Coconut Vanilla Cupcakes

I know I am woefully behind on this blog, but I need to post this recipe. It is SO good. I made them for a baby shower I'm throwing with some co-workers tomorrow night and I brought 2 in for Jill, who LOVES coconut cake, so she could try them. She gave them lots of praise, so I feel like I'm right about how good they are.

Here is the recipe, from Epicurious:
Vanilla Bean Coconut Cupcakes

I used vanilla paste in the cupcakes instead of beans or extract, and I think I put in more than I was supposed to. I think I used the equivalent of 1 1/2 beans. Whatever, they taste awesome.

Some other tips:
-The reduced coconut milk gets a skin on it when you chill it in the fridge. Skim this off before you use it, otherwise everything will be lumpy or you'll have to put it through a mesh strainer like I did.
-If you pipe the frosting on top, don't put too much on. I realized I was about to run out with 6 left, so those just got frosting smeared on top. I actually think this works fine since you sprinkle coconut on top anyway.
-I made 19 cucpakes and think I could have gone to 20. The batter is very thick but it does rise.
-I didn't bother toasting the coconut for the top.

Seriously, try these. I don't even really care for coconut all that much and these are delicious.

Sippel CSA Report 11/7/09

I'm sorry that I haven't been reporting regularly on the CSA. It's still going strong and we've gotten tons of great stuff. Lots of squash of all kinds (acorn, butternut, delicata, spaghetti), pumpkin, onions, lettuce, arugula, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, radishes, horseradish, beets...all of these are things we've gotten recently!

Here is what I remember getting yesterday:
-2 small heads of lettuce
-celery root
-rainbow chard
-some squash
-2 small broccoli heads

Honestly, there was probably more but we have so many veggies right now that I can't remember what we have gotten when. :)

Sippel CSA Report 10/13/09

We were out of town (I was running the Chicago Marathon!) last weekend so we arranged to pick up the CSA on Tuesday instead of on the weekend, which worked out well. It was another big week! We got:

-3 pumpkins
-2 lbs potatoes
-2 spaghetti squash
-1 garlic
-1 bunch of rainbow chard (which is always so pretty!)
-a few green peppers
-something else I'm forgetting but that was big and good :)

Spaghetti with Braised Kale

Tonight I made another recipe from the October Bon Appetit. I'm pretty sure this was a Molly Wizenberg recipe - I always love her stories. I read her article about Green Goddess dressing and Chez Panisse right before I went there, and it inspired me to order the salad with the dressing at the restaurant, which I LOVED.

Spaghetti with Braised Kale

I liked this recipe a lot. It was somewhat similar to the other night - greens with pasta, but this one worked a bit more as a dish for me. Maybe because I cut back on the pasta? My only complaint was that I wanted a bit more sauciness to hold it all together, but that was probably my fault - I probably should have put more of the cooking water in at the end.

This was my first time cooking kale (we've gotten it in the CSA before but Mr. T always used it) and I really, really liked this way of cooking it. The onions and garlic made it soooo tasty. I actually used kale and chard, because I didn't have enough kale and the chard looked like it was reaching the end of its rope too. It was really good. I would make that again just to have as a side.

I served this with some very good mild Italian chicken sausage that I got from Oink Moo Cluck at the Worthington Farmers Market. VERY tasty.

All in all, this was definitely a thumbs up meal. :)

Butternut Squash with Mussels and Pasta

We have an abundance of produce at our house that we are not using quickly enough. This week is a determined effort to use more of it! :) I flipped through the October Bon Appetit the other night and came across a few recipes that made use of some of our veggies.

The first one I tried was

Linguine with Butternut Squash, Spinach, and Mussels

We had this for dinner Saturday night. I loved the mussels. Cooking them was super easy and even better, super fast. Mr. T picked them up at the North Market and said they were really cheap too - only $5 for a pound. I will definitely be making these again.

The butternut squash also turned out very well. I roasted half with some fresh sage to save for another time (lunch today!) and I thought it was good both with and without. I've never been a huge squash fan and I definitely prefer it saltier vs. sweeter, but this was very good.

Overall though, I can't say I loved this dish. The pieces just weren't coming together as a cohesive whole for me. I liked the individual parts, but I ate them that way. Maybe I needed to make more sauce or cut back on the pasta, but it just wasn't awesome all together. Definitely a thumbs up for the parts though - my first time cooking both mussels and butternut squash, and I'll do both again!

Sippel CSA Report 10/3/09

Wow, I stumbled on that date. Can't believe it's October!

We got a ton of stuff this week:
-2 pumpkins
-2 green peppers
-1 eggplant
-2 red onions
-celery
-2 squash
-bunch of turnips

I feel like I'm missing something because it was tons of food. Gotta get cooking! :)

Beer Can Chicken and Easy Potatoes

I commented on the gorgeous day today and suggested grilling instead of the earlier plan of braised kale and spaghetti (from Bon Appetit...it's only postponed). Mr. T came up with Beer Can Chicken. For anyone who doesn't know, this involves shoving an opened can of beer into a whole chicken and then grilling it. We've never done it before but always wondered how it would turn out. Well, it was freaking delicious. Some of the best chicken I've ever had. It was ridiculously moist, as I believe I said after shoving 3 bites into my mouth in rapid fire. Mr. T used the recipe from "How To Grill" by Stephen Raichlen but I'm sure there are lots of variations out there on the interwebs.

To go with the delicious chicken, we had two super easy sides. A few days ago, I made cole slaw by putting CSA cabbage in the food processor and mixing it with Paul Newman Ginger Sesame dressing. It's obviously very easy and a nice low cal side. I take it for lunch a lot and sometimes put some chopped nuts on top. (When I don't have CSA cabbage, I just buy a bag of pre-shredded cole slaw mix.) Because it was leftover, it was a little mushy, but not too bad. I also decided to use the small thing of potatoes we got from the CSA weeks ago. They were small potatoes that looked sort of like new potatoes, but as Mr. T pointed out, they tasted more like Yukon Golds. I cut them into 8s and tossed them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and some fresh rosemary. Then I just wrapped them into some foil packets and tossed them on the grill for about 35 minutes. Easy peasy. They actually were delicious and my only regret is that I didn't make more!

Sippel CSA Report 9/26/09

Wow, this was big week! SO much food! I'll try to remember it all since I actually picked it up this time.

-bag of potatoes
-2 butternut squash
-2 cantaloupe
-bunch of turnips (he said they're kinda sweet and can even be eaten raw)
-rainbow chard (their chard is SO pretty)
-sage (as he said, to go with the butternut squash)
-some peppers as desired (I got Mr. T some ridiculously hot looking tiny things that he practically squealed about)

I know there was some other stuff but I'm clearly missing it. I had two very full and heavy bags of produce. We're starting to plan what to do with all of this!

Sippel CSA Report 9/19/09

no more tomatoes. :(

I am getting so bad about remembering everything!
-bag of mixed greens
-several melons
-celery
-radishes
-several eggplants

I know there was more than that but I can't remember what and I'm too lazy to get up and look in the kitchen. :)

Sippel CSA Report 9/12/09

This week felt a little lighter than normal. Still a lot of veggies though!

-bag of mixed greens (yay!)
-2 melons (choice)
-2 lbs of tomatoes
-2 eggplants
-green beans
-head of garlic

Roasting tomatoes

In an effort to eat all these tomatoes, I found recipes for tomato tarts. One of them suggested drying them in the oven before you make the tart and lots of the reviews raved about the tomatoes, so I've been making those. They are SO good. I cut them into wedges and scoop out the seeds. I put them on a baking sheet with some olive oil, garlic, fresh thyme and salt. I cook at 350 for about an hour and half. I start checking them and removing the ones that look done and keep cooking the bigger ones. Seriously, these are awesome. I eat them plain but they'd be great in dishes, on sandwiches, in salads, etc.

Here's a link to the original recipe:
Oven-Dried Tomato Tart with Goat Cheese and Black Olives

I've never actually made the whole recipe. :)

Sippel CSA Report 9/5/09

More tomatoes! :)

We got:
-5 lbs of tomatoes (all different kinds)
-a bag of arugula(?) or something else
-a bag of potatoes
-little yellow squash
-tomatilloes
-flat leaf parsley
-watermelon
-2 red onions

maybe something else but not sure.

Sippel CSA Report 8/22/09

Again, my memory is killing me. If I don't pick it up and then put it all away, I have no idea what we get! I'm sure I'll forget something.

-4 1/2 lbs of tomatoes (beautiful heirloom ones!)
-2 eggplants
-several zucchini and squash (5-6 total)
-several cucumbers
-a bunch of tomatillos (Mr. T called them "gorgeous")
-a small cantaloupe
-as many hot peppers as we wanted (which for Mr. T was a lot)
-a bag of soybeans

I think there were some other things, but I don't remember.

Mr. T cut up the cantaloupe yesterday and it's already gone. It was SO good. I think I ate more than my allotment because I got a little chastised when the container was opened tonight. :) Leave me alone with some fruit, and look out!

Last time we got eggplant, we didn't use it fast enough and it went soggy, so I wanted to make sure we used it this time. So tonight I cut one up and cooked it on the grill pan on the stove. I made a sandwich with that, tomato slices, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and a pesto Mr. T made with roasted cherry tomatoes and regular basil pesto. It was pretty good! I only had extra fiber whole wheat sandwich bread in the house, so it would have been much yummier on some delicious bread and toasted like a panini. Oh well, there's always next time!

Sippel CSA Report 8/15/09

No lettuce this week! For the first time I think ever. :) But we got lots of other stuff. I know I'm forgetting something, but here's what I remember:
-4 1/2 lbs of tomatoes!!
-small melon (choice of watermelon or cantaloupe)
-a big bag of soybeans
-more peppers
-tomatillos
-2 yellow squash
-3 cucumbers

I know there was more but I'm blanking. :)

Sippel CSA report 8/8/09

I thought I'd post while the veggies are still freshly here!

This week was pretty different than past weeks. It included:
-2 small eggplant
-2 fennel
-small bunch of basil
-large bunch of parsley
-small head of garlic
-head of cabbage (maybe napa?)
-2 green bell peppers
-a few hot peppers, including a big green one and a few jalapenos
-3 1/2 lbs of tomatoes!!!!!

I'm a little sad about the lack of lettuce but since I've fallen behind on my lettuce, I still have last week's head to eat. (Yes, the veggies stay fresh THAT long!!) Plus, my love of tomatoes and happiness for all of these tomatoes certainly overcomes the lettuce sadness.

I'm making some quiches to take to an event tomorrow and plan to incorporate some of our veggies. I'm thinking the veggie one will be zucchini, goat cheese, and carmelized onions. The other will be bacon and cheese.

Speaking of bacon, I'm not a bacon afficionado, but the bacon from Oink Moo Cluck at the market is sooo good. We had to get store bacon recently in a pinch and it was so not the same. Unfortunately for tomorrow's quiche eaters, I'm actually using up that store bacon for the quiche. :)

Sippel CSA Report 8/1/09

Sorry, I've gotten a little behind in posting my CSA reports! I blame it on the fact that I get SO much produce, all I do anymore is eat. :) Ok, slight exaggeration, but we are getting tons of veggies.

This week's veggies:
-head of lettuce
-small head of cabbage
-bag of smallish tomatoes
-container of small red potatoes
-few zucchini and squash
-2 red onions
-chard

I think I'm forgetting something else too.

The chard was so gorgeous that someone stopped me as I walked around the market to ask me where I got it.

VERY yummy pasta

Since we've been getting so many veggies, we've been trying to put them to use. I was feeling a little overwhelmed with squash and zucchini, so I decided to look for a good recipe for them. I just randomly happened to get an email from Jeni's ice cream that day about their recipes being in Food & Wine, so I decided to look there instead of my usual Epicurious. I picked three recipes and sent them to Mr. T. He chose the first one and we were both thrilled he did because we LOVED it. Both of us. It was pretty healthy and we thought it would be a great base recipe, easy to adapt to just about anything.

Farfalle with Yogurt and Zucchini

I sauteed some delicious shrimp in olive oil and garlic to go with it and they turned out great and rounded out the meal. We both thought it was a great meal. I will certainly be making that again. Also, I used 2% Greek yogurt instead of whole milk (all I could find at Weiland's), and it was fine.

More recipes to come soon!

Sippel CSA Report 7/18/09

And sorry, I missed a week in there! Each week has been pretty similar to the week before, but always with a twist. This week was:
Escarole
Red lettuce
Cabbage  
Beets
Parsley (a big bunch)
Garlic
Zucchini
Yellow Squash

The week before was similar but some sort of greens (we actually never figured out what) instead of Escarole and a different herb (I think it was cilantro). And broccoli. We have been getting tons of veggies every week. I rarely buy any vegetables any more, although I do still buy fruit, which I love. As I think I mentioned before, the vegetables seem to stay fresh a lot longer, so I really only go to the store about once a week for things like milk, eggs and meat.

Delish!!

I have to follow a clear liquid diet today for reasons I'd rather not get into at the moment. I decided to poke around Weilands for a treat. I bought myself several things, including a bottle of Dry Soda. It is delicious!! I got the vanilla flavor, and it is perfect. Very vanilla-y but not cloyingly sweet. And, as a bonus, only 60 calories in the bottle! I can't wait to try the other flavors.

Sippel CSA Report 7/4/09

Yes, there was a CSA pickup on the 4th of July! I was running a 5 mile race that morning out in Granville, so luckily my dad was able to pick it up for me.

It was a huge haul again. I have to tell you, we are more than getting our money's worth! We can barely eat all of our veggies by the end of the week. :)

This week, we got:
-a big head of lettuce
-a few beets
-tons of zucchini and few small yellow squash
-a bunch of basil
-kohlrabi
-the first tomatoes! two small yellow ones (already eaten by me!)
-more garlic scapes
-chard

I'm probably forgetting something - there was a ton!

Recipe

We did end up making the frittata with the kale we got. Here is the recipe for Frittata with Bacon, Fresh Ricotta, and Greens.

We used a mix of greens - I think kale, chard and beet tops, but I'm not positive. It turned out pretty well, although we burnt the bottom a bit. Perhaps most exciting was the bacon. There's a place at the Clintonville Farmers' Market (I think it's called Oink Cluck Moo, although I might have the order wrong) that sells lots of meats. I'm not a huge meat eater, so although Mr. T sometimes gets stuff there, I never do. We had bought some bacon there which we used in the frittata, and it was freaking delicious. SO good.

Sippel CSA Report 6/27/09

We've got more vegetables than we know what to do with! :)

This week's haul was similar to last week's:
lettuce
chard
yellow squash
lots (5!) of zucchini
sage
small cabbage
carrots
garlic scapes
beets

We just used the garlic scapes for the first time. I cut them up and put them into a chicken salad with some chicken and mayo - very tasty! And I also added some to the zucchini and squash I roasted for some extra flavor. Mr. T and I tasted them raw and both of us thought they tasted kind of Asian-y. So we might do a stir fry or something with them. We're also planning on making a risotto with the delicious peas he got at the market, so I'm sure we'll throw some in there as well.

Sippel CSA Report 6/20/09

This week's was pretty similar to last week's, only with a lot more food! :) There were bigger carrots, bigger beets, kale, lettuce, yellow squash, zucchini, and cute things called garlic scapes. I was told to cut them up like green onions and use them similarly. I've never even heard of them and haven't tried them yet but I'm sure they'll be delicious! We roasted the beets for more salads (yum! my favorite!) and grilled the squash and zucchini on the grill with just olive oil, salt and pepper. I think we're going to make a frittata tonight with the kale, so I'll post the recipe for that.

Ps, I must apologize for the lack of photos. I broke my camera (dropped it) and haven't fixed it or replaced it yet. :(

Recipes

To make good use of some of the great greens we've been getting, we made a delicious Potato Soup with Kale and Chorizo. We threw in about a pound of greens - kale, chard, and kohlrabi tops. The soup was great and is very filling. Pretty healthy too!

Since we were backing up on green onions, we made these incredible green onions biscuits.

They were so good! And to top it all off, I made homemade butter to go with it! I used cream from Snowville Creamery and basically just threw it in the Kitchenaid. Wow, was that ever good. It was so creamy and tasty. The combo of the fresh butter and the still-warm biscuits was wonderful.

I also bought some delicious looking sugar snap peas at the Farmers Market last weekend which we finally tonight made into a stir fry with shrimp. We based it on a grilled shrimp recipe but didn't actually grill anything.

I thought it needed a bit of salt but it was otherwise great. And we also made a roasted beet salad to try to eat up some of the delicious beets. That was just a simple salad of lettuce, roasted beets, goat cheese and a basic vinaigrette.

Sippel CSA Report 6/13/09

I'm sorry this is so late in coming, but at least I'm getting it in before I pick up the next one! Last week's CSA was full of fun stuff - carrots, beets (cute little ones!), green onions, kale, lettuce. We've been trying lots of new recipes. I have to confess that I'm not sure I've ever eaten kale before. I have now!

Sippel CSA report 6/6/09

Mr. T and I decided to do a CSA this year and actually got signed up for one. We talked about it last year but just never got around to it. For anyone who might not know, a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is where you basically buy a small share of a farm. You pay up front and then get veggies every week during the growing season. You theoretically are also assuming some of the risk that the farmers bear but can also reap the rewards. www.localharvest.org is a great web site to read more about them and find one near you.

I decided to start showing off our weekly haul on here. I know when we were trying to decide whether or not to do one, we really wanted to know more about what we'd actually get.

We decided to go with the Sippel Family Farm for our CSA. There are several other great farms doing CSAs in the Columbus area. I wish we could try them all, but alas, there is only so much food two people can eat! So far, I love it!

6/6/09
Mr. T picked up the CSA yesterday so I don't have a good picture of the whole stash. We got Swiss Chard, Clipped Red Romaine Lettuce, Scallions, and Kohlrabi. What is kohlrabi, you ask? Well, here's a picture!



I'm sorry for the bad picture. I'm not a photographer by any means anyway, but I broke my camera last night and have to settle for using my phone for the moment.

Since I am starting this blog 3 weeks into CSA season, let me give a quick recap of the last two weeks.

5/30/09
We got:
1 head of bibb lettuce (not quite as big as last week's lettuce but still big)
1 bag of mixed salad greens (even bigger)
1 bunch of kale
1 bunch of radishes
1 bunch of green onions

I loved that this week was pretty different from last week! I've never cooked kale or really done anything with radishes, so this week should be fun. Here's a picture of our haul:



5/23/09
They said it was a light week since it was the very beginning of the season. We got:
1 giant head of lettuce (I mean GIANT)
1 bag of spinach leaves
1 bag of mixed salad greens
1 large bunch of mint

This fit fully into a grocery sack. I used some of the lettuce to make a giant Greek salad for a BBQ on Monday and then the rest for another Greek salad for Mr. T and I later that week (plus some for lunch for me). We got 2 dinner salads out of the mixed greens and 3 big spinach salads out of the spinach. I haven't done anything with the mint yet but I froze it so we can have mojitos sometime.

One thing I noticed that was great was how long everything stayed fresh. We didn't have the spinach until Thursday night, and I know that the spinach I normally buy goes bad in that amount of time. I imagine this must have something to do with how ridiculously fresh the food was and also how much time "normal" produce must waste in the processing and trucking to get it to us.

New Blog!

I was out walking the dogs this morning and decided to start a blog separate from my personal one. This way I don't have to worry about boring people with my ramblings but can still try to get helpful information out into the world. Then I came up with what I thought was a rather clever title. Col-YUM-bus. Hehe. Too cheesy, perhaps. Whatever, I don't care. So, off with my new blog, which will be dedicated to food and drink in Columbus, Ohio. I'll put my CSA reports here, as well as info and opinions about restaurants, bars, cooking, etc. etc. I have a hard time keeping up with my other blog, so hopefully I'll actually be able to keep up with both. :)