovers for dinner another night this week.
We still have lots of cabbage and don't like coleslaw. Timmy is helping to brainstorm some ideas for what to do with them. June made some cabbage rolls but with my crazy schedule this week, I didn't try them until SUNDAY. I'm a big fan of the squash, herbs, and potatoes that we've gotten so far. I can't wait to try the corn and let you know what we think. We are planing to serve it for meatless monday.
In this week's delivery, we received: Cabbage, Red Potatoes, Sweet red onion; yellow Onions, Bean medley, (purple podded, yellow wax, green beans)Yellow Squash, Beets, Sweet Corn, Herb medley-Purple Basil, Flat leaf Italian Parsley,Sage, and a dozen eggs. According to our email, we were supposed to receive white cucumbers, but we haven't tracked them down yet.
Timmy already took all of our green beans and made some delicious green bean casserole (with wheat berries) for my surprise party on Friday. It was wonderful and I look forward to some leftovers for dinner another night this week.
We still have lots of cabbage and don't like coleslaw. Timmy is helping to brainstorm some ideas for what to do with them. June made some cabbage rolls but with my crazy schedule this week, I didn't try them until SUNDAY. I'm a big fan of the squash, herbs, and potatoes that we've gotten so far. I can't wait to try the corn and let you know what we think. We are planing to serve it for meatless monday.
Meatless Monday -- Breakfast for Dinner!
Ask Timmy for the recipe! We had delicious whole wheat pancakes with farm fresh eggs, fresh fruit (some from the farm), and Lori brought the ingredients needed for mimosas.
Cabagge, what to do with all our cabbage?
I'll admit that we don't usually have cabbage that often expect yearly on St. Pat's day but on St. Pat's day it's a small amount at best. A few weeks ago we got cabbage 2 weeks in a row, a whole head of course and we weren't sure what do with it. I was interested in trying to make cabbage rolls as I had never done it before and well I thought it would use it up. Plus I think Liz had also searched some recipes for this so we were all on the same page. When I finally got around to making it I utilized some advice from a youtube video Liz had found. If you've never made this type of thing I would highly suggest watching it... anyways I was going to use their recipe however when I found out there was sauerkraut included in all the recipes on that site we were out, as neither my sister or I like kraut at all!! So I searched around a bit more (love the internet, you can find recipes for anything!) and four a recipe that was adapted for cabbage rolls w/o the kraut. Below is listed the recipe as on the website, I'll put at the bottom any adjusts we made.
Ingredients
12 leaves cabbage
1 cup cooked white rice *(I used instant brown rice*)
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup minced onion
1 pound extra-lean ground beef (*I mixed hot Italian sausage and ground beef*)
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar (*didn't use brown sugar as I was trying to keep it low sugar for my diabetic sister)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Directions:
Mix the meat up so it's ready to stuff in the cabbage when you're ready...
As shown in the video, I cored out the center of the cabbage and boil the head in water peeling away leaves and stacked them on a plate. I realized that when I went to roll them it was best that the leaves had been boiled a bit as you needed them pliable (if you will)... Once they are rolled I stacked them in the crock pot and poured tomato sauce, lemon juice and worcester sauce over the rolls and let them cook for 8 hours on low. I left the house with it cooking and came home to smell it complete. I will say a few days later we're still trying to get the cabbage stink out of the house (one major downside I would say...) Any suggestions to help get rid of this I would love them. They did taste quite delicious. I have them in the fridge to use in a few days for dinner for our lil crowd on Sutherland. Overall another successful completion of a recipe.
Ingredients
12 leaves cabbage
1 cup cooked white rice *(I used instant brown rice*)
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup minced onion
1 pound extra-lean ground beef (*I mixed hot Italian sausage and ground beef*)
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar (*didn't use brown sugar as I was trying to keep it low sugar for my diabetic sister)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Directions:
Mix the meat up so it's ready to stuff in the cabbage when you're ready...
As shown in the video, I cored out the center of the cabbage and boil the head in water peeling away leaves and stacked them on a plate. I realized that when I went to roll them it was best that the leaves had been boiled a bit as you needed them pliable (if you will)... Once they are rolled I stacked them in the crock pot and poured tomato sauce, lemon juice and worcester sauce over the rolls and let them cook for 8 hours on low. I left the house with it cooking and came home to smell it complete. I will say a few days later we're still trying to get the cabbage stink out of the house (one major downside I would say...) Any suggestions to help get rid of this I would love them. They did taste quite delicious. I have them in the fridge to use in a few days for dinner for our lil crowd on Sutherland. Overall another successful completion of a recipe.
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| From CSA, Dinner, Chicken! |
Monday, July 11, 2011
CSA Week 6
Week six brought us a full cooler at our normal time (after 5 pm on Thursday). We delighted when the cooler came upstairs and got distracted from our house guests -- Uncle Warren and Grandma-- as we dove into it. They left and we got started with surveying the exciting items in store for us. I forgot to take off the pictures from last week (week 5) and so thus we have a combined slide show this week showing 5 & 6. 5 is the clearly skimpy week and 6 is a full table of items.
This week we received: Sweet Candy Onion, Red Potatoes, Yellow Squash, Green,Yellow & Purple Beans, Beets, Zucchini, Japanese Turnips, Kale, Romaine Lettuce, Cucumbers, herb-Spearmint and a dozen eggs. I also purchased a whole chicken ~ which came frozen and is hormone and antibiotic free. The chicken that we were able to purchase was $3.50/lb which is not cheap compared to the whole chicken you might pick up at the store for .99/lb.
We are all excited to try the chicken.... but this week we were disappointed to not get any fruit. Most other weeks we have received it and it is one of our favorite parts about the CSA. Last week they had alluded to peaches, which we all love. Hopefully we will get some in the next cooler.
We were very excited to have some different colored green beans. The purple ones look so interesting. However, they supposedly turn the same color green after cooking and don't taste too different. I think the colors would be interesting. I'm a big fan of squash and zucchini and we've been sauteing it with wheat berries and different sauces.
Also exciting -- June has posted a few recipes that we have enjoyed. :-)
This week we received: Sweet Candy Onion, Red Potatoes, Yellow Squash, Green,Yellow & Purple Beans, Beets, Zucchini, Japanese Turnips, Kale, Romaine Lettuce, Cucumbers, herb-Spearmint and a dozen eggs. I also purchased a whole chicken ~ which came frozen and is hormone and antibiotic free. The chicken that we were able to purchase was $3.50/lb which is not cheap compared to the whole chicken you might pick up at the store for .99/lb.
We are all excited to try the chicken.... but this week we were disappointed to not get any fruit. Most other weeks we have received it and it is one of our favorite parts about the CSA. Last week they had alluded to peaches, which we all love. Hopefully we will get some in the next cooler.
We were very excited to have some different colored green beans. The purple ones look so interesting. However, they supposedly turn the same color green after cooking and don't taste too different. I think the colors would be interesting. I'm a big fan of squash and zucchini and we've been sauteing it with wheat berries and different sauces.
Also exciting -- June has posted a few recipes that we have enjoyed. :-)
Sunday, July 10, 2011
The promised roasted beet recipe...
After the first few weeks of getting the CSA we had gotten beets. None of us had eaten beets before (well maybe Timmy, but the rest of us hadn't... our mom must've not liked them as we didn't have them as children.) Anyways determined to try beets and like them I searched for a recipe. Luckily I had a cookbook that I had gotten from Andre and Brad as a wedding gift for Newlyweds *by the way it had a lot of great recipes* In paging through it I found a roasted root vegetable recipe that included beets, looked perfect. It was super simple and we cooked it up for father's day. Please find the recipe below.
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 lb parnsnips (I ended up using potatoes as parnsnips were out of season, worked just as well)
- 12 oz carrots sliced into 1/2 in diagonal slices (I just try to slice both the beets and potatoes into comparable pieces)*I used baby carrot and sliced in 1/2, I tried to use approximately the same amount
- 12 oz uncooked beets, scrubbed well and cut into 1/2 in diagonal slices
- 1 1/4 c heavy cream
- 1 tbs olive oil
- sea salt and ground black pepper
Cover the dish with foil and cook at 400 degrees for 1 hour 40 min. Remove the foil and add olive oil and cook for an additional 20 min.
I will add it also it was a very pretty looking dish w/ all the colors from the beets, potatoes, and carrots. We've been roasting the beets ever since because we loved them so much.
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 lb parnsnips (I ended up using potatoes as parnsnips were out of season, worked just as well)
- 12 oz carrots sliced into 1/2 in diagonal slices (I just try to slice both the beets and potatoes into comparable pieces)*I used baby carrot and sliced in 1/2, I tried to use approximately the same amount
- 12 oz uncooked beets, scrubbed well and cut into 1/2 in diagonal slices
- 1 1/4 c heavy cream
- 1 tbs olive oil
- sea salt and ground black pepper
Cover the dish with foil and cook at 400 degrees for 1 hour 40 min. Remove the foil and add olive oil and cook for an additional 20 min.
I will add it also it was a very pretty looking dish w/ all the colors from the beets, potatoes, and carrots. We've been roasting the beets ever since because we loved them so much.
Friday, July 8, 2011
S'mores bars mmmm...
So it appears we've started to blog about interesting various recipes that we've made. This time we made s'mores bar, I had the supplies to make this for quite sometime but hadn't gotten around to it. Well worth the wait, however it's a little bit addicting like crack so watch out! I got the recipes from a Betty Crocker email I get them weekly. This recipe was super easy, only down side was that we messed up the oven time which caused a bit of a problem. Here's the recipe below:
1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® sugar cookie mix
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 cup butter or margarine, melted
3 cups milk chocolate chips (18 oz)
4 1/2 cups miniature marshmallows
1. Heat oven to 375°F. In large bowl, stir together cookie mix and crumbs. Stir in melted butter until soft dough forms. Press into ungreased 13x9-inch pan.
2. Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until set. Immediately sprinkle chocolate chips over crust. Let stand 3 to 5 minutes or until chocolate begins to melt. Spread chocolate evenly over crust.
3. Set oven control to broil. Sprinkle marshmallows over melted chocolate. Broil with top 5 to 6 inches from heat 20 to 30 seconds or until marshmallows are toasted. (Watch closely; marshmallows will brown quickly.) Cool 10 minutes. For bars, cut into 6 rows by 4 rows. Serve warm. Store any remaining bars tightly covered.
Really simple promise to delight a crowd!
1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® sugar cookie mix
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 cup butter or margarine, melted
3 cups milk chocolate chips (18 oz)
4 1/2 cups miniature marshmallows
1. Heat oven to 375°F. In large bowl, stir together cookie mix and crumbs. Stir in melted butter until soft dough forms. Press into ungreased 13x9-inch pan.
2. Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until set. Immediately sprinkle chocolate chips over crust. Let stand 3 to 5 minutes or until chocolate begins to melt. Spread chocolate evenly over crust.
3. Set oven control to broil. Sprinkle marshmallows over melted chocolate. Broil with top 5 to 6 inches from heat 20 to 30 seconds or until marshmallows are toasted. (Watch closely; marshmallows will brown quickly.) Cool 10 minutes. For bars, cut into 6 rows by 4 rows. Serve warm. Store any remaining bars tightly covered.
Really simple promise to delight a crowd!
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| From CSA Week 5 & 6 |
Monday, July 4, 2011
CSA Week 5
We were forgotten! Our shipment did not arrive on Thursday as expected. I don't know why and we didn't get a description either. June called out to Silex and let them know we were missing our order and it did arrive on Friday, but very late in the evening. So late that June and I had already left for the evening. Thankfully, my great brother Warren received it and put it all away for us.
While the items in our cooler was everything as promised in our newsletter, I felt it looked skimpy compared to previous weeks. We received another round of tasty taters (ok, so I'm assuming they are tasty, the last ones were great. I haven't eaten these ones yet), green cabbage, a dozen eggs, green beans, sweet candy onions, summer squash, zucchini, & fresh blueberries. I know June & Timmy are very excited about the blueberries. I've never been much of a blueberry eater myself.... I detest them most of the time. I plan to at least try the local berries to see if I can be swayed.
Right now we have 3 heads of green cabbage and we are on a mission to come up with something tasty and delicious with all this cabbage. June and I are not big fans of coleslaw.... so we are working hard to research something else that will be yummy. Aunt Maggie recommended finding a recipe for stuffed cabbage ~ and that we could freeze it easily.
While the items in our cooler was everything as promised in our newsletter, I felt it looked skimpy compared to previous weeks. We received another round of tasty taters (ok, so I'm assuming they are tasty, the last ones were great. I haven't eaten these ones yet), green cabbage, a dozen eggs, green beans, sweet candy onions, summer squash, zucchini, & fresh blueberries. I know June & Timmy are very excited about the blueberries. I've never been much of a blueberry eater myself.... I detest them most of the time. I plan to at least try the local berries to see if I can be swayed.
Right now we have 3 heads of green cabbage and we are on a mission to come up with something tasty and delicious with all this cabbage. June and I are not big fans of coleslaw.... so we are working hard to research something else that will be yummy. Aunt Maggie recommended finding a recipe for stuffed cabbage ~ and that we could freeze it easily.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Dinner Time!
Right now, it's Friday morning and we have no cooler full of produce. June is supposed to investigate why we didn't get our delivery last evening. I'm very sad/confused -- did I do something wrong? The newsletter e-mail we got was full of yummy good news. Hopefully, we'll get it today??
I wanted to post about 2 yummy and delicious dinners we've made with our CSA produce. This is a longer post... so stay with me!
I don't know if I've ever mentioned Meatless Monday to you? It's one of our favorite and fun evenings of the week. The concept is not new, from what I have read, it started during WWII when due to rationing folks gave up meat on Mondays. We now do it for two reasons: it's healthy to control the amount of meat you are eating (i.e., not eat meat with every meal, every day) and it's better for our environment because the meat production industry creates so much waste. I try to be earth friendly and want to do my part little by little. Right now, I'm too much of a meat lover to go vegetarian but I do see the benefits of reducing my intake and increasing the quality of meat we get (i.e., grass fed beef which is more expensive than regular beef).
Now, back to the dinner. Timmy made a delicious Black Bean & Wheat Berry Chili. It is a high-protein dish and the wheat berries take on the spicy flavor of the chili which was delicious. As a newly diagnosed Type 1 diabetic, the fiber is great for me. I did add some fritos (not so great) to my chili but hey, it's fun to live a little on the edge. The chili was so good even Warren ate it! (He is notoriously anti-Meatless Monday as he worries what meals can be eaten without meat???! He's a big carnivore-loving guy.) We used wheat berries & green garlic from our CSA to add with some organic stuff I picked up at Trader Joe's -- one of my favorite grocery stores.
2 tablesppons olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 large yellow bell pepper, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed
2 14-ounce cans no-salt-added diced tomatoes, undrained
1-2 canned chipolte peppers in adobo sauce minced (We used only 1 and it was spicy!)
2 cups vegetable broth
2 teaspoons light brown sugar
2 cups cooked wheat berries
Juice of 1 lime
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Directions:
1. Heat oil in dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion, bell pepper, garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt, & pepper and cook; stirring occasionally until tender, about 5 minutes. Add beans, tomatoes, chipotle to taste, broth, & brown sugar. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat, cover, & simmer for 25 minutes.
2. Stir in cooked wheat berries and heat through, about 5 minutes more. (If using frozen wheat berries, cook until thoroughly heated.) Remove from the heat. Stir in lime juice. Garnish each bowl with avocado and cilantro.
Tip: Canned chipotle peppers (smoked jalapenos) in adobo sauce add heat and a smoky flavor. Look for the small cans with other Mexican foods in large supermarkets. Once opened, store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks in refrigerator or 6 months in freezer.
Timmy took the organic grass fed beef that I picked up at Trader Joe's and made it into sliders with some bread crumbs. We took the extremely delicious parisian herb farmer's cheese (a type of goat cheese) that I got from Dry Dock Farms and topped our sliders with it. Great flavor combination. We polished it off with Companion's Beaucaure Rolls. Yum yum.
I used my new crappy mandolin to slice up zucchini & carrots (tasting so much better than store bought -- bursting with flavor), which we sauteed with teriakyi sauce and some high-fiber wheat berries. I also used the mandolin to shred our fresh radishes and add them to a salad. I got the romaine lettuce from work, but it was a tasty Caesar salad with Asiago cheese & pomegranate seeds.
Timmy took the green beans (also amazingly better than what you get at the store) and cooked them, drained them, and added my favorite -- a little butter, some Parmesan cheese, & bread crumbs.
For our taters (yummy little red ones from the farm), we cut them up and roasted them with some green onions (also extra flavorful from the farm) with some pepper, salt, red pepper, "Italian seasoning", and olive oil. It was hard to control the portion sizing here -- now that I'm diabetic I really need to be careful about how many carbs I'm inhaling. I have also put on 8.5 pounds since discovering I was diabetic in May. This is too much and my clothes are not fitting so well. As a friend of mine joked ~ "well, now we know you're secret!" (To the rapid and easy weight loss, how I was able to consume anything I wanted to eat last year and not put on a pound. That was sort of nice but I should have known that there was something more serious wrong.)
I wanted to post about 2 yummy and delicious dinners we've made with our CSA produce. This is a longer post... so stay with me!
I don't know if I've ever mentioned Meatless Monday to you? It's one of our favorite and fun evenings of the week. The concept is not new, from what I have read, it started during WWII when due to rationing folks gave up meat on Mondays. We now do it for two reasons: it's healthy to control the amount of meat you are eating (i.e., not eat meat with every meal, every day) and it's better for our environment because the meat production industry creates so much waste. I try to be earth friendly and want to do my part little by little. Right now, I'm too much of a meat lover to go vegetarian but I do see the benefits of reducing my intake and increasing the quality of meat we get (i.e., grass fed beef which is more expensive than regular beef).
Now, back to the dinner. Timmy made a delicious Black Bean & Wheat Berry Chili. It is a high-protein dish and the wheat berries take on the spicy flavor of the chili which was delicious. As a newly diagnosed Type 1 diabetic, the fiber is great for me. I did add some fritos (not so great) to my chili but hey, it's fun to live a little on the edge. The chili was so good even Warren ate it! (He is notoriously anti-Meatless Monday as he worries what meals can be eaten without meat???! He's a big carnivore-loving guy.) We used wheat berries & green garlic from our CSA to add with some organic stuff I picked up at Trader Joe's -- one of my favorite grocery stores.
Recipe:
Ingredients:2 tablesppons olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 large yellow bell pepper, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed
2 14-ounce cans no-salt-added diced tomatoes, undrained
1-2 canned chipolte peppers in adobo sauce minced (We used only 1 and it was spicy!)
2 cups vegetable broth
2 teaspoons light brown sugar
2 cups cooked wheat berries
Juice of 1 lime
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Directions:
1. Heat oil in dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion, bell pepper, garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt, & pepper and cook; stirring occasionally until tender, about 5 minutes. Add beans, tomatoes, chipotle to taste, broth, & brown sugar. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat, cover, & simmer for 25 minutes.
2. Stir in cooked wheat berries and heat through, about 5 minutes more. (If using frozen wheat berries, cook until thoroughly heated.) Remove from the heat. Stir in lime juice. Garnish each bowl with avocado and cilantro.
Tip: Canned chipotle peppers (smoked jalapenos) in adobo sauce add heat and a smoky flavor. Look for the small cans with other Mexican foods in large supermarkets. Once opened, store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks in refrigerator or 6 months in freezer.
Dinner on Thursday!!!
Another lovely evening filled with fresh veggies and delicious food. Timmy and I raided the fridge and made an assortment of yummy stuff from our CSA. We have had quite a few items accumulate from the last two weeks. I got spoiled and ate out too much last week.Timmy took the organic grass fed beef that I picked up at Trader Joe's and made it into sliders with some bread crumbs. We took the extremely delicious parisian herb farmer's cheese (a type of goat cheese) that I got from Dry Dock Farms and topped our sliders with it. Great flavor combination. We polished it off with Companion's Beaucaure Rolls. Yum yum.
I used my new crappy mandolin to slice up zucchini & carrots (tasting so much better than store bought -- bursting with flavor), which we sauteed with teriakyi sauce and some high-fiber wheat berries. I also used the mandolin to shred our fresh radishes and add them to a salad. I got the romaine lettuce from work, but it was a tasty Caesar salad with Asiago cheese & pomegranate seeds.
Timmy took the green beans (also amazingly better than what you get at the store) and cooked them, drained them, and added my favorite -- a little butter, some Parmesan cheese, & bread crumbs.
For our taters (yummy little red ones from the farm), we cut them up and roasted them with some green onions (also extra flavorful from the farm) with some pepper, salt, red pepper, "Italian seasoning", and olive oil. It was hard to control the portion sizing here -- now that I'm diabetic I really need to be careful about how many carbs I'm inhaling. I have also put on 8.5 pounds since discovering I was diabetic in May. This is too much and my clothes are not fitting so well. As a friend of mine joked ~ "well, now we know you're secret!" (To the rapid and easy weight loss, how I was able to consume anything I wanted to eat last year and not put on a pound. That was sort of nice but I should have known that there was something more serious wrong.)
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