Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Oh, Strawberries..


We had our second CSA share pick up this evening, which included our bulk share of strawberries: 12 pints of organic strawberries! We opted out of weekly fresh flowers, as Zelda eats them and has been know to knock over a vase or two, and instead we get a bulk share.
The bulk doses are strawberries, basil and Yukon Gold potatoes. So far I've given a pint to our neighbors and we've eaten one. It's so nice to have berries for an actual dessert and know there's more for tommorow. This week's farm share included radishes, sugar snap peas, chard, fennel, green onions, a yellow onion, butter lettuce and a bunch of carrots.

Poor photo, but beautiful berries, regardless-
I picked up a bunch of asparagus (a sad farewell to the season), cherries, a zucchini and a cucumber from the downtown Farmer's Market today as well.Zelda has a bag of radish greens all to herself in the fridge. I would cook them if she hadn't jumped on in.. No hard feelings to my precious cat, but any ideas for the future in cooking these greens?

Banana Oatmeal muffins from Vegweb - recipe here. I have yet to try them though my apartment smells wonderful. The recipe said they made 10 'normal' sized muffins..I used a big muffin tray yet only had enough batter for two. What the nut?
I made my first chickpea salad/filling or whatnot tonight. I slightly smashed some chickpeas, and added Vegenaise, sea salt, garlic powder and smoked paprika. It wasn't quite what I was looking for so I added some Italian dressing and stuck it in the fridge for tommorow. Sadly it seems to be not my type of dish.

Onto the good stuff!
I was inspired by Emily to make something strawberry shortcake-y, and I didn't feel the need to make yellow cake so I settled quite happily for sliced berries and whipped Soyatoo. I know the spray bottle is all the rage but I've had a couple boxes to use and I must say, I enjoyed this product. There's certainly a soy aftertaste and softer vibe to it, but it comes from a bean, not a cow and I can deal with it. It's like silken tofu whipped creme, but good!

Before:

After:
Fennel - any recipe ideas?

15 comments:

Amy O'Neill Houck said...

Your strawberries look so good! I just tried the soy whipped cream in a spray can--and it had no aftertaste, it was awesome...

I like to carmelize fennel w/onions and toss with homemade croutons and lemon juice...

Carrie™ said...

I love the cat picture. So adorable.
Strawberries are one of my favorites. If we're lucky here, we'll have a couple of more weeks and that's it until 2007. How sad. But what a haul with your CSA! Great stuff!

Grace said...

Those are the best looking strawberries I've seen in a long time; you are so lucky.

MeloMeals said...

Do you like mustard, relish and celery? U add those to the chickpea salad type filling and it's really good.. If you don't, you could add some rolled oats, garlic, fennel tops, sage and make it into veggie burgers..

I enjoy thinly sliced fennel in salads, along with the tops.. also, roasted or grilled fennel is great. You could thinly slice it and do a fennel/potato gratin.. it's thinly sliced, with sun dried tomatoes, basil, lemon juice, miso, olive oil tossed with pasta.
You can also use fennel in place of celery in dishes.. a red sauce would be delicious..

Vicki's Vegan Vice said...

those strawberries are beautiful! seems like dreena has a couple fennel recipes in vive. & now i'm wondering - what exactly is a "normal sized" muffin?!

Crunchy Domestic Goddess said...

mmmm, strawberries. :) we've been getting lots in our door to door organics boxes lately and they are sooooo good. :)

Amey said...

Hi! When I used to belong to a CSA, they had a great website that I used all the time. It's a recipe database by ingredient (including fennel!) - and there are even pictures of most items. Check it out:
http://www.writerguy.com/deb/recipes/keyingred.html
:)

Julia said...

yeh! i get Helsing Junction Farm CSA too! i think roasted/ baked fennel is the way to go. also, you can slice it thin with some orange sections for a nice summer salad. i don't have a mandolin, but if i did, i would use it to get them extra papery thin.

jess (of Get Sconed!) said...

Spring - This CSA database is excellent - mine only has a few recipes for fennel in our newsletter, and I really appreciate the link.

As for carmelizing, folks, is it still tasty without onion? I assume olive oil? Garlic or not?

My back up plan includes throwing a bit into a tofu scramble with a mustard flavor.


Oh, the muffins get my thumbs up of approval. Very decent muffin, though I'll double or triple the recipe in the future. I really dig the addition of oats.

jess (of Get Sconed!) said...

Julia - No kidding~ This my first year with them and I'm delighted with what we've been getting, and really look forward to raspberry pints. I'm at the Hawthorne drop off. ; )

Elizabeth said...

12 baskets of strawberries! Wow. We just went out berry picking in Hillsboro and brought home a ton of berries. So boysenberry pie is in the works. :-)

I LOVE fennel! I roast it, just as pryncess suggested. I like it in a creamy pasta, and I recently used it as a taco filling. It's got a nice, sweet savory crunch.

funwithyourfood said...

I wanna know what you're doing with ALL those strawberries!

Teddy

Everyday Superhero said...

Fennel is one of my fave vegetables. It's great roasted in the oven and Dreena suggests using fennel for her quinoa hummus casserole (Vive). But I *love* fennel raw. It's crisp and delicious. This is the way that I grew up eating it. Enjoy!

Amanda said...

Holy strawberries, Batman! That's quite an amazing amount of berries. I know what you mean about knowing there's more for tomorrow. I always hesitate to eat the most delicious things because I want them to last forever. Thankfully I've yet to run into that problem with my neverending bowl of cherries. :)

urban vegan said...

gorgeous photos.