Our CSA - Excess Spinach

At the risk or turning my blog into a recipe blog, here's another way of dealing with excess CSA spinach, recipe courtesy of SimplyRecipes.com (we altered it slightly, but kep to the gist of this:

Potato Spinach Sausage Casserole

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, plus extra to grease the baking dish
  
• 2 teaspoons of olive oil
  
• 8 oz fresh spinach, washed, dried, and stemmed
  
• 1/2 lb of Italian sausage (we like 1/2 sweet and 1/2 hot Italian sausage), broken out of casing into small pieces
  
• 1 large red onion (about 3/4 lb), peeled and sliced thin
  
• 1 small garlic clove, minced
  
• 1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes (about 3 medium sized potatoes), peeled and cut into 1-inch chuncks
  
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
  
• 2 Tablespoons chicken broth
  
• 1 Tablespoon cider vinegar
  
• Dash of nutmeg
  
• 3/8 teaspoon of salt
  
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  
• 1 cup of shredded Gruyere or Swiss cheese

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter a 6x9 or 8x8 inch baking dish.
   
   
2. Heat one of the teaspoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add spinach and cook, stirring often, until wilted, about 3 minutes. Transfer spinach to strainer and drain. When cool, squeeze out liquid and roughly chop the spinach.
   
   
3. Wipe skillet clean. Add sausage to skillet and cook over medium-high heat until browned, 5 to 6 minutes. Use slotted spoon to transfer sausage to bowl. Wipe skillet clean. Heat remaining oil in skillet and add onions, cooking until golden, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Scrape mixture into bowl with sausage.
   
   
4. Meanwhile, place potatoes in a large pot and add enough water to cover by 1 inch. Bring potatoes to boil over high heat, then lower heat to a simmer. Cook until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Drain potatoes, wipe pot dry, put potatoes back into the pot, and mash with butter, cream, broth, vinegar, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Stir in spinach and 1/2 cup of the cheese.
   
   
5. Transfer potato-spinach mixture to prepared baking dish. Top with sausage-onion mixture and sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup of cheese. Bake until potatoes are very hot and cheese is golden and bubbly, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Serves 4.

It's Garlic Scape season again.

Yep, last year when we got Garlic Scapes in our vegetable box, we were stumped as to what they were. Then we sautéed them in with some other veg and chicken, and they were tasty. This year I found a few recipes for Garlic Scape Pesto.

Following is a recipe altered to fit what I actually did with the ingredients (slight mod's on several of the recipes I read). I made the pesto, then sautéed some chicken and longer pieces of garlic scape, and mixed it all up with some angel hair.

Mmmm mmmm.

Garlic Scape Pesto

Ingredients:

• 1 cup garlic scapes (about 8 or 9 scapes), top flowery part removed, cut into 1-inch slices
• 1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
• ¾ cup olive oil
• ½ - 3/4 cup grated parmigiano
• ½ teaspoon salt
• black pepper to taste
  

Method:
Place scapes and pine nuts in the bowl of a food processor and whiz until well combined and somewhat smooth. Slowly drizzle in oil and process until integrated. With a rubber spatula, scoop pesto out of bowl and into a mixing bowl. Add parmigiano to taste; add salt and pepper. Makes about 6 ounces of pesto. Keeps for up to one week in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.

For ½ pound short pasta such as penne, add about 2 tablespoons of pesto to cooked pasta and stir until pasta is well coated.

Behind the scenes at the Inaugural Parade

This is a video created by a fellow member of USA local 829, of his experiences participating in the inaugural parade These images completely mirror my experience there. Thanks Phil!

Northern suburbs well represented at inauguration

David Holcomb, of Ben Avon, marched in the inaugural parade as part of a 200-member American Workers Contingent.

"There was something great about walking past the reviewing stand and waving at the Bidens and the Obamas and having them wave back," he said.
"I thought the stand would be elevated and at a distance, but they were all right down close to the street ... and it was really touching."

Mr. Holcomb is production manager at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama and participated as a member of United Scenic Artists union, Local 829.

Traveling by bus from the Pentagon staging area to the start of the parade route took him and his fellow marchers through part of a crowd that filled the length of the National Mall between the Capitol and the Washington Monument.

"There is this one little street that goes through the middle of the mall, and we were crossing it just as Obama was taking the oath of office. We looked out and there were thousands and thousands and thousands of people gathered for the event and it was breathtaking."

Mr. Holcomb also was impressed by the instant comradeship among the marchers in his group. "I went down there not knowing a soul and met up with a wonderful group of people who were all there for the same reasons: to share in the moment and the history and the excitement."

Full article from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette

I guess it’s pepper season

Last week's vegetable box had more peppers than we could eat, and this weeks has even more. I like peppers, so we will do our best. But I could use a little pepper identification help. The one on the right is obviously a bell pepper. We got some of those last week. The one second from the left is a banana pepper, which we also got last week, and it has some good heat to it. How do I tell what the heck the other 4 are?

Time to search out some more pepper recipes. Oh well that's half the fun of the vegetable box: making new things. So far this summer, along with a variety of grilled veggies, we have made the following which were new for us:

• Kohlrabi – we liked it roasted best
• Beets & Beet greens
• Garlic Scape – lovely tossed with pasta, veggies and a light lemon sauce.
• Stuffed Cabbage

All in all, the Veggie box is fun, and good for us. We are enjoying it. Now what are those peppers?

Stegosaurus in da ‘burbs?

Yep, that's our very own Stegosaurus, stalking our front garden. I am kind of ashamed to admit that a part of our front garden is this weedy and/or bare. But well, we've been concentrating on other things this summer. We think he makes a nice addition to an otherwise bare spot, formerly inhabited by a very pokey bush that we never liked anyway.

You see in the summer these High School students come to our school for a 6-week intensive "taste of freshman year in a drama conservatory" program. They take classes, do homework, and have fun as well I hear. One of my colleagues has a project that he does in his stagecraft class where they assemble oversize dinosaur skeleton models. You've seen em before. They're usually 1-2 feet tall, made out of balsa wood. In this case they are made out of ¾" pressure-treated plywood, which has been cut out on our CNC Router. They tend to be a little taller than the balsa wood models. Anyway, it's a great project, which builds construction, collaboration, and even nascent critical path awareness. Plus we get to show off the cool CNC Router, and begin to give a feeling for what can be done with it.

This year we had several orphaned dinos at the end of the program - high school student from far away, big dinosaur, mounting airline baggage fees, you get the picture. Anyway, as we were finishing off the summer program, one of the Stegosaurs needed a home, and we were happy to oblige.

Also See Tanbi's own blog post about the Dino project: I CAN HAS DYNASAAR - 2008

Eating (very) Locally in MA

So, you may recall from earlier posts that Mrs. Bob and I are trying the "eating local" thing. Here we are visiting my ancestral home in the Berkshires. For a change (recently) we happen to be here, when the blueberry crop is in. On Wednesday, between rainstorms, we all went out and picked berries. We got about 3 quarts before everyone was to tired to reach the berries that were still ripe. These are the smaller tart blueberries that grow wild, as opposed to the big mushy ones that are more readily available in most grocery stores.

We had so many; I was inspired to make a blueberry pie. I don't believe I have EVER made a blueberry pie, though I have certainly enjoyed my fair share in my life. We didn't have a readily available Fannie Farmer cookbook, so I did the next best thing. I jumped on-line, and found this blog cum recipe. I followed the recipes generally. For the crust, I used a whole stick of butter flavored Crisco and 2.5 cups of flour. It came out great. For the filling I used a little more than a quart of blueberries, cause I had a deep pan. I also only used 2/3 of the requested sugar, and a little more than a tablespoon of lemon (maybe 2). The pie came out deliciously slightly tart, which balanced with the buttery taste of the crust beautifully. I braved making a lattice crust, which was fun, if a little thick and slightly indelicate.

You can see in the photos that I was enjoying a little of the post-dinner Pinot Noir, while making the pie. You can also see that I plated the pie with a couple slices each of some wonderful cheeses from Rubiner's in Great Barrington. The lechevrot was my favorite of the two cheeses the previous night, served on a baguette. However, the Bonnema State Boerenkaas paired better with the pie. In either case who ever heard of a cheesemonger? Great Barrington may well have become more hoity toity than before, but I am certainly enjoying the results of that.