Weekly Food Box

Posted on May 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

I’m not sure how we lived with any amount of excitement in our lives before we were regular consumers of the Real Food Connections weekly food box.

This appeals to all of my senses and personality quirks.

I LOVE the excitement of getting food surprises every single week. I can’t tell you how much I love it.

I love that we are supporting local farmers, something that is very near and dear to my heart. My husband and I share a dream of becoming farmers someday. In the meantime, I’ll continue to slave away in front of the keyboard in my office, I guess.

I also really love coming home and dreaming up delicious things to cook with each week’s treasures. It’s like I’m on an episode of Chopped. The best part, I’m always the Chopped champion in my house.

I love that we’re getting so much value out of these boxes. I usually feel guilty walking out of RFC with all the food we get. It’s a weekly ‘Start the car!’ moment.

Here’s what we got in this week’s box:

  • 1 lb of soldier beans (with a great recipe)
  • chili gouda
  • a dozen eggs
  • loaf of multigrain bread
  • a large bag of baby spinach
  • swiss chard
  • rhubarb
  • 1 lb cubed stew venison (red tailed deer)
  • 2 lean burger patties
  • 2 smokies (part ground pork, part bacon, all perfect-breakfast-meat)
  • 4 cheddar bacon sausages
  • 2 pork chops
  • radishes
  • 2L chocolate milk
  • broccoli sprouts
  • an Early Girl tomato plant (!!!)
  • 4 honey crisp apples

If you aren’t already a regular customer at Real Food Connections Fredericton, you need to be. Trust me.

PS – There is so much more than just food there. Check them out!

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A Condiment for All Occasions: Compound Butter

Posted on May 21, 2012 | 4 Comments

The Victoria Day weekend reminds me of many things, among which are canoeing, camping, beer, and BBQ.

This particular Victoria Day weekend went more like this: exploring, beer, work, yard work, and BBQ. Meh. You can’t win ‘em all.

We did finish the weekend well – with our first grilled steak of the season – a succulent locally produced rib eye. Now, I hope you all know that steak just isn’t quite complete without a compound butter melting all over it.

A compound butter is, simply put, a butter with other flavouring agents mixed in to them – spices, herbs – anything you can dream up – let your imagination go wild.

Tonight’s choice was a compound butter flavoured with horseradish, chives, and lime zest. Other compound butter suggestions:

  • Chili and lime
  • Blue cheese and worcestershire sauce (makes corn on the cob a new experience)
  • Capers and lemon (Can you imagine the impromptu sauce this would make over a fish filet?)

 
Here’s how we made ours tonight.

Horseradish Chive Butter

1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup chopped chives
3 tbsp horseradish
1/2 tsp lime zest
1/2 tsp salt

There really isn’t much method, just prepare the ingredients and mix well.

I rolled the butter into a log with parchment paper so we can keep it in the refrigerator and use it when we need it.

So easy for such a huge difference in your meal. I’m excited to try it on boiled new potatoes, on steamed green beans, and on corn on the cob.

Tonight’s dinner: grilled rib eye, mashed potatoes with garlic cream cheese and steamed spinach, Chickadee Larder corn relish, grilled portobello mushroom, and fresh pea shoots.

Oh, and horseradish butter, of course.

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A Trip to New Brunswick’s Past: Rhubarb Pudding

Posted on May 14, 2012 | 1 Comment

When I was young, I remember playing in my grandma’s field. There was a very large rhubarb patch there, and from time to time we’d rip off a huge stalk of it, wipe it on our jeans and chomp away. Our faces contorted with the sour taste, but we always went back for more. Such fond memories… I’m sure there are a myriad of sophisticated ways to enjoy rhubarb, but that one will always be my absolute favourite. This pudding is a very close second.

Look at this gorgeous vegetable’s natural beauty. We got this radiant local rhubarb from Real Food Connections here in Fredericton.

I found this recipe in ‘Favourite Recipes from Old New Brunswick Kitchens’ by Mildred and Stuart Trueman. I adore this recipe collection. It is a great culinary representation of old New Brunswick and current New Brunswick. The ingredients in the book are always at the ready here. Reviewing the recipes has really made me even more proud of my heritage and my province.

This is a perfect Springtime dessert. Rhubarb is in abundance, and even though it’s getting warmer the nights give way to a bit of a chill. Let this dessert take the chill off – it will warm you from the inside out.

Now, let’s gather our ingredients and get going.

Rhubarb Pudding

1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup white sugar
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1/2 to 1 1/2 cups rhubarb, chopped

1 1/2 cups boiling water
1 cup brown sugar
butter the size of a walnut (I LOVE these kinds of measurements)
1 tsp vanilla

Sift your dry ingredients. I could have taken a picture of this step, but who needs to see a mixing bowl of white powder?

Add rhubarb, and milk.

Mix well.

Pour this mixture into a large, well-greased casserole dish. Set aside while you make the sauce.

Mix all of the sauce ingredients together. Yup, that’s it, that’s the sauce.

Pour the sauce over the batter mixture.

Oh, oh.

So close.

Yeah, when the recipe said a LARGE casserole dish, I probably should have paid better attention. Oh well, no going back now.

Bake covered (and on a sheet pan) at 375F for 40 minutes.

And here it is…

Oh my.

Serve.

The rhubarb provides a tangy contrast for the sweet buttery sauce. Simply lovely. Good luck saving some for tomorrow.

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Local Chow: Week 2

Posted on May 10, 2012 | 1 Comment

If you tuned in last week, you’ll know that Fred Rickton (my new name for husband) and I have begun purchasing a local food box on a weekly basis from Real Food Connections, here in our hometown of Fredericton.

Tonight we went to pick up our second box, and I don’t know how it’s possible, but we might be even more impressed with this box than with our first.

This week our box held the following gorgeous local products:

~ a dozen antibiotic-free eggs courtesy of Hilltop Pork
~ a loaf of homemade multigrain bread baked by Soleil Bakery
~ a large bag of mixed greens from Villeneuve Family Farms
~ very fresh new radishes
~ 4 sundried tomato basil sausages also from Hilltop Pork
~ 4 beef patties
~ chicken thighs
~ 2 great looking ribeye steaks
~ 2 salmon filets
~ a chunk of mustard pepper gouda
~ rhubarb
~ at least 1 lb of fiddleheads
~ a head of pak choi
~ potatoes

I can hardly wait to dream up dinners this week.

A big thanks to the great staff at RFC – they’re informative, friendly, completely flexible, and patient. It makes it an absolute pleasure to shop there. For the first time in a long time, Fred wants to come shopping with me – that’s a VERY good sign that you’re doing something right.

If you’re not already buying local, start. It healthy for the local economy, the planet, you and your family, and your pocket book.

Next week, I’m hoping to pick up some NB duck fat for cooking. The excitement’s a bit too much to bear!

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Our First Food Box Order

Posted on May 3, 2012 | 2 Comments

Husband and I recently decided to start ordering a food box of locally produced meat and veggies from a local store called Real Food Connections. You put your name on the list for a box, then pick it up on either Thursday or Friday evening. The goods in the box are a bit of a surprise, although the nice folks at RFC really aim to please and allow you to swap anything in the box for anything else you’d rather have in the store.

You should check out RFC’s website – there’s a lot of information there, along with profiles of the local farmers producing these amazing products.

All of the boxes have some things in common, but you also get to pick a couple of things when you get there. This week we got our choice of herbs and a cheese. We chose parsley for our herb and a goat feta for our cheese.

This is the first week we’ve ordered, and we’re VERY excited about this week’s haul:

- basil plant (this was an add on for us)
- italian parsley plant
- radishes
- goat’s milk feta
- 1/2 lb fiddleheads (YAY for fiddlehead season!!!)
- multigrain bread
- two bags of sprouts
- eggs
- milk
- 3 lb potatoes
- bag of baby spinach
- ground chicken
- chicken breast
- mango curry sausages (4 lg)
- 2 massive breakfast patties

How much fun will it be to come up with meals with these products this week?!? I can’t wait.

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Weeknight Dinner: Roasted Beet Salad

Posted on May 1, 2012 | 2 Comments

I love beets. I love them all ways – yes, even the pickled beets that come in a can. I mean sure, there are a million other better ways to eat them, but I’m just not that picky about them.

This is the second evening in a row that my husband is working late, so I’ve had extra time to prepare dinner. I don’t remember the last time before this week that I’ve had to cook dinner on a weeknight. That’s right folks, my wonderful husband does the majority of our weeknight cooking. He’s good at it too.

Extra time to prepare dinner really gets me thinking. You have a lot of dinner possibilities when you have at least two hours to bring something together. Coincidentally, I also had a lot of beets on my hands. Perfect.

Husband’s going to love dinner tonight. I think.

Any of the ingredients in this salad, other than the beets, can be easily substituted. Omit the carrots entirely if you don’t have any. Use whatever baby green you’d like to, or omit them entirely. If you don’t have pecans, walnuts or almonds will work just fine, or you can omit them entirely. Don’t have green onions? Try chives, or thinly sliced red onions. You get the idea.

Roasted Beet Salad

Salad ingredients:
5-6 medium beets
6 carrots (more or less, or none at all – whatever you’ve got)
2 cups arugula (or whatever baby green you have in the fridge)
1/2 cup pecans, toasted
3 green onions
feta cheese, crumbled (optional, but not really – when is cheese really optional?!? Come on!!!)

Vinaigrette:

1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp orange juice
1 Tbsp dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste

Start by roasting the beets and carrots. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with foil and drizzle with olive oil. If using large-ish beets, cut them in half before putting them on the pan, along with the carrots. Cover the whole pan with foil. Throw them in the oven for at least an hour.

While the beets are roasting, there’s lots to do.

Prepare the remainder of the ingredients.

Roast the nuts over a low heat in a dry pan. This should only take a few minutes. Remember to give them a shake every couple of minutes or so.

Prepare the vinaigrette: Just throw everything in a measuring cup and mix well.

After the nuts are roasted, there’s a little more chopping to do.

Now we just have to wait for those dang beets.

*insert Jeopardy! tune here*

Ding! Beets are done!

Check them for doneness by piercing with a knife.

Chop the beets into nice, bite-sized pieces. Or however you’d like to chop them – this is certainly not a picky person salad.

I know. Reminds you of a Dexter episode, doesn’t it?

Chop the carrots the same way and throw those roasted veggies into a big bowl.

Add the rest of the salad ingredients and mix well.

Sprinkle with cheese, if desired. Wait – of course it’s desired.

Sprinkle with cheese, if you have any left. We used a goat’s milk feta.

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One Potato, Two Potato, Sweet Potato, Four: Gluten-Free Paleo Sweet Potato Hash

Posted on April 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

If you know me personally, you know that I’m a diet junkie. I don’t like to try them all, but I love learning the science behind diet and nutrition, so I’m constantly trying to educate myself about such things.

Most recently, I’ve embarked on a quest to eat a gluten-free diet in conjunction with eating what is now known as a paleolithic diet. In a nutshell (although the science behind the paleo diet would never fit in such a small space), the paleo diet is based on eating foods that would have been most readily available to our ancestors before the agricultural revolution – primarily fish and animal proteins, vegetables and some fruit, nuts and seeds. The paleo diet does not include eating grains, dairy, legumes, or refined sugar.

For now, I’m focusing primarily on eating a gluten-free diet, so I’m still eating some dairy, some grains, and some legumes. That’s really neither here nor there to you though, so let’s get on with the show.

This sweet potato hash recipe is something I came up with for dinner one night last week. We then enjoyed the leftovers for breakfast the next morning. We served it with a fried egg on top, and a side of gluten-free cornbread.

This recipe is versatile, healthy, filling, and comes together quickly and easily. Add as many or as few additional vegetables to it as you’d like. Omit the meat if you’d like to have a vegetarian version. If you don’t have coconut oil on hand, use olive oil. Don’t have smoked paprika? Use whatever other herb or spice combination you’d like. There are just so many possibilities.

Sweet Potato Hash

2 Sweet Potatoes, cubed
1-2 Tbsp Coconut Oil (or some other healthy fat)
2 Garlic Cloves, minced
1/2 Lb Sausage (or as much as you’d like of any protein, cooked ahead of time)
1 Sweet Pepper, diced
1 Large Onion, diced
1 Tbsp Smoked Paprika (or some herb/spice combination of your choice)

Gather the required ingredients.

Peel and cube your sweet potatoes. Boil them for about 10 minutes, until fork tender. Drain and set aside.

Dice the vegetables.

Melt the cocount oil in a large pan over medium heat.

Add garlic and saute quickly.

Add your vegetables and sausage and saute until the vegetables are tender and the sausage is cooked through. Remember to cook your sausage ahead of time if using a raw product.

Add your sweet potatoes to the pan, along with the smoked paprika.

Stir well and allow all ingredients to heat together, about 5 minutes.

Garnish with fresh chives or green onions, if you’d like.

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