Carnitas Tostadas with Strawberry Salsa

Slow cooker pork carnitas tossed with sweet & spicy strawberry salsa and served on fresh corn tortillas for a Springtime tostada.

Last week was Spring break and we planned an Epic Midwestern Loop. We'd visit friends and factory tours, literary and artistic venues, natural wonders and iconic American landmarks. I came down with a cold at the first stop on our tour and messed up our plans. Instead of spending the week driving around the midwest, we were headed back home after just a few days.

Best costumed interpreter ever.

Yes, we did manage to drink freshly brewed beer and learn what the whole 'beechwood aged' thing was all about, ride to the top of the arch in a tiny barrel, and see both the Louisiana Purchase document and the World's Largest Golf Tee. It wasn't a total bust.

Returning home unexpectedly meant that not only did I not have any food in the house, I also didn't have a food plan for the week. My amazing spouse picked up milk, salad, and pizzas while the dogs reunited with the kids and I tried not to blow out the contents of my skull, one tissue at a time.

I had the foggy idea to rummage around in the freezer and was rewarded with a few meals for the kids to make. This recipe is not the result of some gorked-out by cold medicine creativity. As if--I wasn't cooking much less photographing or eating food. I'm getting to my point in a minute. My daughter thawed taco meat and corn to make nachos one night, we had spaghetti with sauce from roasted vegetables another night, and my son emptied the little freezer so I could rearrange and rediscover some leftover Chinese food I'd planned to stretch/reimagine. We survived/thrived.

My point is this:  if you eat meat, buy the big hunk of ________ [in this recipe a pork shoulder/Boston butt], cook it, and freeze a 'your family size' portion. It's so much easier to plan a meal around a ready-to-go protein than to stand in the kitchen cluelessly wondering where to start.

When we eat at Chipotle, carnitas is our favorite protein. When I make it at home we've got easily 12 to 15 servings which is a bit much for our family of 4--even with 2 teens who love meat. I automatically freeze half of the cooked and cooled meat, knowing that when I pull it out again the effort of initial cooking is done and I just get to play.

These tostadas are a nice Spring meal. While they are warm and filling for a cool evening, the sweet spiciness of the strawberry salsa reminds me that our berry patch is waking up and I'll soon be savoring fresh strawberries. [I'll wait for the local ones. Life is too short to eat flavorless food.]

[It's interesting what comes out of my pen when I wake up at 3 am because I have not been coughing.  Yes, I woke up concerned because I was not coughing. I know. Weird. Just try the recipe.]

Potato Sauce--a Fast & Easy Holiday Recipe

A quickly assembled sauce of crème fraîche, mayo, roasted garlic and pepper. Great on many types of potatoes--boiled, roasted, or baked.

I've got a fast recipe today. It uses 4 ingredients--and if you can't find the main one, you can always substitute or even make your own. How easy is that?

We eat potatoes to celebrate so many things.  If it's not my Make Ahead Irish Mashed Potato Casserole alongside a Thanksgiving turkey, it's a baked potato, roasted potatoes, or boiled new potatoes from the farm share cuddled up with Swedish Meatballs.

Our family's favorite way to enjoy these potatoes is with Potato Sauce.  I know the name is boring--I thought about trying to jazz it up by calling it Crème Fraîche and Røastéd Gårlic Pøtatø Saüce, but in the end opted to keep it simple. It's just a sauce for potatoes, after all.

I first had this sauce in Copenhagen when my sister in law whipped it up. I was blown away at how delicious something so simple could taste! I'm not sure if it was the exoticness of the crème fraîche or the comfort of home cooking after travel or what--but I was smitten.

If you are fortunate enough to encounter some magically marked down containers of crème fraîche you're good to go. If not--you can make your own. Here's a recipe. If you don't have time for that--just use some sour cream. It's all good.

What if you didn't roast your garlic crop last year? No worries, finely chop some fresh garlic, or stir in some dehydrated minced garlic if that's all you've got handy. [Don't tell me you didn't even grow garlic--it's pretty easy. If you live in a place where tulips and daffodils flourish in the Spring, you live where garlic will grow. Plant some in the fall and harvest it--along with amazing garlic scapes--in early summer.]

For other recipes using roasted garlic, please see my Garlic Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

Grilled Cheese with Cheddar, Havarti and Apple Fig Chutney

A grilled cheese sandwich with creamy havarti and sharp cheddar set off by grainy mustard and apple fig chutney.

You get by with a little help from your friends. This was probably as true when the Beatles sang it as it is today. Interactions with my friends--either online or in person--give me physical and emotional support that keeps me going some days. I don't need much--a phone call here, a morning walk there, meeting for coffee or lunch--or chatting late at night on FB. It all lifts me up and makes me appreciate my friends.

When my spouse is deployed my friends help me get through. At this stage of the game, it's less about physical support--though my friend Dawn's spouse's weekly weed whacking is an act of kindness I will never forget*--but the need for emotional support remains strong. I hope I give back to my friends as much as I take from them.

I'm writing about friends and grilled cheese because the idea for this recipe came via my friend Melanie. To know her is to know she's a rockstar ninja. A group of us were enjoying lunch to celebrate her birthday and I ordered grilled cheese. [My interpretation of that will appear on the blog in another week or two--my friends voted to share this one first.] Melanie told me about a great grilled cheese sandwich she'd had--havarti, mango chutney, and fresh spinach leaves. It sounded good enough for me to pick up a package of havarti slices at Costco and try it out with my Apple Fig Chutney for my girl.

*If you are in a position to provide routine lawn care to a woman whose spouse is deployed--please do so. Don't wait for her to ask, just offer and then show up and do it. Thank you.

Ham Stock {Easter Leftovers}

Use kitchen scraps and a leftover ham bone to make something from nothing--your own ham stock.

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If you have an Easter ham, don't just throw away the bone! Just like the myriad of uses for a leftover ham that I've blogged about (I even had Leftover Ham Week!) there are many ways you can use a ham bone after Easter. On this blog I've made Ham and Bean Soup using a ham bone. Not yet ready for blog prime time, I add a ham bone to my dry beans during cooking (I've been working up some bean dips). Today I'm going to share how I make ham stock.

measuring the defatted stock before reheating to see how many jars I need

You can freeze this recipe--in zip top bags or in canning jars. I used to freeze my ham stock in jars. I was even smart enough to  slick a piece of tape on the wonderful storage lid (Amazon affiliate link) and scribble 'Ham Stock' on top. [That way the jar wouldn't be confused with the jars of vegetable stock or Thai turkey stock also in the freezer.] However, I really suck at the pre-planning aspect of cooking and would rarely have a jar of stock thawed when I wanted to use it.

After reading Cathy Barrow's pressure canning article in the Washington Post [because my mom mailed it to me!] I shared the article with my spouse. You can see it here. Cathy's calm and reasoned approach to pressure canning appealed to his engineer brain [or maybe it was an excuse for him to also buy an expensive toy, I don't know]. I am now the proud owner of a pressure canner. Yes, I could also cook in this, and that may be a future post, but it's 15 quarts which is double my pretty purple pot shown below and I'm not quite sure what I'd be cooking that much of. So for now--canning.

ready to strain

My recipe uses elements from the meat stock recipe that came with the All American® Canner (Amazon affiliate link) , the Ball Blue Book (Amazon affiliate link) , the National Center for Home Food Preservation, and Food in Jars--my favorite 'go to' blog when I want to branch out and play while putting up food.

the set up--reheating the defatted stock while the pressure canner is standing by

Ham Stock (for defatted stock, this is a 2 day process)

1 leftover ham bone (don't go crazy getting every last scrap of meat off)

1 Soup Pack (see this post for directions on how to save kitchen scraps over time to make one)

or 1 to 2 cups carrot peels + 1 to 2 cups onion skins + 1 to 2 cups celery leaves

1 bay leaf

10 to 12 peppercorns

water (4 to 5 quarts to start)

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

Place ham bone and soup pack in a large pot (mine is my 7 qt pretty purple pot but you ain't buying it from Amazon and I've already linked a whole ton of stuff so I'll leave it at that). Add bay leaf and peppercorns then pour water over, and add the shot of apple cider vinegar. Heat gently on the stove until it gets to a simmer (I use my fancy pants power burner on low for this). Skim off any foam that clings to the edges. Simmer for 8 hours, adding additional water as necessary to keep the bone mostly covered. Strain the stock (I just use my regular colander which has fairly small holes but is not a 'fine mesh' strainer) and chill overnight. The next day, scrape the solidified fat off and discard. 

If you're freezing the stock, this is when you pour it into zip top bags or canning jars, making sure to leave room for expansion once the liquid is frozen, label, and freeze.

If you're going to pressure can, this is when I leave it up to the experts and direct you to this site.

steam is escaping the petcock at a constant stream--ready to put the gauge on and start the timer

Crispy Baked Old Bay Swai with Minted Farm Share Peas

Spicy seasoned swai on a bed of fresh minted farm share peas.

The doctor's office. Sports practice. Getting the oil changed. The pharmacy. Piano lessons. The salon. A flight. Picking up your kids from school, if in fact you have kids, if not--choose another reason for waiting. When you know you'll have time to kill--do you bring along something to do? A book or magazine to read, a craft project to work on?

I knit, I write, or I read. In the wintertime I knit, mostly on a rainbow blanket that is long enough to keep me warm during hockey games. The rest of the year I'm writing or reading as knitting when it's hot out doesn't thrill me.

As an indented aside, that's part of the reason I've been working on this blanket since I was pregnant with my first child, who is in high school. Mostly it's just because I knit slowly. Like I cook slowly. The years in Hawaii were a total wash.

Last Spring, while waiting in the orthodontist's office, I was flipping through an EveryDay with Rachael Ray magazine. The No-So-Mushy Peas caught my eye, because I look for ways to use the fresh peas from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. This recipe is described as a spring classic, and I get that--I'm craving it again this year!  Just like Alanna's Chicken Cider Stew heralds Fall to me, Rachael Ray's fish and peas now mean Spring.

For other recipes using peas, please see my Pea Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. I've got additional interesting recipes on my Colorful Veggies Above the Ground board, one of my Pinterest boards (link to follow me on Pinterest).

Tatsoi Fried Rice with Turkey

Farm share tatsoi quickly cooked with leftover turkey and egg in a fast & easy fried rice.

Tatsoi was a new vegetable in the farm share box last season. I'm delighted to realize that after 9 years of enjoying Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm shares I am still surprised by the contents of the box. [We start year 10 in a couple of months!]

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I followed Tip #1 of my Five Tips to Feed Your Family from the Farm Share and made something familiar--fried rice. Usually when I prep cabbage type vegetables for stir frying I'll chop the thicker stems to cook with the onions, and add the sliced leaves later in the process. Not so complicated with tatsoi.

We've had tatsoi in the farm share box both as a bag of leaves and as an entire head. [The head is more photogenic.] Either way I just rinsed the individual leaves and tossed them into the skillet--no extra chopping necessary.

I like to repurpose leftovers into a new meal, so I used a hunk of leftover turkey breast--though you could use chicken, ham, beef, pork, tofu or additional egg for protein. I'd be lying if I said the rice was leftover--I had my daughter start the rice cooker at lunchtime so I could come home and chill the cooked rice before I needed it at dinner--starting with cold cooked rice helps the grains to remain separate in a fried rice. Lately I've been lazy been simmering my stock for a long time, long like 8 hrs, so my turkey stock shown in the photo was at the Chicken Jelly stage. Instead of gathering garlic and ginger to season the fried rice, I used prepared hoisin sauce for an easy flavor. It's one of Lydia's ingredients for a Perfect Pantry. The first time I made this my daughter enjoyed the leftovers for lunch. When we got tatsoi again it was time to photograph the ingredients and write it up for the blog--yet my daughter enjoyed the leftovers for lunch again!

She's stealing the food while I'm trying to photograph it!

For other recipes using Tatsoi . . . well this is the first one for this blog. I suppose I should add a Tatsoi category to the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient at some point, though all I've done with it so far is fried rice. Over and over. In the meantime, I'd recommend hitting the Bok Choy Recipes Collection or the Cabbage Recipes Collection.

Egg, Carrot & Kohlrabi Sushi

Japanese-style rolled omelet with farm share kohlrabi and carrots make a vegetarian sushi roll.

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This blog is about how I'm feeding my family from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share to encourage you to try a farm share in your town. Typically the recipes I share are uncomplicated and use ingredients and tools found in regular stores. The food is generally nutritious, filling, and uses up items from the farm share box--but it's not usually fancy pants type food.

As often as I am embarrassed by the many iterations of brown food or fast & easy food on this blog, every once in a while I'm really proud of taking the time to create something pretty using the produce from our farm share. Today's recipe is more elevated compared to my standard fare. This is a terrific Spring/early summer seasonal sushi roll, and since the tantalizing glimpse of sunshine and warmth has me [and the dogs] wanting to lie on the brown grass in the back yard and dream of summer days, I'm sharing it now.

In addition to being a fan of eating from the farm share, I'm also a pretty frugal cook. Since my spouse and I can eat our ages in sushi--and the kids could probably exceed our consumption--it makes sense to roll our own and have sushi at home.  Just like with pizza, something that we like to eat often but don't like to shell out $$ for, sushi at home can be a wonderfully special meal.

I learned to make my own sushi while in my early 20's, living in Washington, DC. I've got a sushi 101 tutorial from the first month of this blog for reference--you can see it here. If you are a hands on learner, I would recommend taking a class. It's fun to learn along with other folks and you can get immediate answers to your questions. I've seen sushi-making classes offered at community centers, grocery stores and kitchenware stores. If you're interested, find a class and try it--then branch out on your own. There's no rule that says you need raw fish to have sushi, you just need a willingness to experiment and some raw materials!

For other recipes using carrots, please see my Carrot Recipes Collection. For other recipes using Kohlrabi, please see my Kohlrabi Recipes Collection (I'm pretty proud of it). These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient--a resource for ideas of what to do with farm share produce. For even more ideas, please feel free to follow my Pinterest boards--this is going on Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks.

Scrambled Egg & Beet Greens Pizza

Farm fresh eggs and farm share beet greens celebrate Spring on this vegetarian pizza.

I have a friend who celebrates the equinoxes with black and white meals. While I'd love the creative challenge, I'm more inspired by the themes of the upcoming season. All over the yard I'm seeing signs of rebirth--the daffodils my dad several years ago are peeping though the leaf mulch, the buds on the peach and dogwood trees are swelling, and I figured out which one of my raised beds has our garlic growing. [I'd forgotten where I planted it.] You can see that photo on my FB page.

I don't know if it's Easter or longer days and happier chickens, but eggs seem more abundant in Spring. I like to put my seasonal abundance on a Friday Night Pizza. I wasn't thrilled with the stress of cracking a raw egg atop a pizza, in my Ham, Asparagus, Leek & Egg Pizza. I worried about burning the crust before fully cooking the egg.

Instead, I figured I would partially cook a scrambled egg and add that to a pizza. Since beet greens and eggs are an amazing combination, I figured I'd give it a try on this pizza. I used a vegan hickory bacon-flavored seasoning salt, and sharp cheddar topped the whole pie. The whole family got on board this one, and I had no daytime leftovers to photograph in natural light.

Reminder to us all--save your eggshells to grind up and add to your garden bed. This will boost the calcium available to your tomatoes and help prevent blossom end rot. Nobody wants a rotten blossom end, especially on a tomato.

For other recipes using beet greens, please see my Beet Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other vegetarian pizza recipes please see my Visual Pizza Recipe Index or my Friday Night Pizza Night Pinterest board.

Farm Share Pasta Primavera

Fresh spring vegetables, lightly blanched and tossed with pasta in a creamy sauce. A simple, fast vegetarian dish to let the flavors of Spring shine.

Joining a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share typically means you make the choice to eat more seasonally. Being a seasonal eater means by the end of one season I'm anticipating the next. Being a seasonal eater with a food blog means I'm working 9 months to a year behind as we approach the end of a season. Perhaps I could turn the frown upside down and say I'm working ahead. I mean, yesterday I made 2 desserts that will appear in April and July, respectively.

As my spouse and I resume our evening walks I see signs of Spring all over--except for my garden, which is still looking like a not-quite-ready compost pile. [It makes me realize how impressed I am with the ingenuity of farmers. With hard work, hoop houses and row covers, they manage to get a jump on Mother Nature every year.] It will be a couple of months until the local vegetables are ready for me to share current recipe ideas.  Instead, I rely on notes [notes get misplaced, it's a spiral binder for me now] a notebook and a well-labeled photo library to bring ideas for what to do with your produce.

This recipe has been on the second* page of my current spiral notebook for 10 months. I made it in the early weeks of the farm share, when the fast-growing crops--like peas and radishes--are abundant in the box. This pasta reminded me of the satisfying and quickly assembled meals my vegetarian roommates and I would fix, then enjoy on the porch while the evenings were ever-lighter and the weather still cool enough that a warm bowl of pasta was appreciated. [You could totally eat this cold, I just prefer the flavors warm.]

For other recipes using broccoli, please see my Broccoli Recipes Collection, for other recipes using carrots, please see my Carrot Recipes Collection, for other recipes using peas, please see my Pea Recipes Collection, for other recipes using radishes, please see my Radish Recipes Collection. These are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient--since it's the easiest way to figure out what to fix in my opinion. If you want to pin your ideas, you're welcome to follow me on Pinterest.

Potluck Asian Chicken Cabbage Salad

Chicken, cabbage and salad greens tossed with an easy Asian dressing. Almonds, radishes, and ramen provide a crunchy contrast to this pot luck salad.

I had cabbage and radishes aplenty when informed of the impending opportunity to use up farm share veggies pot luck. Following my tip to stick with the familiar, from my post Five Tips to Feed Your Family From the Farm Share, I decided to make a chicken & cabbage salad with an Asian dressing. The guests did not include vegetarians or folks with nut allergies, so I felt comfortable making my usual recipe which comes from the Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook (Amazon affiliate link).

I've tweaked this recipe in a few ways, shown below. First off, I added salad greens since I'm serving a crowd. Second, I added radishes since I had some, I thought they'd look pretty, and the extra crunch would go well. Third, I used seasoned rice vinegar (the kind I use for my sushi rice) and, since that is sweetened, I omit the sugar. I double the dressing since it's so good--and so easy to make. Method-wise, I change the recipe by tossing the chicken-cabbage mixture with the dressing and let it hang out for a few hours. Then I toss the whole lot together with a bit more dressing and it's ready to serve.

If I were planning to take this to work for a lunchtime pot luck, I'd cook the chicken, toast the ramen & almonds, make the dressing and chop all the vegetables the night before. In the morning I'd combine the chicken, cabbage & some of the dressing in one container, the salad greens, radishes, and green onions in another, and the ramen and almonds in a third container. At serving time I'd [carefully] toss everything together with more dressing in a large bowl or serving tray, top with ramen and almonds, and serve with extra dressing on the side.

For more recipes using cabbage, please see my Cabbage Recipes Collection. For more recipes using salad greens, please see my Salad Greens Recipes Collection. For more ideas using radishes, please see my Radish Recipes Collection. These collections are all part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

Greek-seasoned Salmon, Artichoke and Feta Dip

Greek-seasoned salmon with feta cheese and artichokes in a baked dip--terrific for a Dip Dinner!

Having an assortment of dips for dinner is a nice way to change up the dinner hour. Dips are easy to assemble in advance--no last minute work involved!
After spending time outdoors enjoying the return of warm sunshine I'm not necessarily ready for a heavy meal--but I'm happy to turn on the oven.
A dip dinner like this makes a good compromise meal. I like to offer choices, knowing that my spouse will clean up whatever is left another night as a pre-dinner snack. [Sometimes it can drive me batty that dinner will be ready in 7 minutes and he has to eat something NOW, but if I've got a bit of this or that to use up I'm all over it.]

It is hard to show a black dog against a dark background.

For this Dip Dinner I had this Greek-seasoned salmon, artichoke and feta dip, a vegetarian spinach feta artichoke dip (to be coming soon) and a mash up of this dip and the vegetarian one. That mash up won't be written up for the blog--it was too wishy-washy of a dip.

This recipe came from my friend Sarah while we were both living in Hawaii over a dozen years ago. She served it at a rubber stamping party and I immediately requested the recipe. I've played with the recipe over the years, sharing a slow cooker & swiss chard variation early on the blog, Slow Cooker Salmon Swiss Chard Artichoke Dip, as well as an arugula & artichoke version, Baked Artichoke & Arugula Dip.  I like my apps, and you can find many more ideas on my Pinterest board, Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks.

I opted to try a Greek version using this new spice blend I picked up at a shop downtown (see Note below) along with feta cheese covered in a magical markdown sticker. This is a very good combo which we'll have again. For more recipes using Salmon, you're out of luck until I add protein to the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. I have worked my way through the whole salmon I bought at the grocery store down the street (wild caught, overnighted from Alaska, and cut & wrapped to order). For more recipes using marinated artichokes, please see my Recipes Using Veggies In Jars Collection, which is really quite a mouthful but a tasty one at that.