5 posts tagged “carrots”
What better way to use up a whole bunch of carrots than to make a carrot cake? I used up about 2/3 of the carrots from the CSA just for this cake, which I made on Saturday. We just finished off the last pieces on Thursday night. So, this cake has carrots, walnuts, pineapple and giant golden raisins. I also replaced half the oil with applesauce. The frosting is just a standard cream cheese icing recipe (cream cheese + butter + sugar). It turned out pretty good, but I think next time, I'll use crushed pineapple instead of just tidbits to give it a tad bit more moisture. And maybe soak the raisins first too.
Super simple dinner, nothing fancy. We made some easy chicken marsala, steamed some couscous with chopped zucchini and tomato and oven roasted some broccoli and green beans with olive oil, garlic and lemon.
Leah made a little meatloaf using up some of the green onions and garlic from the CSA, paired with beluga lentils and a salad of spicy greens mix, tomatoes and raw zucchini, all from the CSA. The salad mix has some nasturtium flowers in it as well, which are also a little peppery! Leah made the lentils with leftover CSA carrots, green onions, garlic and beef bullion.
We used up the rest of the zucchini for this homemade pizza, which also has garlic, red onions and tomatoes and a mix of mozzarella and goat cheese. The dough was just pre-made from Trader Joes, so it was super easy to just assemble the pizza and bake it. I can honestly say that it was my favorite veggie pizza so far, even with my least favorite of vegetables. I think zucchini is growing on me. I certainly like it better than cucumbers in salads!
Leah made roast pork in the slow cooker with the leftover pork loin, baby red potatoes, yellowstone carrots and a spring onion. She made a great sauce to go with it by adding some brown gravy mix to the crockpot and then reducing it with a little apple cider vinegar. We made a salad to go with it from the flashy trout's back lettuce and mizuna from the CSA, with some mixed heirloom cherry tomatoes and chopped up sugar snap peas.
Now that we're back from vacation, we can resume our CSA Challenge! We missed 2 full weeks of fresh veggies, so I was happy to go pick up our basket this week. This week we got fava beans, flashy trout's back lettuce, mizuna, swiss chard, spring walla walla onions, baby red lasoda potatoes, yellowstone carrots and chioggia beets.
For dinner, we made a spice rub for a couple of pork loin chops that we had cut from a full pork loin roast and grilled them. It was much cheaper to have pork chops this way: less than $5 for the whole roast, which makes about six 1-inch thick pork chops, as opposed to $5 for only 2 chops that are pre-packaged. We had some leftover green beans from last week that were starting to get a little limp, so we decided to roast those with some of the baby potatoes and yellowstone carrots from the CSA. We just tossed them in a little oil, salt and pepper and roasted them for about 30 mins at about 425. We timed it so that when we started the charcoal for the grill, we put the veggies in the oven so the meat and veggies were done at the same time. We finished them both with a lime and garlic butter, which was fantastic, especially on the potatoes!
For dessert, Leah grilled some apricots and then simmered them in a syrup made from balsamic vinegar and honey. She served it over vanilla ice cream and it was one of the best desserts I have eaten in a long time! The sweet and tart balanced each other perfectly and the warm sauce and fruit made the ice cream melty and creamy and just perfect.
For dinner, we made a spice rub for a couple of pork loin chops that we had cut from a full pork loin roast and grilled them. It was much cheaper to have pork chops this way: less than $5 for the whole roast, which makes about six 1-inch thick pork chops, as opposed to $5 for only 2 chops that are pre-packaged. We had some leftover green beans from last week that were starting to get a little limp, so we decided to roast those with some of the baby potatoes and yellowstone carrots from the CSA. We just tossed them in a little oil, salt and pepper and roasted them for about 30 mins at about 425. We timed it so that when we started the charcoal for the grill, we put the veggies in the oven so the meat and veggies were done at the same time. We finished them both with a lime and garlic butter, which was fantastic, especially on the potatoes!
For dessert, Leah grilled some apricots and then simmered them in a syrup made from balsamic vinegar and honey. She served it over vanilla ice cream and it was one of the best desserts I have eaten in a long time! The sweet and tart balanced each other perfectly and the warm sauce and fruit made the ice cream melty and creamy and just perfect.
Instead of just using up the items in our CSA basket as parts of a meal, or side dishes, we've also been snacking on sugar snap peas and carrots, adding mizuna into ramen and udon soups for lunch and Leah made a hummus-like dip out of the shelling peas and some of our garden herbs.
I was really surprised by the mizuna, it works great in soups and I'll definitely be using it more often. Leah has been adding it to her breakfast ramen in the morning. I added some to udon that I took for lunch to work the other day and it was really nice and made the packaged noodle soup seem fresher and added some nice color as well. Mizuna has a bit of a tangy-ness to it, much like a mild sorrel flavor.
The "peamus" or "mock-amole" was really tasty and a much more interesting use for the shelling peas than just adding to a salad or using as a side dish. The idea was inspired by a post on Twinkiechan's blog. It's kind of sweet and spicy at the same time and goes great with salty crackers like Triscuits.
I was really surprised by the mizuna, it works great in soups and I'll definitely be using it more often. Leah has been adding it to her breakfast ramen in the morning. I added some to udon that I took for lunch to work the other day and it was really nice and made the packaged noodle soup seem fresher and added some nice color as well. Mizuna has a bit of a tangy-ness to it, much like a mild sorrel flavor.
The "peamus" or "mock-amole" was really tasty and a much more interesting use for the shelling peas than just adding to a salad or using as a side dish. The idea was inspired by a post on Twinkiechan's blog. It's kind of sweet and spicy at the same time and goes great with salty crackers like Triscuits.
This is the first meal of our personal CSA Challenge, which is to use up all the items from our CSA basket each week. I hope they all go as well as this one did! We had some split chicken breasts in the fridge that needed to be cooked soon and the weather has been on the cool and cloudy side lately, so roasted chicken and veggies just seemed perfect.
I scrubbed and cut the beets and peeled the carrots and tossed them into a roasting pan with some fingerling potatoes from the farmer's market and a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Then I seasoned the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and put a little leftover compound butter under the skin to keep it moist and hopefully add some more flavor to the meat. Then I placed the breasts on top of the veggies and put the pan into the oven, baking them at 475 for about 15 mins, then turned down the heat to 400 for another 30 mins. I checked the internal temp with a meat thermometer at that point, and they were not quite done yet (they were big breasts on the bone), so I left them in and started the beet greens. I used the rest of the compound butter and added a couple garlic cloves to a skillet and then added the beet greens and a bag of arugula that was hanging out in the back of the fridge. I added a couple splashes of balsamic and sherry vinegar, salt and pepper and then tasted. It was a little too sweet for me, so I squeezed the juice of a tiny little lemon (probably about half a normal lemon's worth) over it, which added just the right amount of acidity. Turned up the heat on the chicken to a low broil for a gew minutes to crisp the skin again and voila, dinner was ready!
I scrubbed and cut the beets and peeled the carrots and tossed them into a roasting pan with some fingerling potatoes from the farmer's market and a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Then I seasoned the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and put a little leftover compound butter under the skin to keep it moist and hopefully add some more flavor to the meat. Then I placed the breasts on top of the veggies and put the pan into the oven, baking them at 475 for about 15 mins, then turned down the heat to 400 for another 30 mins. I checked the internal temp with a meat thermometer at that point, and they were not quite done yet (they were big breasts on the bone), so I left them in and started the beet greens. I used the rest of the compound butter and added a couple garlic cloves to a skillet and then added the beet greens and a bag of arugula that was hanging out in the back of the fridge. I added a couple splashes of balsamic and sherry vinegar, salt and pepper and then tasted. It was a little too sweet for me, so I squeezed the juice of a tiny little lemon (probably about half a normal lemon's worth) over it, which added just the right amount of acidity. Turned up the heat on the chicken to a low broil for a gew minutes to crisp the skin again and voila, dinner was ready!
