The Family Table: It’s Food Christmas
Today begins Food Christmas.
For the next 24 weeks, we will get a weekly allotment of fresh veggies from a local farm under its Community Supported Agriculture program.
The concept of CSA is simple: a weekly allotment of fresh, seasonal vegetables purchased through the farm for a set amount of time. You get what’s bountiful, which means learning how to be creative with whatever may come.
For us, the CSA allotment has been a Christmas gift from my mom for the last couple of years. It?’s a simple way to eat healthy, locally grown produce ?with the added bonus of being a huge grocery bill savings for people who like to cook with fresh food as much as we do.
The farm provides a weekly newsletter previewing our loot each week, so I can spend some time trying to figure out what I’ll do with what we get. Hey, some women like shopping for shoes, I like groceries — don’t judge me.
Our first allotment consists of green onions, leaf lettuce, asparagus, spinach, storage apples and red potatoes and homemade apple butter. Yum! I know that the apples are a lost cause — the army of eating children will gobble them up, and the potatoes will last about two days.
The two boys, Gabe and Wes, could live on a steady diet of potatoes done any which way. Those ‘taters will be turned into individual, appetizer-style potato “boats.” Slice the potatoes into rounds, toss them with oil, salt and pepper and roast them until they’re cooked through. In the meantime, fry up a couple pieces of bacon and chop it up, slice up some green onion and open a bag of shredded cheese. When the potatoes come out of the oven, top the rounds with the bacon/onion/cheese and put them back into the oven until the cheese is melted.
It might not be goose liver pate on a crostini served by a tuxedo-ed waiter, but it’s a mighty fine appetizer for the down-to-earth gatherings (which are the only kind we ever have).
With the addition of some tomatoes and some fresh basil, I can tell you exactly where I’ll use some of the rest of our CSA: in a quinoa salad.
Quinoa (pronounced “keen-waa”) is a grain that is high in protein and gluten free, and looks like couscous. A quick online search will show you all of its health benefits — but the biggest benefit I get from it is the ease with which I can cook it and change how it tastes.
Most supermarkets carry it in the organic sections, but I’ve also seen it near the rice.
One box of it will typically feed four of us (the 13-year-old doesn’t like it) with leftover for me to bring for lunch the next day or two. Maybe last week’s octopus was a bit too much for you (my mom and Mike’s mom both called to share a laugh and tell me they won’t be making it).
But I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t tried quinoa to give it a shot. After all, half the fun of cooking is trying new things.
If your family looks at you strangely when you serve it, just tell them Merry Food Christmas (and direct them to the pantry for PB&J and bread if they resist).
Jennifer Harr is the Herald-Standard’s news editor. Contact her at jharr@heraldstandard.com or follow her on Twitter @HSJenHarr.
Quinoa Salad with Fresh Veggies
1 box quinoa, cooked to package directions with stock instead of water
1 bag fresh spinach
1 bunch asparagus, sliced
2-3 green onions, whites and greens, thinly sliced
2 big tomatoes, diced
5-6 fresh basil leaves, rolled and chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
Drizzle of olive oil
Saute the asparagus and spinach until just cooked. Add it to the quinoa after its cooked. Let the quinoa cool completely and add the tomatoes, onions, basil and lemon juice and oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. This can be served hot, cold or at room temperature.