Week 2

So, that was fast! Here we are in week two already. Yesterday, I picked up our second share, which was full of some old friends (ahem, kohlrabi) and some new veggies to experiment with.

Here's the week two lineup:

• Red leaf lettuce
• Russian kale
• Kohlrabi
• Napa cabbage
• Shelling peas
• Pea tendrils
• Classic french cheese from Shy Brothers Farm in Westport, MA

By the way, the cabbage takes up half of the fridge!

I can say for certain that you won't be seeing any recipes with the cheese. That's because we already ate it! It's been a nice snack for while we're cooking dinner, especially on delicious stoneground wheat crackers from Whole Foods! Here's a picture of Todd and the cheese:

Also, you may be wondering what we did with some of the week one items that we didn't mention... like the strawberries and eggs. I had some leftover shortbread from my strawberry shortcake baking this weekend, so Todd and I made some more whipped cream and used our share strawberries for that. A perfect dessert, if I don't say so myself. Todd has also eaten a few of the eggs, but we have a great recipe coming for you soon - a delicious weekend breakfast recipe that you can make with basically anything you have on hand. You'll definitely have to come back for that one.

Here we go, week two!

-Amanda

Getting to Know Kohlrabi

kohl·ra·bi - (noun) A cultivated cabbage, whose stem above ground swells into an edible, bulblike formation.

Thank goodness someone knows what it is (thanks, Dictionary.com!) Monday night was our kohlrabi experiment, and guess what... we loved it! When we first saw this veggie in our week one share, we didn't know what we would do with it, but while kohlrabi may be strange looking, it tastes great both raw and cooked. You basically peel off the skin and slice it up - super easy!

Onto the recipe. We were hoping to make a cooked recipe, so I poked around the web and came across a yummy looking one for roasted chicken with carrots and kohlrabi. In true Share Stories fashion, we changed the recipe a bit to use some of the other items we had on hand:

Ingredients:

• One and a half pounds of chicken breasts, sliced into large pieces
• Four carrots, peeled and sliced into 2-inch pieces
• One large potato, peeled and cubed
• One small onion, sliced
• Two garlic cloves, sliced (you can also mince it, if you don't like big pieces of garlic like we do)
• The ingredient of the hour - one kohlrabi, cubed
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Poultry seasoning (or your favorite fresh herbs!)
• Optional: One Swanson Flavor Boost packet. I only used this because I bought a bunch of them a while back and am DETERMINED to use them... mainly so they're not a waste of money. You can just as easily use some chicken broth, or skip this ingredient all together.

Instructions:

• Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees
• Heat a couple tablespoons of oil in the pan; after seasoning the chicken, sear it in the pan. Share Stores tip: Resist the urge to move the chicken while you're searing it. You want to let it turn a nice golden brown, so no peeking!

• At the same time, prepare the veggies.

• Once the chicken is ready, place the veggies in a casserole dish, with the chicken on top. Cover with foil (poke a few holes for steam) and bake for 30 to 45 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. We originally set the timer for 20 minutes, but needed to add about another 20 so the potatoes wouldn't be hard.

The finished product is delicious, and definitely a recipe we'll be holding onto!

-Amanda

Lunches by Todd

What's the biggest difference between my wife and I? I'll eat ANYTHING, literally anything. I don't care what's mixed with what or what it is. I'll eat it.

So keep that in mind when you're reading my posts about meals I made for myself with little to no help from my more culinarily realistic wife.

I had a 150 mile bike ride this weekend, so I knew I had to eat healthy. Two salads in two days...

Day 1:

• Red Leaf Lettuce (Farm Share)
• Organic Hard Boiled Egg (Farm Share)
• Bacon
• Blue Cheese Crumble
• Organic Avocado
• Olive Oil
• Balsamic Vinaigrette
• Organic Chopped Walnuts

Washed the lettuce, cut it up into bite sized pieces and threw them in a bowl. I did try a piece of the red leaf lettuce on it's own and it was AMAZING! Very sweet and crispy! There is something to say for fresh and local. I ate the whole salad and wasn't even hungry till dinner. I think the protein from the egg and walnuts helped!

Day 2:

• Leafy Green Leafs (Farm Share)
• Okay, so I don't really know these were but if I had to guess I might say Chinese Cabbage. If anyone else has any ideas please feel free to comment.
• Green Onions (Farm Share)
• Scapes (Extra from our neighbors Farm Share) 
• Small Can of Tuna
• Organic German Mustard
• Sweet Relish
• Balsamic Vinaigrette

I mixed the Green Onions, Scapes, Tuna, Mustard and Relish together to create the tuna salad.

I washed the green mystery leaves and spread them on the plate. I put the tuna salad on top and drizzled the balsamic and olive oil over everything as a dressing.  It was amazing. The only issue I had... those mystery leaves had small prickly hairs on the back of them. 

It was down the hatch and I was full and healthy!

A Berry Treat

It's been hot lately. Like, seriously hot. The kind of hot where you're like OH MY GOSH I'M MELTING... oh wait, that's just the sweat dripping from my ENTIRE BODY. And oh, did I mention I'm just sitting here, not moving at all?!

Despite the heat, my mom decided to take the kids (my mom has three litte guys, ranging in age from 6 to 12) strawberry picking at a local farm in Connecticut. It was a welcome treat when I got to her house this weekend and she offered me some of the delicious berries. They were seriously the some of the sweetest strawberries I've ever had, and when she mentioned that they were already getting too ripe, I knew it was time to try out my newfound favorite dessert - strawberry shortcake!

I've never actually make shortcake on my own, so I scoured the web for a recipe that was semi-healthy (aka not made with shortening). I decided on this tasty recipe from Cooking Light, with some tiny changes. Instead of the turbinado sugar on the shortbread, I just used a sprinkle of regular sugar. I also only used a tiny bit of sugar on the strawberries - I think they taste delish on their own! Share Stories Tip: I'd suggest slicing the strawberries first, so you can mix in the sugar and lemon juice, and let the berries marinate in the frige while you prepare everything else. The longer they sit, the more syrupy and sweet tasting they get.

After your strawberries are chilling in the frige, mix the dry ingredients and cut in the butter. You'll want to end up with a crumbly mixture:

After you add the buttermilk and shape the shortbread, place it into a well-greased cake pan. I thought this was the coolest part:

Bake! Hopefully, you're a more patient baker than me. I'm always sneaking a peek to see how the baking is coming along. Once these babies are cool, you're almost ready to assemble:

But, before you do that, you need whipped cream! Of course, you can always buy the store stuff, but another recipe change I decided on was making my own whipped cream. I'm not usually a huge fan of whipped cream, but when you make it at home it really is amazing. And, as I learned recently, SO easy. Check out the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 pint of heavy whipping cream (organic if you can get it)
• 3 to 6 tablespoons of powdered sugar... If you like it sweeter, go for more sugar. Just be sure to add the sugar in slowly and taste as you add. Remember: you can always add more, but once you've added too much, you can't go back!
• That's it! Crazy, right? If you happen to like other flavors, go ahead and add them. Vanilla extract and lemon zest work well. You can also add some rose water, a little tip Todd and I picked up during a recent cooking class.

Instructions

• Whip, whip and whip some more! You'll definitely want to use a hand or stand mixer for this on high speed. When you start to see the stiff peaks, it's ready.

Voila - strawberry shortcake!

-Amanda

Kale, Not Kayl

Farm share night one had Todd and I standing in the kitchen wondering what to make. It was one of those nights where all of a sudden it's 9 p.m. and you're opening and closing the fridge, hoping that the next time you look in they'll be some magical meal waiting for you. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, and since we didn't have any protein choices to choose from, we settled on organic raviolis with a spinach and kale saute (fresh and local recipe #1 below).

I absolutely can't write about kale without sharing a story about my great grandmother, Mama. When my mom was trying to decide what to name my little sister, she was going over some of her favorite names, one of which was Kaleigh. Mama was NOT happy with the name because she was convinced that everyone would call my sister kale for short (she was very clear that kale was a vegetable name. Mama's first choice was Amber). In the end, my mom still picked Kaleigh, and guess what, despite telling Mama we wouldn't call her kale, we do! Except, we spell it Kayl :)

Here's the recipe for Amanda and Todd's Famous Spinach and Kale Saute (ha!). Word to the wise, when making kale, you'll want to completely remove the stems. We'll have to remember that tip next time.

Fresh & Local Recipe #1 - Kale and Spinach Saute

Ingredients

• 2 cups of kale, chopped
• 2 cups of spinach, chopped
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Italian seasoning or fresh herbs, like basil
• Balsamic vinegar (we like to get the good stuff from a local shop, but any kind is fine)

Instructions

• Heat two tablespoons of olive oil. At the same time, chop the veggies.
• Once the oil is hot, add the green onions and garlic; saute until they begin to brown slightly.

• Add the kale and spinach, along with a couple tablespoons of water. Lower the heat and cover to steam; stir occasionally. You might want to use a bigger pan than us, but don't worry - it cooks down.

• Once the greens are wilted, add a splash of balsamic oil, a sprinkle of Italian seasoning, and mix throughout. 
• Season with salt and pepper
• Enjoy!

What's your favorite kale recipe? We're definitely hoping to try another before the summer ends, so please share!

-Amanda

Week 1

Yesterday was an exciting day because we received our first share delivery! It arrived early in the morning since it was such a hot day in Boston, so I kept the veggies and eggs at my desk at work until I could get them home. Cool thing I learned: farm fresh eggs don't need to be refrigerated! Maybe that's a well-known fact, but this city girl was surprised. Apparently, you can keep them at room temperature for a couple of days. Here's some information on that, in case you're interested.

So, without further ado, this week's crop included (drumroll, please!):

• Two types of lettuce
• Spinach
• Kale
• Green onions
• Some weird looking thing that I don't know what to call... oh, wait, it's a kohlrabi!
• Eggs (I also snagged an extra carton of eggs because there was a vegan who didn't want them. Score one for us!)
• Strawberries

It's quite the assortment! And, with Todd and I both busy and away this weekend (Oh, you know, Todd's just riding 150 miles on his bike for MS. No big deal), it will be quite the task to not break rule number two (no waste, remember?) 

Wondering what we made as our first fresh and local meal? Stay tuned for the recap and recipe tomorrow!

-Amanda

The Challenge

Here's the deal, we're a couple of twentysomethings... make that a twentysomething and a just turned thirtysomething, living in Boston, and we recently purchased a share from a local farm.

What's a share you ask? It's pretty much the coolest thing ever. Every week we receive a box chock full of fresh vegetables. We don't get to select what we take, and we don't get to swap anything out that we might not like (ahem, rhubarb for me, Amanda, and peas for Todd). And, that got us to thinking: since we'll be getting a variety of fruits and veggies depending on what's growing each week, maybe it's a good opportunity to try some new recipes and some new foods.

And so, the Share Stories Challenge was born. Each week, we'll loop you into the fresh goodies we receive, the recipes we make and the culinary tidbits we learn along the way. The only rules are that we have to try new things and nothing goes to waste.

Welcome to Share Stories - we hope you'll enjoy sharing in our fresh and local eating challenge!

-Amanda