The many uses for zucchini

We've been receiving a lot of zucchini in our last couple CSA boxes. It is incredibly sweet on its own, and most of the time we've just sliced it and tossed it into a frying pan with a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper. When I've felt more creative, this is what I've managed to concoct!

Spicy Zucchini Sandwiches (from www.vegfamily.com)



Ingredients:

1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp minced garlic or about 1/2 garlic head
1-2 tsp of olive oil
dash of salt (or more to taste)
1 large zucchini
tomato
lettuce (romaine or leaf)
onions or scallions
ciabatta bread

Directions:
1. To prepare sauté, add red pepper flakes, minced garlic, olive oil and salt to heated sauté pan. Sauté for a couple of minutes (I recommend you cover pot or the red pepper may make you cough a bit.)
2. To prepare zucchini, cut into thick half-inch strips lengthwise. Steam until tender. (optional: coat with breadcrumbs). Pan fry with seasoned sauté for 3 minutes or until lightly brown; make sure you flip them to coat with seasoned sauté.
3. Assemble sandwich using ciabatta bread or thick crusty rolls. Add fresh tomatoes, romaine or leaf lettuce and onions or chopped scallions.

I didn't have either ciabatta bread or crusty rolls, so I toasted a kaiser roll in the broiler. It tasted wonderful!

Zucchini Bread (straight from my Betty Crocker Cookbook)


Ingredients:

3 cups shredded zucchini (2 to 3 medium)
1 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
3 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup coarsely chopped nuts
1/2 cup raisins, if desired

Directions:
1. Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottoms only of 2 (8x4-inch) loaf pans or 1 (9x5-inch) loaf pan with shortening or cooking spray.
2. In large bowl, stir zucchini, sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs until well mixed. Stir in remaining ingredients except nuts and raisins. Stir in nuts and raisins. Divide batter evenly between 8-inch pans or pour into 9-inch pan.
3. Bake 8-inch loaves 50 to 60 minutes, 9-inch loaf 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on cooling rack 10 minutes.
4. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on cooling rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days.
High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): Heat oven to 375°F.

I should note that because I only have one bread pan (I used to have two, but the other has mysteriously disappeared), I ended up running the oven twice as long because I cook only one half of the dough at a time. Not a wise use of my fossil fuels, I'm afraid.

Grilled Zucchini (2 servings)




Ingredients:

Zucchini 12-14 inches long, sliced in slices 1/2 to 5/8 inch thick.
Olive oil (just enough to coat the zucchini lightly)
1 tsp. garlic powder or garlic puree
1 -2 tsp. dried oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary, or a combination (dried works best when grilling, I've found)

Directions:
1. Cut zucchini into slices, making sure the slices are the same thickness. Combine olive oil with garlic and dried herbs of your choice. Pour over zucchini slices and stir until well coated. (This would also make a great marinade if left to sit 4 hours or so in a ziploc bag.)
2. Place zucchini on grill. Cook 3-4 more minutes on first side. Check for grill marks.
3. Turn zucchini to second side and cook about 4 minutes more, or until zucchini is starting to soften quite a bit, with the outside slightly charred and browned. Serve hot.

We brought this to a barbecue at a friend's house. It went over so well that they made it again themselves a couple days later!

Glorious August!

August: the month of tomatoes and basil! I bought two bunches of basil from Budwood Farms at the Hillcrest Farmer's market on Sunday (my new favorite market), clipped the ends when I got home, and placed them in a cup of room temperature water. They perked right up. The man at the stand promised that they would last at least a week, possibly longer, in that state. Using tomatoes that came in our weekly CSA allotment I made this simple salad:


Ingredients
3 Tbsp. apple vinegar (red wine vinegar would have been better)
Salt and pepper to taste
4 Tbsp. olive oil
1/4 cup fresh basil (chiffonade - stack the basil leaves on top of each other, roll tightly, and then slice into thin ribbons)
3 large tomatoes (cut into large chunks)
1 cucumber (peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch pieces)

I combined the vinegar, salt, and pepper with a whisk until the salt was dissolved. I then added the basil and olive oil and stirred gently until well mixed. After placing the chopped tomato and cucumber in a separate bowl, I poured the basil dressing over the top.

There is nothing like the smell of fresh basil on a hot August evening. I was delirious with it. Quickly pick up some for yourself before the season ends!

Lessons from the kitchen

Here's what we had in the fridge on Friday night after I picked up our CSA allotment.



And this is what I've made from this abundance so far:

Blackberry Pie using blackberries from Stehly Farms in Valley Center. (I adapted the filling recipe below from this month's Sunset magazine.)



5 cups blackberries (you can also use raspberries, marionberries, and other bramble berries)
1/4 cup flour
About 1/4 cup plus 1 tsp. sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. butter

Place berries in large bowl. Sprinkle with flour, 1/4 cup sugar, brown sugar, and salt. Stir gently until berries are well coated. Taste and add more sugar if needed. Pour berry mixture into chilled bottom crust and dot with butter. Lay top crust over and crimp pie edges together. Sprinkle with remaining 1 tsp. of sugar.

Lesson learned: Frozen pie crust is immensely less superior than the real thing. Sigh. That's what I get for trying to cut corners!

Some Guacamole from a fairly basic recipe that I always change a bit to suit my mood.

2 ripe avocados
½ onion, minced (about 1/2 cup)
1-2 serrano chiles, stems and seeds removed, minced (chili powder can suffice in a pinch)
2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of fresh lime or lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
A dash of freshly grated black pepper
1/2 ripe tomato, seeds and pulp removed, chopped

Cut avocados in half, remove seed, and scoop out avocado from the peel. Place in mixing bowl and using a fork (or a potato masher, as is my preference), mash the avocado so that it is slightly chunky. Add the chopped onion, cilantro, lime or lemon, salt and pepper and mash some more. Start with a half of one chili pepper and add to the guacamole to your desired degree of hotness. Refrigerate until cool. Mix in tomatoes when you're ready to serve.

Lesson learned: There is no way that an unripe avocado can be convinced that it should be smooshed. Enough said.

And finally, Root Soup, adapted from a recipe in the Local Flavors cookbook by Deborah Madison.



2 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 1/2 large onions, finely diced
2 bunches of bok choy: stalks, chopped into 1/2 inch chunks and with the greens shredded
1 carrot, diced into 1/4-inch pieces
3 turnips, peeled and diced into 1/2-inch pieces
1 1/2 cups red kale, shredded
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tsp. salt
2 beets (or 1 large beet), peeled and sliced into julienne strips
1 cup fresh tomatoes, chopped
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp. sugar
10 cups of vegetable broth
Pepper
3 tbsp. white vinegar
Parsley

Prepare all vegetables as indicated above. Melt the butter in a large French oven. Add the onions, bok choy, carrot, turnips, kale, and garlic. Toss with salt, cover, and cook over medium heat until greens have wilted, about 20 minutes. Add beets, tomatoes, bay leaves, sugar, and vegetable broth. Bring to a simmer. Simmer until beets are tender, about 25 minutes. Taste for salt and season with pepper. Stir in the vinegar. Serve hot or cold. Garnish with parsley or dill.

Lesson learned: Beets still turn everything pink regardless of what they're mixed with. The soup didn't turn out fuschia, but it did have a bit of a rosy tone. Because it tasted so good, I decided to disregard it!

A very long Friday

All day Friday I paced anxiously about the house, counting down to 5:00, and imagining the bounty that was to come from our very first CSA allotment of locally-grown, organic veggies. Pick-up was from 5 to 8, so at 5:15 (I couldn't wait any longer) we drove over to the drop-off point in North Park. We arrived to find two stacks of boxes neatly piled on the porch of the sponsor’s home, and the Be Wise truck just pulling away. The sponsor himself was outside trimming back his bougainvillea, so we exchanged friendly hellos (I heard him tell someone else that he gets a free box for being a pick-up point). I checked the sign-off list for my name, then we set to unloading one of the boxes into the bags we had brought with us (the CSA reuses the boxes). Two other young couples were there at the same time and when I made a “ugh, not chard!” comment as I was looking at the contents of our allotment, one of the women offered to trade her tomatoes for my chard. I accepted without hesitation. One can never have too many tomatoes!

Here’s the list of what our box contained:

Red beets
Tomatoes
Carrots
Radishes
Cucumbers
Avocado
Zucchini
Green Kale
Three types of lettuce

I have never cooked fresh beets (I was brought up on those lovely pickled ones that stain your mashed potatoes to a sickly pink tinge), but my mother recently forwarded a guide to the intricacies of preparing this strange little veggie (yes, the same woman that served me those pickled ones), so I suppose it is time to deal with my beet phobia.

My only disappointment was the lack of potatoes and onions, but I’ll try to find them elsewhere this week (both are in season according the San Diego Farm Bureau’s Harvest Calendar). And while I'm at it, I’ll also pick up some limes and lemons since we’ve been using a lot of those in the last couple weeks.

Ricky Martin & other insane ideas

If, like me, you start humming that obnoxious Ricky Martin tune “Livin’ la Vida Loca” when you see the title of this blog, I offer my sincerest apologies. I was never a big fan, and now after two weeks of it running through my mind, I have begun to truly detest it. I stand by my choice though, regardless of the annoyance, not only because I think it wonderfully catchy (ha!), but because replacing the word “loca” (which means “crazy” in Spanish) with the word “local” is a witty little word play for this whole experience that has been—for lack of a better explanation—completely nuts. I am in a constant state of panic as to where our next meal will come from. To ease some of the pressure of finding all my local sources at once (and make sure we don’t eat out three meals a day!), I have allowed myself to buy non-local – yet organic and natural – foods for the things I have not yet found a supplier. In the meantime, I’m frantically making phone calls, sending emails, and searching the internet with the goal of being fairly well provided for by October 1st (three months from the start date of it all).

So far, I have secured regular produce delivery (Be Wise Ranch), found a back-up produce supplier (O.B. People’s Organic Food Market), and located local seafood (Catalina Offshore Products). So, uh, that just leaves me with everything else. Daunting, yes, but not yet worthy of despair. I am pursuing many different leads for dairy products, eggs, and meat and will post as I learn more.

Customer Supported Agriculture

At the beginning of this project, I started researching CSA (Customer Supported Agriculture), a brilliant little program some farms offer as a way to connect the consumer to a farm directly. There couldn't be a simpler way to obtain locally grown, organic produce. Normal, city-dwelling folks such as myself have the opportunity through CSAs to buy a share of the harvest by either making quarterly payments (if the harvest is year-round) or making a payment prior to the planting season (allowing the farmer to plant for the necessary demand). Some CSAs ask that you commit to work on the farm a certain amount of hours in addition to the share price. In return for your investment of money and/or time, the farmer provides a box or bag of the harvest each week, which is a variety of fresh, typically organic produce. Harvest share size can vary, but in general, a share provides for the weekly vegetable needs of a four-person family. Some CSAs also offer flowers, eggs, honey, etc. to round it out.

My search for a local CSA started at the Local Harvest website. For the San Diego area, there are four listings: Be Wise Ranch, Seabreeze Organic Farm, Garden of Eden Organics, and Tierra Miguel Foundation. With a quick Google search for CSAs in San Diego, I also found Little Creek Acres. A critical reading of each site led to the elimination of Garden of Eden and Seabreeze since they supplement their boxes/bags of weekly produce with items from other farms that are not always guaranteed to be local. I also eliminated Little Creek Acres because the only way to pick up the weekly share is to drive to the farm in Valley Center (much too far from my home to be an economical option).

Ultimately, I decided to go with Be Wise Ranch for several reasons. Firstly, they offer a 4-week trial period, and I’d like to see how the whole system works before making a quarterly commitment. Secondly, they offer a choice of a small or large box as well as an every-other-week option. Thirdly, they have a pick-up location close to my home at a time that is convenient. And, lastly, their website is well presented and includes the answers to nearly every question that has occurred to me so far. The best feature is their Weekly Pick List which I can reference to find out what to expect in my box each week.

I have placed Tierra Miguel Foundation on the wait list as an option I may pursue later. I particularly like that they have monthly volunteer days so CSA members can participate in farm activities. Be Wise Ranch, being a much larger farm, is less accessible (no visits allowed), although they are building a demonstration farm that will be open soon for tours.

So, I have committed to four weeks at Be Wise Ranch to see how it goes. When I called this afternoon, they told me it would be about a week and a half before my account is activated. I imagine it will be a little like Christmas opening up the box each week. I can't wait!