Eating my words (and they taste delicious!)

This post is about garlic. Why? Because it's delicious. Because if you have to ask, you're not eating the right type of garlic. Seriously.

When Luis and I were dating I was very much a fan of the instant food. If it was quick and easy, I loved it. Of course, it helped that I was in college at the time and my cooking skills were not that great, and I was broke. So often when I fixed food it involved a lot of instant stuff. One of my favorites at the time was instant rice. I ate so much of that stuff. Luis hated (and still does) instant rice. The first time he ate it he responded "this isn't rice." Now I'd had real rice before, but usually in a Chinese restaurant, I'd never cooked real rice, so I always told him instant tastes just like real rice. So I continued to make instant rice and he continued to hate it. Until we got married and one of his relatives took pity on him and gave us a rice cooker. Now, lots of real rice! At first, when I cooked rice, I made instant rice and he made real rice in our rice cooker. Eventually, he showed me how to use the rice cooker and I started to use it and gradually stopped buying instant rice. Not too long ago we were at a friends house and they made rice, instant rice. After dinner was over, I looked at Luis and told him he was right, the instant rice is pretty gross in comparison to real rice. I was officially a convert.

I know I said this was about garlic, I'm getting there.

Again, due to the convenience of them, we always buy those little jars of minced garlic. They're already cut up for my convenience! All I have to do is measure how much I need! So easy! It tastes like garlic, right? That's what I thought. I've bought cloves of garlic before, even a garlic press (really have no idea what the purpose of those stupid things are), but usually all I end up with is a sticky mess that looks nothing like my nice uniform garlic in a jar. Not too long ago I read Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential in which he writes, "Garlic is divine. Few food items can taste so many distinct ways, handled correctly. Misuse of garlic is a crime. Old garlic, bunt garlic, garlic cut too long ago and garlic that has been tragically smashed through one of those abominations, the garlic press, are all disgusting. ... Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screw-top jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don't deserve to eat garlic." When I read that, I chuckled. It was funny how someone could feel so strongly about garlic. I'm pretty sure afterwards, we bought some bulbs and tried fresh garlic, but that never panned out. Soon we went back to our little jars.

Back to the great rice debate; when Luis and I started making rice, Luis called his mom for instruction on how to make rice: what to add and all that. She said to add garlic, fresh garlic. We, of course, didn't have any so we started using the stuff in a jar. Again, I told Luis, "it tastes the same." When Luis' mom came to town and was cooking, I swear when we handed her that jar of garlic she looked at it with such disdain. But we never cared enough to buy fresh garlic and peel it and attempt to dice it whilst ending up with a sticky mess.

Then, we joined a CSA. And now, almost every week when we pick up our veggies, there's fresh bulbs of garlic. We have a ton in our fridge that I've started adding to everything because we have so much. The first time we got garlic, I was sauteing some of the other veggies we got and decided to add some garlic. That was the most delicious tasting garlic I have ever had. It was amazing and full of flavor. Again, I looked at Luis and proclaimed that fresh garlic is so much better than that stuff in a jar! And now, I will never go back. When our CSA ends and we run out of garlic, I will not be returning to that nasty stuff in a jar. Not when I can get so much flavor out of those bulbs. Now, when I reach for the garlic, I grab a bulb of deliciousness and give that old jar that still hangs around in our fridge the evil eye. No thanks jar, you can keep your oil and rotting garlic because I officially join Anthony Bourdain by saying "Too lazy to peel fresh? You don't deserve to eat garlic."

*I realized that my biggest mistake when trying to cook fresh garlic was trying to emulate what I got in a jar: that perfect mince. Once I stopped trying to do that, it became easy to chop it up and add to everything!*

Adventures with Vegetables: Week 6

Starting to get a little more color.

On to week 6! This week we got:

- 2 lbs. carrots

- 2 scarlet turnips

- 1 bunch green onions

- 1 bunch collards

- 1 bunch Swiss chard

- 2 heads lettuce

- 1 bunch parsley

So many carrots in the share this week! But we love carrots, so it's okay. In an attempt to do something with our massive shelf of green onions, I searched online for recipes and found this hummus recipe that used them, AND parsley. It looked easy, so I made it. It was easy, although messy when it wouldn't all fit in my tiny food processor. And it wasn't the best hummus in the world. It tasted good, but it wasn't the creamy delicious hummus we usually get at Kroger. I later found out here that there's a secret to achieving that. Next time, I'll remember that. But it did use up some green onions and helped me consume a large amount of carrots and turnips.

That's a lot of hummus!

I also made fennel pork with roasted kohlrabi, sauteed chard and some sort of potatoes. I'm not real sure why I bought the potatoes, I'm sure I had a reason and then forgot about it, but I needed to use them. Apparently, I can think of nothing else to do with greens than sautee them. They taste pretty good (to me at least), but I have found that they don't reheat very well. The kohlrabi was delicious as always, and I do miss getting those.

As for the rest, Luis used the collards in his chaufa (fried rice), among other veggies. The parsley is still in our fridge and used periodically. I don't know what we did with the lettuce, probably ate it on sandwiches or something.

In next week's share: deliciousness that is summer squash and zucchini!

Adventures with Vegetables: Week 5

I'm like a month behind on posting this, so it will probably be short in that I'm a little fuzzy on the details. I know I cooked more than the previous week because I felt bad for wasting so many vegetables. I find the hardest part of this experiment is planning recipes based soley on the veggies we get from our CSA. I want to be able to eat broccoli or potatoes without feeling bad. But I feel awful when I buy veggies and there's so many rotting away. Luckily, at this point we are slowly steering away from leafy veggies in to more hardy ones. Since veggies all have their seasons, similar types of veggies are in season at the same time. There's only so many leafy greens I can eat!

In this share we got:

- 6 Kohlrabi

- 1 bunch carrots

- 1 bunch beets

- 1 bunch green onions

- 1 bunch Red Russian kale

- 2 heads lettuce

- 1 bag basil

- 1 bunch savory

- 1 bunch fennel

I of course, had no idea what to do with the beets. I was excited about the basil and made some delicious pesto with it. I also made lemon chicken with sauteed kale (using the current and previous week's kale) and a marinated beet salad that was included in our newsletter.

I can't really say it was delicious. Later, I took the beets and put them over lettuce and made another salad, which was alright. I hated making that beet salad because I managed to cut myself with the vegetable peeler and the cheese grater during it. I decided I don't like kale (which is bad because we get a lot of it). Luis hates both beets and all leafy greens. I'm pretty sure I used the kohlrabi and the fennel the following week. We never used the savory, we still have a mountain of green onions in our fridge (which we garnish everything with now) and we used the carrots for various stir fries or eating raw. Mostly what we accomplished this week was learning what we didn't like.

Adventures with Vegetables: Week 4

Week 4's Share

During Week 4 we did not do a good job of trying to cook our veggies. We were quite lazy, or busy. I'm going to go with busy. Our share:

• 1 lb. turnips


• 1 head Chinese cabbage


• 1 bunch beets


• 1 bunch green onions


• 1 bunch Lacinato kale


• 2 heads lettuce (1 Romaine, 1 iceberg)


• 1 bunch dill

This week we got Chinese cabbage, beets, and dill for the first time. We've gotten kale before but we never got to cook it. When I picked up our share this week and saw the Chinese cabbage I knew I had to make pot stickers. I love the things, but they take forever to make. But so worth it. The pot stickers recipe comes from a Newlywed cookbook that we have. Basically, it's ground pork, Chinese cabbage, and green onions in won-ton wrappers. I love them! But sadly, no pictures.

Unfortunately, this was the only thing I made during this week. Luckily, we got a lot of veggies that are durable and we were able to use them the following week.

Up next: Week 5, in which we're productive again.

Adventures with Vegetables: Week 3

We actually missed Week 2's distribution because we were in Boston, and I forgot to have someone else go pick it up. On to Week 3!

Week 3's Share

In this share we got:

• 4 kohlrabi


• 6 turnips


• 1 bunch green onions


• 1 bunch Swiss chard


• 4 heads lettuce


• 1 bunch cilantro

We were supposed to get broccoli as well, but they ran out before we got there, so we got another bunch of green onions instead. Luis loves green onions.

I was actually familiar with a lot of the stuff in our share this week, minus the kohlrabi. I've never heard of kohlrabi before. I'd not had Swiss chard before, but I knew about it after reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Kohlrabi is related to turnips and have a similar flavor. Some of them are purple and some are white (at least the ones we've gotten). They're quite tasty raw!

Weird purple vegetable, kohlrabi

This week I made Garlic Cheddar chicken with oven fried turnips and kohlrabi, and sauteed Swiss chard with Parmesan cheese. You may be thinking this sounds awfully familiar, but it's not (that's what I thought "hey, I made the same thing as last week, but with chicken instead of fish and Swiss chard instead of braising mix!"). Don't judge.

So tasty!

The garlic cheddar chicken is something I make a lot. It's basically chicken rolled in cheese and bread crumbs and baked. So good and easy! I used the same turnip recipe as the last week, except I used curry powder instead of chili powder. The Swiss chard recipe is here. This meal was delicious and I wish we had gotten more weeks of Swiss chard because it is quite tasty! Luis even liked it, despite it being very green (of course it helps that it was covered in cheese).

Also, as soon as we got the share and I saw cilantro I knew we had to make ceviche!

Just looking at this makes me want more!

I've made ceviche numerous times, although this is the first time I did it without Luis' help. And I thought it was delicious and one of the best I've made! Later, we added lettuce under the ceviche to help catch some of that tasty juice.

Overall, I declare Week 3 to be a success! We ate things I've never had before (kohlrabi and Swiss chard) AND they were both delicious! And we got to eat ceviche.

Up next: Week 4, in which we get lazy.

How giant are these green onions?

Adventures with Vegetables: Week 1

After receiving an email from UK, I had this great idea that Luis and I should join a CSA. We are trying to eat healthier and branch out from our normal foods, so I thought that receiving fresh, organic vegetables every week would help us. If they're in our fridge, surely we will eat them, right? Whether this was a great idea, or a moment of pure insanity remains to be seen. We shall see.

First, a CSA is Community Supported Agriculture; basically we give the farmers money, they do all the work, and then every week we get an assortment of vegetables. All the vegetables are organic and locally grown. And, since this one is run through the college, since Luis is still a student, we get a discount! What we paid averages out to about $18 a week. Our ultimate goal is to cook more often during the week, eat more vegetables, and not have to buy any more veggies to add to our meals. This didn't happen in the beginning because most of what we received were salad veggies. There's only so much lettuce one can eat.

We received our first share at the end of May. With our CSA, every Thursday you go to UK and there they have bins with the veggies in them. There's a board that lists what you can take and how much. Then you fill up your box or bag with your deliciousness. There's also a swap box at the end, so if you don't want something you can put it there and take something else out of the box. Or not. We've not used that because we're trying to sample everything!

Our first share! So much green!

In our first share we got:

- 1 bunch braising mix

- 1 bunch radishes

- 1 bunch turnips

- lettuce (2 heads and 1 bag mix)

- 1 bunch arugula

- 1 bunch Red Russian kale

And we had the option of going out to the farm and picking sugar snap peas which we were unable to do (sadly).

Overall, I was excited about the greenness, but unsure of what to do with most of it, aside from make salads. Unfortunately, the timing of our first share was poor as we received it on a Thursday, and I went to Boston that Sunday; Luis followed shortly. So we did not get to use a lot of the food. We made a lot of salads and I was able to cook one big meal before I left using some of our plethora of food.

We did manage to try two new things: turnips and the braising mix (which apparently is "a mix of cooking greens that are young and tender enough to be quickly sauteed"). There was a recipe for the braising mix in our newsletter we get with each share that we made. Basically, it was greens sauteed with garlic. In the end, I made a cracker crusted cod (I had cod we needed to eat, I found a recipe that I had most of the ingredients for and then improvised), the sauteed braising mix with garlic, and oven-fried turnips. I thought I took a picture of it, but apparently not. I would like to say that everything we tried that week was delicious, but that would be a lie. The braising mix was eh; Luis said it tasted too much like a plant....

We did however make some delicious turnips, and this was the first time I had eaten a turnip. I followed this recipe, and man, they were tasty.

Overall, week one was not very successful in that most of our veggies spoiled. However, I will put the majority of the blame on poor timing and will not count this venture as a failure yet! We're just getting started! (the CSA actually runs through mid-November)

Also, fun photo, I took pictures of our fridge pre-CSA, this is what it looked like after we got our first share:

So much green!

Also, I am not the most timely in the posting of these entries, so we are now on Week 5 of our adventure. We are swamped in green onions. WHAT DO YOU DO WITH GREEN ONIONS? I have no idea!

I'm pretty excited about the things to come for this summer, and am looking forward to getting more towards vegetables that are sturdier and not lettuce. It's quite strange how I look forward to Thursdays every week and I can't wait to find out what we are getting. In fact, the CSA emails their newsletter every Thursday around noon, and when I started writing this entry this morning, I was constantly checking my email to find out what we were getting (and it included carrots!)

shopping for fresh food

Lately, Luis and I have been making an effort to eat healthier and spend more time cooking using fresh ingredients and cut down on the amount of processed food we buy. When Jill, Carey and I moved into our first apartment in college, I think we owned two pots and maybe one frying pan. I spent many a night eating from instant pasta and rice packets and rarely buying fresh veggies. It was quick, easy and I was only cooking for myself so I didn't want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. I wasn't concerned with what was actually in the food I was eating. After college, I started cooking more, but I often found myself resorting to using processed foods a lot. Now that Luis and I are both working and in school and have crazy busy schedules, we end up going back to college and buying pasta packets again. After getting sick of constantly eating pasta and not very tasty frozen stir fries, and watching Jamie Oliver make chicken nuggets -- I'd had enough. Luis and I decided to start cooking more often, invested in some really good cookbooks (that didn't all revolve around pasta) and began buying more fresh ingredients. I've also gotten really into gardening: growing herbs, green peppers and now tomatoes and cayenne peppers (and ginger!).

My peppers and ginger, in their early stages!

Now that we're finally buying fresh ingredients, and cooking delicious meals from scratch, like this Jamie Oliver sweet and sour pork:
I've noticed that our grocery bills are going up like whoa. This really bothers me. I've always said that I have no problem paying MORE money for BETTER quality food; if you can taste/see/smell/feel the difference, then I'm all for it. But I despise the fact that it costs more to eat healthy than to eat junk food. I understand that it costs more to produce fresh foods, but there is a serious problem in this country if going to McDonald's is encouraged, while eating healthy is discouraged. I am ashamed of you United States! I get the Sunday paper every week, and I always go through and look for the coupons. I used to save TONS of money at the store, but now not so much. Why? Because they don't print coupons for fresh vegetables - just for mac 'n cheese and instant stir fries. I hate that we live in a country that does not encourage fresh foods and healthy eating. I hate that you have to have money to buy foods that are good for you. It seems like, as a whole, we are encouraging people to be fat and eat junk. And that is wrong. I'm a lot happier and healthier now that I've stopped buying as much processed food. And I enjoy cooking with fresh, raw ingredients, even if it does take some time. And the end result is always way better than any bagged stir fry could give.

My new favorite cook book. I don't think we've made a recipe in this that we didn't love. I even made cheesecake, from scratch!