Report from Fearless Forager, week of 12.01.2008

Here’s what she’s got planned for this week’s Local Boxes:

• red salad bowl lettuce
• avocadoes
• radish
• crimini mushrooms
• kale
• beets
• navel oranges
• apples
• Meyer lemons
• red potatoes

Ready or not, here comes more food!

Local Box, 11.26.2008

Today’s Local Box illustrates why Thanksgiving happens at this time of year: There’s so very much here to be grateful for. I’m especially thankful for carrots and onions to enliven my post-holiday turkey soup. A salad of spinach with roasted beets will make a light lunch after the feast. And more avocado means more guacamole – or just ripe avocado spread on toast and sprinkled with salt and pepper for breakfast. What have you got planned for your Local Box this week?

Meyer-Lemon Mmmarmalade

I am so excited about this: I finally made Meyer-Lemon Marmalade from this recipe on Saturday. It’s SO good! I followed the recipe until it came time for canning it. I used the method I grew up using to make jam, instead, though the method in the recipe looks straightforward enough. We ate it on toast this morning, and I used it in the Thanksgiving cranberry sauce I made on Sunday. I’m excited to make more to give as gifts, too. We’ll keep most of this batch to ourselves, though, perhaps giving a jar or two to only the most understanding of friends. I forgot to turn the jars back over again before bed, so my marmalade jelled with air to spare at the bottom of each jar. Whoops!

How are you eating out of your Local Box for Thanksgiving this year?

Report from Fearless Forager, week of 11.24.2008

Here’s what she has planned for Thanksgiving-week Local Boxes:

• lettuce
• avocadoes
• Key limes
• collard greens
• kale
• beets
• baby carrots
• cilantro
• baby arugula and spinach blend
• apples
• Meyer lemons
• sweet potatoes
• red potatoes

Remember, some delivery days will be adjusted this week around the holiday, as follows:

For the Greater Austin area
If your normal delivery day is:
- Tuesday, you will receive your order Monday the 24 (today!)
- Thursday, you will receive your order on Tuesday the 25th.
- Wednesday, you will still receive your order on Wednesday the 25th.
- Friday, you will receive your order on Wednesday the 25th.

For the San Antonio area
If your normal delivery day is:
- Tuesday, you will receive your order Monday the 24th (today!).
- Wednesday, you will receive your order Monday the 24th between 9am-2pm.
-Thursday, you will receive your order on Tuesday the 25th.

Meyer-Lemon Muffins

I clipped this recipe from the Houston Chronicle a year and a half ago, and finally tried it out yesterday using some of my Local Box Meyer lemons. The results are very tasty. But my choice to go with paper liners was not the best one; they stick to the papers a bit, though they’re sticking less now that they’re a day old. The well-buttered muffin tins the recipe counsels would have given a crisper outer edge, though, which would have been nice.

Meyer Lemon Muffins

makes around 18 muffins

2 c flour

1 c plus 2 T sugar, divided

1 t baking soda

1 t salt

3 Meyer lemons, divided

2 eggs

1 c milk

1/2 c butter, melted

1/4 t cinnamon

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine flour, 1 c sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Set aside.
• Cut two lemons into 1-inch pieces. Put them in a blender and pulse until finely chopped. In a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Add the milk, butter, and chopped lemon. Stir.
• Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and pour in the lemon mixture. Stir just until all ingredients are moistened.
• Spoon the batter into well-buttered cups of muffin pans, filling each 3/4 full.
• Combine the remaining 2 T sugar and the cinnamon. Sprinkle about 1/4  t over each muffin. Cut remaining lemon into as many paper-thin slices as you have muffins. Top each muffin with half a slice of lemon.
• Bake about 20 minutes, until golden brown. Run a small spatula or knife around each of the muffins to loosen, remove from the pan, and cool on a wire rack. Serve warm.

Local Box, 11.19.2008

I’m tempted to decorate with the undulating sea of greens that arrived in my Local Box yesterday. But they’re too rich and flavorful – I’d rather eat them instead. I’ve got out-of-state guests coming for the Thanksgiving holiday, so I’m psyched to see avocadoes again — guacamole is a quick-and-easy hors d’oeuvre with real regional flair, especially when made with local onion and Key lime juice. I think I’ll plan to turn some of those Meyer lemons into sauce for gingerbread pancakes, too. And I’m hoping to find time to turn some of the Meyer lemons I’ve collected into marmalade for a cranberry sauce recipe I’m excited to try. I’ll horde this week’s sweet potatoes for next week’s big meal, and maybe fry some green tomatoes, too.

What have you got planned for your Local Box this week?

Holy Guacamole!

Something about pounding green flesh in the lava-rock molcajete always seems sacrificial. Perhaps appropriately, then, the guacamole we made from our Local Box avocadoes Sunday evening seemed fit for the gods! The fruits were so ripe and flavorful that we added only a bit of finely-chopped Local Box red onion, a squeeze from half a Key lime, and a generous sprinkling of salt. Olé!

How did you eat your Local Box avocado?

Report from Fearless Forager, week of 11.17.2008

This week, she’s planning to load-up our Local Boxes with all of this:

• bibb lettuce, romaine lettuce, or baby lettuce/arugula bouquets
• avocados
• key limes
• collard greens
• radish
• mustard greens
• Japanese turnips with greens
• assorted herbs
• apples
• Meyer lemons
• butternut squash or sweet potatoes
• red potatoes

Local Box, 11.12.2008

It seems like there was even more food than usual in this week’s Local Box! Collards, kale, and mustard will keep us in the green for days, no doubt. And what a treat to find avocadoes! I’m swamped this week, so I’ll be looking for some quick meals. A microwaved sweet potato and an apple will make a great quick lunch, and perhaps I’ll roast that big ol’ zucchini to toss with pasta for an easy dinner. What have you got planned for your Local Box this week?

Eggplants: Roasted, Not Steamed

When I came home from taking my dog, Moxie, to the dog park on Saturday, Hubby had dinner ready to go. He’d started with a recipe called “Stir-fried Stuffed Steamed Eggplants” from a typically great cookbook called Buddha’s Table by Chat Mingkwan but, he discovered, steamed eggplant wasn’t a great thing. So after he’d steamed it and tasted it, he put it in the oven to roast with some olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and sugar, too. Then, he reports, “I cut up red potatoes, a small red onion, and two cloves of garlic. I put some olive oil in a pan and fried sage leaves in it until they turned dark green. (They get spotty, then turn kind of a deep emerald.) Then I took the sage leaves out of the oil and put the vegetables in. I sliced up some zucchini really thin and threw that in, too. Then I deglazed with a quarter-cup of Marsala and added about two tablespoons of soy sauce. I put a lid on the veggies and turned down the heat to let them steam while the eggplants were roasting, about 15 or 20 minutes total, until soft. Then I toasted some pine nuts. When I got the eggplants out of the oven, I poured the stir-fry over them and garnished with the sage and pine nuts.” My only regret is that we were out of rice. It would have been a wonderful way to soak up this tasty sauce.