Salmon and Cabbage - July 9, 2009

Grilled Salmon over Cabbage and Fennel Salad with Lemon Fennel Butter

None of my pictures turned out last night due to poor lighting, but this was the least bad of the bunch (even though it's a little out of focus). Oh well, you get the idea. This cabbage salad is another recipe from Deborah Madison's 'Local Flavors,' only we substituted fennel fronds for parsley in the lemon butter. It was nice and tangy and a nice accompaniment to the grilled fish, but all-in-all I must say that I've been happier with the recipes in 'From Asparagus to Zucchini' and from the CSA. I guess it says it all that I used the word 'nice' twice in the last sentence. Last night's dinner was 'nice.' Maybe I should have used parsley like Deborah said and that would have made all the difference.

The Proverbial Bowl - July 8, 2009

Meteor Cherries

Last night Nick got home from work late and I had been out of town all day, so dinner was just a hodge-podge of leftovers. Rather than bore you with the details of that, I thought I would put up a picture of our very first cherry harvest of the season. Nick's parents got us this Meteor Cherry Tree for our yard a few years back as an anniversary gift and we've had one good harvest, and one not so good. I think we only had 2 cherries last year. So, I'm pleased to say that this year it's (relatively) loaded and the fruit is almost all ripe and ready to pick.



The cherries are quite sour, but great for baking. I made some yummy cherry turnovers 2 years ago. I'm not sure what we'll do with these beauties yet. Time for me to start looking up sour cherry recipes!

Beet and Fennel Salad - July 7, 2009

Roasted Beet and Fennel Salad with Smoked Trout and Sunchoke Spread

This was a super tasty meal! We made the beet and fennel salad from the CSA newsletter recipe, just omitting the oranges as we didn't have any around. I did use a blood orange infused olive oil as part of the dressing, so we got a little of the orange flavor in there. We also made the trout and sunchoke spread from "A to Z" which we made awhile back and loved. We picked up the trout from Star Prairie Trout at the Mill City Farmers' Market this past weekend. I really love smoked trout, and this recipe is great.

Odd side note...this meal reminded me of my Grandpa Paul. I'm sure he never ate this particular combination of food in his lifetime, but he loved anise flavored candies and smoked string cheese. Both anise and smoke were strong flavor standouts in this meal...I bet he would have liked it.

Pea, Greens and Coconut Soup - July 6, 2009

Chilled Curried Pea, Greens, and Coconut Milk Soup


White Burgundy from Imagery

This soup is a modified Deborah Madison recipe from her "Local Flavors" book we have on loan from Greg and JJ. We served it chilled like a gazpacho and had it with some fantastic White Burgundy from Imagery Estate. My favorite part of this meal was the wine (maybe a little too 'favorite' for a weeknight!). The soup was OK, but I would omit the curry seasoning Deborah recommends as I think it's a little too heavy for the peas and overwhelms the delicate sweetness. I do love a good chilled soup in the summer, though, so we might give this, or something like it, another try.

Callaloo - July 5, 2009

Jamaican Baked Callaloo over Brown Basmati Rice


Amaranth Greens

I think these are some of the prettiest 'greens' we get with our CSA all year. Amaranth is a very interesting plant and both it's leaves and it's grains can be used for foodstuffs. It's highly nutritious and easily grown in several parts of the world, even when the climate is not particularly hospitable. We researched a bit and in the Caribbean it is called Callaloo and used to make pepperpot soup and baked dishes. We found recipes here, here and here. We ended up making a modified version of the first one, which won our vote based on the bacon it included. We added some fresh garlic, dried thyme, and unsweetened shredded coconut to the recipe and baked it at 305 deg F (converted from 150 deg C). It was awesome!

Fourth of July Tart

Strawberry and Honeyed Chevre Tart

Betsy and Brandon had us over for a 4th of July cookout, so I made this tart for dessert because we got 2 pints of beautiful strawberries in our CSA delivery this week. Their 4 year old daughter is allergic to cows' milk and eggs, so I avoided using any in this recipe (I think she ended up having a freezy pop for dessert, but anyway...). I know we don't usually post recipes (mostly because I don't want to get into any copyrighting trouble), but since I made up this recipe as I went, I thought I'd share it. I will also share the changes I will make next time, as the crust turned out to be too bitter for my taste.

For the crust:

12 oz walnut halves, toasted
1/3 C unsweetened, finely shredded coconut
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp vegetable oil*

In a food processor grind up the walnuts, coconut, and salt to a coarse meal. While the food processor is running, add the oil in a slow drizzle. *Use only enough to get the mix to hold together.


The mix should look like this.

Next, in a 9 inch tart pan, press the crust mix down in an even layer to line the bottom.



Bake at 350 deg F for 8-10 min until set and edges are slightly brown. Remove and let cool to room temp.

For the Filling:

125 g chevre, softened to room temp
1/4 Cup honey
dash rose flower water to taste

Mix all ingredients together with rubber scraper until most lumps are gone.



Pour this mixture over cooled crust and place in the refrigerator while you clean strawberries to allow the chevre mix to set slightly.



After cleaning strawberries, place them on top of the tart in whatever way you like and refrigerate until serving. It would be lovely to use other fresh summer berries as well.

And, as I mentioned above, the crust was too bitter. Next time I would use 8 oz of walnuts and 1 cup of sweetened coconut to take the edge off a bit. One could also use a graham cracker crust to avoid the bitterness of the walnuts altogether. The honeyed chevre with the strawberries was a dreamy flavor combo!

CSA Delivery plus Salad, July 2, 2009

Romaine and Cabbage Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing, Poached Egg and Garlic Toast


New Veggies!

Oooh, our CSA haul this week is a large one! We did our traditional first salad which we topped with crispy bacon and used the warm bacon grease as part of the dressing. We also threw in some fresh basil and fennel fronds for some taste variety. The toast was my favorite part of the meal. I thought of it as a giant crouton. I minced a clove of fresh garlic in with softened butter and spread that over whole wheat sourdough before toasting. The fresh garlic has a nice sweet garlic-y flavor to it that didn't overpower the toasty goodness of the bread.

I am looking forward to using up the amaranth greens (the pretty red stuff in the upper left corner) early this week, as well as the fennel and beets!

Beef Tacos - July 1, 2009

Seasoned Beef, Sharp Cheddar, Cabbage and Salsa Fresca over Corn Tortillas

I love Penzey's! My love affair began in college in Madison when I would walk into the Penzey's shop on University Ave on my way home from class just to smell. An instant cure for homesickness. Here's the spread I used to season the beef for last night's tacos. I also used up the green onions and cabbage from our last CSA delivery, which is good because we get a new one today and I'm so excited!

Take Me Out to The Ballgame - June 30, 2009

Assorted Baseball Game Fare

Tuesday night we took in a St Paul Saints game to celebrate Ben's birthday. I of course paid more attention to the food vendors than the game (apparently the Saints did pull off a win in the 12th inning...we left after nine!). Oh, and also, it was Karate Night! This involved lots of Karate Kid references throughout the evening, so that was delightfully distracting. Sorry, on to the food...basically you could get any number of pork products including brats, pulled pork and hot dogs, and as a group we exhausted those options. We also consumed peanuts, beer and cookies to round out our meal. Pun intended.

Cake and Ice Cream - June 29, 2009

Home-made Angel Food Cake with Balsamic Strawberry Ice Cream

The beautiful, and very ripe, strawberries we bought at the Farmers' Market on Sunday were the inspiration for this flavor of ice cream. Also, there used to be a great little gelato shop in Calhoun Square that sold a balsamic fig flavor that I loved. Since strawberries and balsamic are a classic flavor combo, I thought I'd give it a try in ice cream. I followed the recipe for straight-up strawberry ice cream that came with my Kitchen Aid attachment except that I added about 2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar reduction to the macerating strawberries and let the mixture sit overnight. The ice cream is dreamy, although the balsamic is very subtle, so I might add more next time. The cake was necessary due to my ice cream recipe calling for 8 egg yolks. What to do with all those whites? This was a tasty answer to that question. Thus, in one sense, we were just eating a dressed-up version of a deconstructed egg for dessert.

Chili Steak Wraps - June 27, 2009

Stir-fried Beef and Garlic Scapes over Hummus with Lettuce and Radish

Saturday's supper was inspired by a recipe from Donna Hay's "New Food Fast." I love Donna Hay's cookbooks for the simple, beautiful recipes and for how she calls arugula, rocket and eggplant, aubergine. I am totally jealous that Rima got to meet her at a cooking class when living in Australia a few years back. It was Donna's idea to combine the hummus and beef into a tortilla wrap. I never would have thought of that combo, but it was really tasty together. We changed up the recipe a bit by throwing the garlic scapes in with the beef and stir-frying rather than grilling. We also chose to top with radishes rather than tomatoes, since we had some lovelies in the fridge, waiting to be used up. I liked how the scapes complimented the garlic in the hummus...a nice little layering of flavor.

Weekend Eats - June 27-28, 2009

I love summer in Minneapolis! A few highlights from our weekend include homemade coconut ginger ice tea, BBQ at Peavey Plaza, delicious sandwhiches made to order at France 44 cheese shop, a Thai inspired simple syrup for Blue Thai Mojitos, red beet ice cream and a Thousand Hills grass fed beef hotdog from the Chef Shack, and fresh strawberries from the Kingfield Farmers' Market.

Kohlrabi Fritters

Once again from the pages of Asparagus to Zucchini comes a dish new to the Orum household: kohlrabi fritters. We served it with a mint yogurt sauce for a delightful (and quickly consumed) pairing of crunchy and smooth, hot and cool -- just like a McDLT! As with almost everything we've prepared lately with members of the kingdom plantae, this dish features the finest from Harmony Valley CSA.

I binged (bung?) kohlrabi, and learned that this veggie is of the species Brassica oleracea, along with broccoli and cauliflower, both fine fritter matter in their own right.

The McDLT, by comparison, is something completely different:

RIP KOP BLT - June 25, 2009

Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato and Jarlsburg on Whole Wheat Sourdough

Some may think it strange to commemorate Michael Jackson's sudden passing with a sandwich. Indeed, my friends, that was not my intent when planning this meal. Actually I was thinking of a use for all that fresh, cool, green leafy lettuce from the CSA and how much I love it paired with salty bacon and juicy tomatoes. When I heard the sad news about the King of Pop just before dinner, however, I couldn't help but think it an appropriate homage. Both singer and sandwich are classic*, both iconic...of course I also paid tribute by dancing madly (and not nearly as well as he) around my house all evening to his amazing music, cranked up pretty loudly. So, here's to you MJ - I miss you already.

*Turns out, one really shouldn't mess around too much with a classic. Horseradish mustard should NOT be used in direct ratio as a substitution for mayo...a case of a little going a long way.

Eggrolls - June 23, 2009

Napa Cabbage, 'Sausage,' and Jasmine Rice Eggrolls

This was a fun dinner! I came across the eggroll recipe when I was looking through the Chinese Cabbage section of "Asparagus to Zucchini" and thought it sounded like the perfect thing to do with our lovely head of Cabbage from this week's CSA box. Also, I liked that I could use up most of the remaining Gimme Lean 'Sausage' product from Sunday's supper and, using the mung bean noodles the recipe called for would save me from excessive use of the stove on this hot, hot, hot summer day. Great plan until I realized we were out of mung bean noodles. So brown jasmine rice was the pinch hitter and the stove was turned on (along with the AC!). We didn't have any of those little duck sauce packets saved from previous take-out dinners, so I made a little lime and fish sauce mixture for dipping, also inspired by a recipe in "A to Z."

Tuna Roll-Ups - June 22, 2009

Tuna, Garbanzo, Radish and Muenster on Green Leafy Lettuce

Here in Minneapolis it's been so hot I loathe to turn on lights, let alone the oven. Luckily this meal involved opening only cans and the refrigerator. I cut the radishes and muenster in equally sized cubes and they looked very similar on the plate, but obviously have very different tastes and textures in the mouth. It's an idea I found in one of the MFK Fisher books I read recently (she used the example of shredded carrots and orange zest in a salad). She suggests it as a way to keep us engaged and thoughtful with what we are eating instead of mindlessly putting forkful after forkful into our mouths. I like the idea of a fun surprise on our forks to keep us on our toes.

CSA Salad - June 21, 2009

Spinach and Mixed Greens Salad with 'Sausage'

Please excuse the twisty tie in the background of the picture! My sister kindly picked up our CSA box while we were out of town so we had some fresh greens in the fridge. As we had wiped the cupboards pretty bare prior to leaving for California, we had a bit of a pantry challenge on our hands. Lucky for us my other sister had left some Gimme Lean faux sausage in our freezer when she moved (almost a year ago!). We decided to give it a try for a little added protein. We were admittedly surpised by the tastiness of the 'sausage.' We also threw in some freshly chopped tarragon, sage, chives and oregano. Adding fresh herbs is another trick (one of my favorites) for spicing up a summer salad.

California Trip - June 11-20, 2009

We had a great trip out to California hitting both San Francisco and the San Diego area. Some highlights include Prather Ranch Hot Dogs from the Ferry Building, Blue Bottle Coffee Co Coffee, Heirloom Tomatoes, the best Fish Tacos ever from Juanita's in Encinitas, home-made Ginger Simple Syrup for making Ginger Ales, a great Thai take out sampler plate from Siamese Basil in Encinitas, Donuts from Leucadia Donut Shoppe, and beautiful California strawberries.

Kitchen Sink Pizza - June 10, 2009

Bacon, Asparagus, Green Onion, Carmelized Onion, Oven-Roasted Tomato, Currant, Spinach and Chevre with a Green Salad

Pretty much everything but the kitchen sink. I am happy and relieved to say that this finished up the remainder of our fresh veggies and then some! All that's left is a half bag of spinach that will be today's lunch. Ahhh...now we can Vay-K with a clean conscience. We're off to sunny (I hope) California to celebrate birthdays and weddings. Cheers!

Spinach - June 9, 2009

Spinach, Beef, and Noodles in Broth

Look familiar? Like I combined a few nights of leftovers, threw in some spinach, and called it dinner? You're right.