Friday Night's for Pizza

Delivery 6/26/2012

• 1 head of broccoli
• 1 bunch of cavolo nero (tuscan black kale)
• 1 bunch flat leaf  Italian parsley
• 1 head napa cabbage
• 1 bunch baby/salad turnips
• 1 bunch scallions
• 1 bunch basil
• 2 bunches of garlic scapes
• 3 kohlrabis
• 1 head romaine lettuce
• 1 head red leaf lettuce
• 1 bunch rosemary

Garlic & Herb Pizza Crust

• 3 teaspoons of active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups of warm water
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 2 cups of bread flour
• one whole bunch of parsley
• one whole bunch of basil
• 4-5 garlic scapes
• one whole bunch rosemary
• 4-5 scallions

Mix together the yeast and water and whisk together until opaque and kind of foamy.  Add in the oil and salt.  Set aside.  Finely chop any and all herbs.  Mix together the two types of flour and the chopped herbs, then pour in the wet ingredients and stir until you have a sticky dough.  Let the dough rise with a piece of stretch wrap and a dish towel over it for 30 minutes.

In the meantime, preheat your oven to 500.  Prepare any toppings you want to put on the pizza while the oven is heating up.  After the oven reaches 500, put a cookie sheet in for 5-10 minutes. You want everything prepared ahead of time, so that you work quickly when you assemble the pizza.  The faster it gets into the oven, the crispier your crust will be (and everyone loves a crispy pizza crust). 

It's a two person job from here on out.  One of you should start stretching the dough in your hands.  Once it's close to your desired thiness, the other person should take the hot pan out of the oven.  Finish stretching the dough on the hot pan.  You should hear it sizzle a little bit when it hits the metal.  Add your toppings and put back in the oven for about 5 minutes, until any cheese you use is melty and golden brown.

Here are a few topping combinations we like:

1. Classic tomato, mozzerella with fresh basil added after it comes out of the oven.
2. Carmelized onions, fig jam and pancetta
3. Carmelized onions and fontina cheese with fresh arugala added after it comes out of the oven.
4. Pesto, parmaggiano-reggiano and halved cherry tomatos.

Weekend Bonus Recipe - Popovers Love Strawberries

CSA Share 6/19/2012

• 2 pints of Strawberries

Strawberries that you get from your CSA share or farmer's market aren't at all like the conventionally grown grocery store behemoths.  Where conventional strawberries were bred/developed specifically for their ability to withstand long-distance transportation, your friendly neighborhood farmer probably has chosen to grow strawberries with the most intense flavor.  Of course, this means they usually fall short in the shelf-life department, and before your next delivery arrives, they may already gone soft, developed spots, or even started to grow mold.  Like sweet corn, fresh local strawberries are meant to be eaten almost immediately.  While perfect on their own, here's a nice way to use up whatever is left in the little green pint on a lazy weekend between share deliveries.

Popovers Love Strawberries

• 1 &1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 3 eggs (the fresher and more local, the better - you want a good eggy flavor), well beaten.
• 1 1/2 cups of milk.
• Fresh, local strawberries, hulled but not sliced.
• 1-3 teaspoons of sugar.  If you have vanilla sugar or lavender sugar or some other special sugar, here is the place to use it.  Otherwise, regular granulated or Sugar in the Raw (TM) is fine.

Preheat your oven to bake 450.  Grease up a muffin tin.  Mix together the flour and salt in one mixing bowl; the eggs and milk in another.  Add both mixtures together and whisk until smooth.  Fill each well of the muffin tin 2/3 of the way.  Bake at 450 for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 350 and bake for another 20 minutes.  While your popovers are baking, sort of mash the strawberries with a fork, and sprinkle with the sugar.  Let them sit while the popovers are baking.

To serve, open up a popover and spoon in some strawberry goodness, and eat just like that.

First Share, New Blog

This is our third year participating in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program with a local farm.  I've been getting a lot of questions from friends starting their first CSA about what to do with what they get.  We're children of the 90's who grew up with Captain Planet's environmental message, and are trying to live it out using our disposable income, but don't have a clue what a "kohlrabi" is.

I decided to write this blog to help share my experiences with CSA produce with anybody who loves fresh, organic, local produce, but just doesn't know what to do with any of it.  My blog posts will have two parts:  The first will list what produce I get each week, the second half will be a recipe.  Common items between the list and recipe will be bolded, so people get an idea of how much (or how little) of a share gets be used in a single dish.

CSA Share 6/19/2012

• 1 bunch of Cilantro
• 1 bunch of Rosemary
• 2 bunches of Garlic Scapes
• 1 lb. Sugar-snap Peas
• 2 lbs. Kohlrabi
• 2 lbs. Young Turnips
• 1 bunch Scallions
• 1 head of Redleaf Lettuce
• 1 head of Bibb Lettuce
• 1 head of Curly Kale
• 1 Head of Red Russian Kale
• 2 pints of Strawberries.

Vegetarian Pad Thai - This is by no means an authentic recipe.  While it looks complicated, this is a great way to use up a whole bunch of different produce at once.  Don't limit yourself to the produce listed below (heck, you don't even have to keep it vegetarian if you don't want to), use whatever is fresh and in season.  You just want to keep a balance between soft and crunch, leaves and roots/bulbs/etc in your dish.  Some substitutions are included for the weirder ingredients.

The Sauce

• Three limes, juiced.
• Three heaping tablespoons of peanutbutter (creamy or chunky)
• Two tablespoons Fish Sauce (sub in soy sauce)
• One teaspoon sesame oil
• Two tablespoons of coconut oil (sub in olive or canola oil)
• One good squeeze of Sriracha (sub other hot sauces, or leave out)
• One good squeeze of honey
• One bunch of Cilantro, chopped fine
• Half a bunch of scallions, sliced on a bias into little rings

The Noodles

• 1/2 box of wide Thai rice noodles
• One large onion, chopped.
• One bunch of garlic scapes, cut in half (approx. noodle length)
• Two heads of kohlrabi, leaves chopped and bulbs cut into matchsticks
• Leaves from the young turnips, chopped.  Leave the actual roots for something else.
• 1/2 lb of sugar snap peas, leafy tips and veins removed
• Handfull of peanuts, chopped.

Start soaking the noodles according to package directions.   Add the onions in a large skillet over medium heat.  While onions are browning, assemble your sauce, stirring together all of the liquid ingredients until smooth, then adding the herbs.  Set the sauce aside.  When the onions are a light golden color, add the garlic scapes, stirring occasionally.  Next add the kohlrabi and stir more.  Once the kohlrabi sticks are just a little bit soft, add in your leaves, and keep stirring (this is essentially a stir fry, something that CSA subscribers come to love).  Cover the pan and let all the veggies steam for about 10 minutes, or until their the desired softness.  Add your snap-peas and peanuts last, you want them to stay crunchy. 

Once snap peas are warmed through, add in your noodles and 1/2 of your sauce.  Stir all the ingredients together.  The noodles will absorb quite a bit of sauce and become a big, sticky mess.  When this happens, add the rest of your sauce and they'll loosen up.  Serve hot, with a slice of lime and some leftover cilantro sprigs for garnish (if you're trying to impress someone).