Category Archives: locavore

Crock Pot Semi-Drunk Flank Steak

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When the CSA week 3 box contained radishes, I was stumped. Too many to put in a salad, too dicey to trust that a supposedly “delectable” dip from one of my vegetarian cookbooks would really get eaten…but the crock pot DID seem like the right place to put them.

My hope was that the crock pot would neutralize the bitterness of the radishes, and the answer is…well, not so much. So, I’d only recommend adding the radishes to this meal IF you love radishes. If you don’t love radishes, by all means – skip ’em. They don’t add any flavor to the dish, in my opinion, and they lose all their color, which is just a little strange when you’re only ever used to radishes being this really pretty pinkish-red color. I also used a white onion in the original version of this recipe, but a yellow onion would be far superior, so the recipe below lists a yellow onion instead.

Now, why is this flank steak semi-drunk? First off, I didn’t really want to make flank steak. This was our Rosh Hashanah dinner this year, so I really wanted brisket. When my grocery store only had 6 lb briskets, and I just didn’t feel like butchering a $30+ slab o’meat into smaller portions, I was ready to give up…until I saw the perfect little flank steak beckoning to me. As to the drunk part, I wanted the meal to be simple yet tasty. And, like my early fall beef crock pots, I wanted something that wasn’t overly heavy. So, I went for the beef broth in the fridge (left over from my Crock Pot Beef with Beets) and then reached for a bottle of Madeira. There’s nothing like some wine to really make a dish vibrate on a higher frequency. A little water, and there was plenty of liquid to keep the meat nice and moist throughout cooking. The Madeira gave the meat a nice sweetness that really just worked for me.

You can let this one go for up to 12 hrs if you want the meat to fall apart on you, and you can turn the liquid into a gravy easily enough (instructions below). OK, enough yakking…on to the recipe.

 

Crock Pot Semi-Drunk Flank Steak

Radishes may lose their color, but they're still plenty bitter!

 

Prep Time: 5-10 mins

Cook Time: 8-10 hrs on LOW

Serves: 4-6

 

Ingredients

1-1/2 to 2 lb flank steak

1 medium or large yellow onion

1/2 cup low sodium beef broth

1/2 cup Madeira (or other flavorful red wine)

1/2 cup water

1 bunch radishes, greens removed, washed & stems/roots removed (optional)

1-1/2 Tb cornstarch + water to dissolve it, for thickening a gravy (optional)

 

Make it Happen

1. Peel the onion and slice it thinly, no more than 1/3″ wide. Layer the bottom of the crock pot with the onion slices to make a bed for the flank steak.

2. Place the flank steak on top of the onion slices. (If adding the radishes, put them on top of the flank steak.)

3. In a measuring cup, pour in the three liquids so they can mix a little, then pour the combined liquid over top of the flank steak. Cover and cook on LOW for 8-10 hrs.

4. When cooking is done, remove the flank steak and place on a cutting board; remove the onions and radishes and place them in a serving bowl (or put them on a platter to serve with the flank steak). Slice the flank steak against the grain. Note: if you put the flank steak in for a longer cook time, cutting might be difficult because it may just fall apart on you. There are worse problems to have.

5. If you want to make a gravy with the liquid in the crock pot, pour the liquid into a skillet and heat to a boil over medium-high heat. Let the liquid boil for about 5 minutes, then reduce the temperature to medium. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch and enough water to dissolve the cornstarch completely. Add this mixture to the skillet and whisk briskly until the cornstarch/water mixture has blended completely into the liquid from the crock pot. Pour into a gravy boat and serve with the flank steak, onions and radishes.

Adventures in CSA (week 4): Oooh…honey!!

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Well, this week’s CSA had an extra special surprise: honey! Turns out, one of the farms that supplies produce for the CSA I’m getting has honeybees that they use to pollinate their crops, and they bottle some of their own honey! I don’t know that I’ve ever had organic honey before, so I’m really looking forward to doing something with it (even if it’s just making a peanut butter & honey sandwich. Mmm.

Without further ado, I present this week’s box:

 

Week 4 CSA

Honey! Sweeeeeet...!

 

Contents:

  • Honey
  • Garlic
  • Cortland Apples
  • Tomatoes
  • Yellow Squash
  • Purple Cabbage
  • Beets
  • Butternut Squash
  • Corn
  • Red Potatoes

Again, I’m thinking that this is unlikely to be one of those weeks where the price difference between CSA and store is all that vast, but I’ve been fooled before! The big question is: what to make? The corn’s already eaten (of course), and it was tasty, albeit quite immature (thus, it had very small, shallow kernels). There’s a very good possibility that the potatoes and the tomatoes will end up in a stew of some kind; the temperatures are supposed to dip enough that we may need a stew this week.

As for the beets, I have a scheme in mind for them…and it involves the oven this time (so they can keep their color). The crock pot did fine at preserving their flavor, but it leeched all of the color out of them. And, if I can get this to work out right, this may be the final stage in my conversion to “beet lover”. The purple cabbage presents an interesting challenge, although I may just make some mu shu. The funny thing with cabbage is that I really only prefer it when it has some crunch; having it cooked to the point of complete limpness (and combining it with something like corned beef) has never appealed to me.

Given our weekend schedule (errands and an ag fair), I’m not sure whether grocery shopping will happen Saturday or Sunday, but I’ll post the price comparison later that day. In the mean time, feel free to take your own guesses as to how the price comparison will run. Note that we’ll probably use organic honey as the comparable at the grocery store; there’s no way that I can compare mass-produced store-brand honey to this. And, oh, baby am I ready for the taste test…

Adventures in CSA: New-trition

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Three weeks into the CSA, I’m starting to see a few patterns or trends emerging. And let me just preface this by saying: it’s not like we never ate fresh fruits or vegetables in our house. It’s just that we have relied more on convenience items (i.e. frozen vegetables) than we’d have liked, and we haven’t always kept up with the fresh fruit (either in terms of buying it or using it all before it spoiled). We are the recently (new) proud owners of a tumbling composter, so at least the rinds, excess, etc. isn’t going to waste anymore – BUT that doesn’t change the fact that the CSA has pushed more fresh produce into our house in three weeks than we’d had in months.

So, what are the trends?

First off, I miss cooking. Before we had kids, I used to like cooking. DH and I would trade off – one of us would cook and the other would do dishes – and we would prepare meals that were weeknight friendly but not necessarily kid-friendly. The CSA has forced me to do more actual cooking (time spent hanging out near the stove) because I’m creating more from scratch than grabbing a box, bag or can. Why grab a can of diced tomatoes when I can just dice a fresh one? Why heat fries from the freezer when I can make my own from the potatoes that are on the butcher block? There’s no way that I would’ve considered spending 1-1/2hrs making an Acorn Squash Risotto unless someone brought me an acorn squash and practically dared me not to let it go to waste.

Second, our preparation over the years has helped a lot. We serve veggies with every meal at home (except breakfast, where fruit is offered), so the kids are used to having produce on their plate and being expected to gobble down at least a “no-thank-you” helping. For people coming cold off the starting block, trying to bring a CSA into a house where fruit and veggies weren’t really integrated into the standard offering, this would probably be a lot tougher.

Third, my creativity is coming up in notches. Of course, some of that is due to my fantastic girlfriends with food-related blogs (like Local Kitchen, Daily Cynema, My Kinda Rain and My Gems of Parenting). When I see some of what these amazing ladies are making, then I get inspired to branch out and see what I can do. Now, armed with a purpose (gotta use those fruits and veggies before the next box comes!), I’ve been able to try out recipes I otherwise hesitated on and I’ve created a few of my own to suit my own needs.

Now, if we put aside the cost factor and we just go on the overall health factor, I’d like to think that this has gotten us to eat somewhat healthier. Sure, risotto isn’t exactly low-fat, low-cal, and I’ll grant you that glazed carrots aren’t exactly the height of eating lightly…but they’re really good. I grew up in a foodie household that worshipped at the altar of Julia Child, and Saturday nights were the nights when we’d bust out the serious cooking. Even the simple meals had flair – my favorite (still) being filet mignon with my dad’s cognac-mushroom cream sauce, with potatoes, veggies and a fresh baguette. Really, if you haven’t tried a meal like that, I just HIGHLY recommend it. Hedonistic? Oh sure. But it’s REALLY, really good. OK, so maybe not everything is healthier, but we are eating fresher foods. And, since the next step up from the frozen veggies is the fresh kind, I’m thinking this is a move in the right direction.

And then we come to the $64,000 question: is it sustainable for busy, working parents? I’m not entirely sure. I know that some friends have adults-only houses, so their flexibility on menu contents and timing is far greater than ours. I know that some friends with adults and kids manage because one parent is in stay-at-home mode. I also know some others that just somehow make it work, probably because they prioritize it higher than we have in the past. We’ve valued routine (getting the kids their dinner on time so bath & bed can be timely) over everything else, often to the detriment of menu creativity, exercise routines, etc.

But, even if it’s not sustainable in its present form past the 8-week run of the CSA, I don’t think it’s impossible. I think what this will have done is open our horizons enough that we won’t just easily fall back into the same mode. More fresh veggies and fruits will come into the house, regardless, and we’ll try to be more creative than we were in the past. As the kids get older, that gets easier too – their palates start to mature somewhat and they’re more willing to try new foods.

We will have to see. This is what I’m thinking mid-way through the week 3 box, where we’ve already used much of what we got and we’re feeling pretty good about what we’ve made (except for the eggplant, which just hasn’t yet really “gotten” me, prompting Daily Cynema to PM me a recipe that she’s sure will make me a convert). Hopefully the remaining five weeks of the CSA will be as fantastic as the first three and prompt me to find a way to get into a winter share (assuming that one isn’t just done through the office again) so that we can keep this going all year long!