Adventures in CSA (year 2 week 4): CORN

It’s hard to overstate how much I love the corn from our local farm: it’s truly awesome. It’s just the sweetest corn, and it’s always such good quality. So, when I saw that this week’s CSA box was going to include six ears of corn, I immediately signed up to get a box. NO QUESTION IN MY MIND. The funny thing with this box is that the amount of root veg included suggests a good opportunity to do a nice roasted root veg mixture, but the kids won’t go for it as much as dh & I would, so we’ll have to space things out a little more. Still, it’s a lovely blend of items in the box this week.

 

Year 2 Week 4 CSA box

Corn + roots = OMG YES…

 

  • Potatoes
  • Beets
  • Carrots
  • Corn
  • Turnips
  • Squash
  • Cucumbers
  • Mustard Greens
  • Blueberries

 

The one thing I’m completely at a loss about is the cucumbers. This is far more cuke that we’d use in a salad or just eat raw, so I need some ideas (besides “Just make a metric buttload of Tzadziki and invest in pita”). Not that it wouldn’t be a good idea, but this is enough cukes for a party-sized batch and we’re not in party mode for another two weeks.

On the plus side, as I write this, I can say that one item is already gone: the corn was wolfed down at dinner last night. SO GOOD.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Mini-muffin modifications added below on October 29, 2012. Enjoy!

I don’t remember what precipitated the discussion, but somehow it came to my attention via dh that dd really wanted to have chocolate chip muffins for breakfast. We’ve taken to keeping the Entemann’s Chocolate Chip Mini-Muffins in the house, mostly because they’re easy to whip out if you need a quick breakfast on-the-go, and ds has taken to them like a fish to water. But dd hasn’t really fallen in love with them, and she wanted a WHOLE muffin that she could eat…well, whole…rather than four small muffins that had more the appearance of a snack than a single baked good.

Poking around in our cookbooks, I noted the distinct lack of a specific “chocolate chip muffin” recipe, although I did find a banana chocolate chip one that would’ve worked great – had dd not turned her nose up just the other day when presented with a banana chocolate chip muffin purchased from the farmstand. Fine. I’ll bake them myself. On a really hot day. Don’t go handing me a “Mother of the Year” award just yet; we have central air conditioning. On second thought, go for it: I followed baking these with whipping up a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (because I’m a good wife sometimes, too).

Chocolate Chip Muffins

SO. INCREDIBLY. GOOD.

A note: this recipe was inspired by a recipe that I found in a cookbook. If you want the full cookbook, please, by all means, go buy it. It’s awesome. I will be attempting further mods on this recipe sometime soon, with fewer chocolate chips (because dh thinks there were too many – and I think that’s just NUTS) and using some vegan mods, like darker chocolate, applesauce for at least one of the eggs and margarine for the butter. When I get around to testing the other mods, I’ll post if it all works out nicely.

Prep Time: 15-20 min

Cooking Time: 30 min

Serves: 12 (1 muffin per person)

Ingredients

1 stick butter (should be 4 oz)

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 large eggs

2 tsp baking powder

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 cup skim milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1-1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/8 cup mini chocolate chips

Make it Happen

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.

2. In a mixer, cream together the butter, sugar, salt and vanilla.

3. Add the eggs singly, beating well after each is added to the bowl.

4. While the mixer is going on low speed, add the baking powder, and then alternate adding 1/3 of the flour and 1/3 of the milk until all the flour and milk have been added to the bowl.

5. Turn off the mixer, then add the semi-sweet (regular size) chocolate chips to the bowl. Stir well to combine.

6. Put a muffin liner into each of 12 cups in a muffin pan, then scoop the batter into each of the muffin liners. You should have enough to fill each one fairly full (and it’s okay if it’s all the way up to the top).

7. Garnish each muffin with a sprinkling of the mini chocolate chips, then put the muffins into the oven.

8. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center two muffins comes out clean.

9. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove the muffins from the pan and place on a cooling rack to complete the cooling process.

 

New! MINI-MUFFIN MODIFICATIONS!

 

Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins

JOY in bite-sized form factor!

 

Using the same set of ingredients, you can make 48 mini-muffins. In theory, it still makes about 12 servings of 4 mini-muffins each. How you observe this serving size in reality…I leave up to you.

To make these as mini-muffins, follow instructions 1-5 (above) and then fill 48 mini-muffin cups with the batter. If not using mini-muffin liners, just spray the pans with a baking spray before filling the cups.

Bake for 20 minutes. If you have two 24-mini-muffin pans, as I do, put them on separate racks and swap them halfway through cooking time.

No need to cool these in the pan before moving them to the cooling rack; simply turn them out onto a cooling rack, let them cool a bit and then try not to eat them all in single bites.

It’s very, very hard not to eat these in single bites. Really.

 

Adventures in CSA (year 2 week 3): MYO Box Time!

This week was an odd one. Having been uninspired by the option in the box offered by the farm this week, we decided to invoke the privilege of NOT purchasing a box. I figured that I would first try to construct my own box from the grocery store, since that’s what most people have access to. I set about with some basic rules:

  1. Must not cost more than $22 total
  2. Must have at least six items
  3. Must not have items already needed/planned for a meal
  4. Must contain at least one item that’s new to me (or that we have had only infrequently, at best)
  5. Must be items grown within the US (preferably New England, to keep it regional)

I’m pleased to say that I managed to do all of the following, including keeping everything to produce grown within Massachusetts! All but one of the items we picked out came from our local farm (the same one that does the CSA we’ve been ordering for the last few weeks), and the other item came from a farm on the other end of the state, out in Western MA. I will say that going to one of our local grocery stores was terribly disappointing. Not only did they not have any indication of the specific source for their fruits and veggies (unless marked in packaging, things were marked only for their country of origin), but they didn’t have anything other than squash from even a regional farm (and that was across the border, in Rhode Island).

When I talked with one of the produce guys who was stocking the area during my trip through that grocery store, he said that they hadn’t even been contacted by any local farms yet. I will note that this isn’t the store I typically do all of my week’s shopping in, but it’s a major chain and it’s a full-size store. Furthermore, when I went to one of their other stores that’s also nearby, I saw fruit tagged “Local!” and noted that the label said it was from New Jersey. OK, same coast, but NOT LOCAL, GUYS.

DH wanted us to give the farmstand a chance to provide a more interesting variety than what they were putting in their box, and I’m glad he pushed for that. They had a whole section that was just their stuff, and they clearly marked what was theirs versus what was from other local/regional farms versus what was from out of the area or country. Clear, easy-to-understand labeling really is a must if you’re going to try to understand where ANY of your food comes from, especially when it’s fresh produce.

So, here’s what I got:

Adventures in CSA, year 2 week 3

MYOB attempt #1: so colorful!

 

Year 2 – Summer Week 3 (Make Your Own)
Weight
(lb)
Farmstand Unit Price (per lb) Farmstand Total Item Cost
Blueberries (pint) 1.00 $4.50 $4.50
Fancy Summer Squash 1.04 $2.19 $2.28
Golden Beets (bunch) 1.00 $1.75 $1.75
Red Beets (bunch) 1.00 $2.99 $2.99
Wax Beans 0.66 $2.49 $1.64
Cherry Tomatoes (1/2 pint) 1.00 $2.95 $2.95
Gooseberries (1/2 pint) 1.00 $4.99 $4.99
Farmstand Total Cost $21.10

The cherry tomatoes are the first of the season from our farm and they are always OUTSTANDING. As it happens, between me and dd, it’s unlikely that they’ll last the night. The fancy summer squash, wax beans and gooseberries are all “new to us” items that we’re excited to try. The summer squash may get grilled, the wax beans will surely be steamed, and the gooseberries (thus far) have been eaten plain. They’ve got a really bizarre-looking inside and the one I tried seemed like a grape, only a little more tart. It’ll be interesting to see how this MYO box process works for the week. We went with some items that we’re familiar with, like the beets, tomatoes and blueberries, and we branched out a little, too.

With some careful selection, we were able to purchase only local items (I consider Western MA local, since it’s within the same state), and we managed to get a decent selection of colorful, fresh produce within the budget I’d set. If this works out well enough, we’ll repeat it on any future weeks where we have a similar lack of excitement over the pre-selected box. Hopefully, it’ll also inspire others to consider trying their own MYO-CSA project. Supporting local agriculture and feeding yourself fresh fruits & veggies at the same time…it’s a win-win!