Tomatillos!

I'm back again!

I got a bag of tomatillos in my CSA box last week. I've never done anything with tomatillos. I was a little flustered by them, but I'd already planned for tortilla soup on Saturday evening. I just switched up my plans a little and made tomatillo soup.

Aren't they pretty? This is after Mr. Geeky removed the husks for me and I'd begun chopping them.

I'd already sauteed three flattened chicken breast halves in this pan. 

Then I cooked onion, jalapeno peppers, and garlic and added broth. 

I boiled the mess for about 15 minutes.

After it boiled, it looked like that above.

Then I pureed it with my immersion blender. 

I love my immersion blender.

The recipe I had didn't call for tomatoes or corn, but I had tomatoes from my plants and four ears of corn from the CSA box, so I cut the corn from the cobs and chopped up the tomatoes.

And Mr. Geeky cut the chicken into tiny pieces.

After I added the chicken and vegetables, I added my secret ingredient.

Now it's not a secret. Secret Aardvark habanero hot sauce. It is THE BEST. I have a friend in the Northwest US who supplies me with this wonderful stuff.

And, naturally, I have no pictures of the finished soup, but with a dollop of sour cream added, it's absolutely lovely. We were in a hurry to eat Saturday night since Mr. Geeky and I took the sprogs to their first symphony. We had the soup with tortilla chips, sour cream, and cheese.

Til next time!

Noms and a busy month

July has just been crazy. The weather, the amount of stuff to do, the new things that seem to come up at the last possible minute. Holidays, summer day camp events, golf outings, guests, surgeries, broken digits, motorcycle classes... seems like we've had it all in the last 30 days or so.

This Geeky Chick is ready for things to slow down.

We've continued getting our CSA boxes every Wednesday. They always look like some variation on this:

Beautiful, isn't it? 

That's a lovely batch of kale in the back left of the photo.  I really had no idea of what to do with kale, but I remembered a friend talking about kale chips. Sounded interesting.

This is my beautiful kale in the sink. Oooh and aaah with me.

 Here's my lovely kale all chopped off the purple stalks. Ignore the lovely purple beets on the right, although they were certainly delish.

My kale, cut into bite-sized pieces, on the baking sheet. I'd spread it on parchment paper and sprayed it with olive oil.

My handy-dandy Misto was useful.

Kale after baking at 350 for about 15-20 minutes. I watched it very carefully to be sure it didn't burn, because I read somewhere online that if it burns it smells like decaying yard clippings. I'm not saying I believe everything I read online, but I figured that was one bit of advice I'd listen to.

Mmmm... kale chips.

Corgis don't like kale chips.

They were really, really tasty the night I made them. I stored them in this airtight container, and they lost their crispness overnight. I didn't care for them quite so much the next day and got a slight whiff of the lawn clippings. I'd say make these if you're planning to enjoy them the same night. 

Or use them to scare away neighbors the next day.

 Mmmm... beets. I got a bunch of fresh beets in my box. Here they are, boiled and lightly salted.  I believe Mr. Geeky ate this batch.

I got this lovely zucchini off the vine that Sprog the Younger mutilated. I don't have much hope for the vines anymore. The tomato was the first one off my cherry tomato plant. 

For July Fourth, I made barbecued spare ribs. This was new for me, since I'm not actually a big rib fan, but thought I'd give it a try. I thought they were tasty, but probably won't go to the trouble again, since the sprogs didn't care for them. Sprog the Younger was funny though, he looked at the ribs and asked "How am I supposed to eat this?" I waggled my eyebrows at him and said "LIKE A CAVEMAN!!" Thus commenced the gnawing and growling.

Ribs. These baked in the oven for three hours before they went on the grill. I also made the barbecue sauce.

We had them with grilled corn on the cob, salad and biscuits.

And strawberry shortcake of sorts.

Mmmm... more beets. 

 

These are some cucumbers and beans from my CSA box, except for that sad, skinny little cucumber on the left. That came off my vine. Sad, but nom.

 

Here's a better look at the beans.

 

These were very cool looking. Sprog the Elder hates wax beans, but I loved them.

The following pictures are from a recent dinner. I made an Asian marinade for tuna steaks, grilled pineapple, and quinoa.

We love this sesame marinade.

 

Tuna! Such a lovely pink color.

 

I let the tuna sit in the marinade for several hours.

 

Fresh pineapple slices.

 

I brushed them with a glaze of honey, cherry preserves, and lime flavored rum.

 

Mmmmm.... RUM.

 

They soaked up the rum... errrr... glaze for an hour or so then they went on the grill.

 

And the complete meal! Om nom nom.

I'm making tomatillo soup tonight, with fresh tomatillos, chicken, fresh corn, and fresh tomatoes from my vines. I'm taking pictures along the way and will post them tomorrow, probably. The sprogs are going to visit with my parents for a few days (bless you, Mom and Dad) so Mr. Geeky and I can finish our motorcycle classes. We've got a couple meals out planned with friends (something we very rarely get to do), so I might not have anything very interesting until later in the week.

Some yogurt yumminess and more CSA

Last week was crazy! Wednesday the 20th was my wedding anniversary, so my husband and I went and tested for our motorcycle operators' permits, and one of my closest friends came into town. On Thursday I left for a work-related conference and was gone through the weekend. I had no time after we picked up our CSA box to do anything exciting with it. I took a few pictures through the week, though, and can show you a few things this geeky chick has been doing around here.

We get a dozen locally gathered eggs each week with our CSA. They make for a quick dinner that gets eaten:

My kids love eggs and my husband loves bacon. The dogs love leftovers. Win win!

I hate yogurt. Not all yogurt, just the kind you get in the little plastic cups at the grocery store. You know, the stuff with the consistency of snot. Watery, over-sugared or loaded with artificial crap. Blech. I was interested in the newer Greek yogurts that hit the stores a year or so ago, and I like the Fage 0%, but was still looking for something a little different, something that holds the spoon up when I let go.

Something my kids wouldn't steal.

I figured if I couldn't find it, I'd have to make it. Now I make all our yogurt. It's an easy process, especially with a little incubator. I use a powdered starter.

Start with clean jars. I would be afraid of what might happen with dirty ones. 

Warm, fresh yogurt smells a little funky as it is.

 I run my jars through the dishwasher and keep the caps on until I'm ready to use them.

Organic milk is the only milk we use in the house. 

I like the cow on the carton. I'm assuming the cow is not missing.

I've used both 2% and skim for my yogurt. They work equally well.

Your use will depend on personal tastes and your spouse's tolerance for fat free milk.

I believe this step is optional, but from what I've read, not heating the milk can result in a different texture. I don't really want to mess with my spoon-propping texture.

Someday when I'm feeling adventurous I might try not heating it, but for now it works for me. My little incubator and the starter call for 42 ounces of milk.

 Heat to 180 degrees, or just to the boiling point. I read somewhere that it's heated properly when the bubbles start climbing the sides of the pan. I think that means I'm heated properly after a few days with my kids during summer break. You know, climbing the walls.

 After heating, the milk has to be cooled down to 111-113 degrees before you add the cultures. 

I put the pan in a cold water bath to facilitate this. Careful, or your pan will float away.

 This is my yogurt starter. I buy it in these big boxes from Amazon. You can also just use a container of prepared yogurt. Reduce the amount of milk to accommodate for the extra volume, or you'll be cursing when you pour the mixture into the little jars.

 Okay, the milk has chilled down.

 Add your starter and whisk it gently until the starter is dissolved. Don't sniff the starter. 

It's the reason for that warm, fresh yogurt funky smell and if you get the powder stuck in your nose you'll smell yogurt funk for hours.

 Pour the milk-starter mixture into your little jars (or a big jar if you're using the oven).

 Here's my little jars in my little incubator. The incubator keeps the mixture at about 110 degrees F for the duration of the incubation, usually 6-7 hours. A friend of mine warned me not to jostle the yogurt while it incubates, otherwise I'd have yogurt chunks. I'm not testing that, just taking her word for it.

Now wait....

 And voila! Yogurt.

 I use a strainer to thicken my yogurt, so I empty all the little jars into two strainers.

Looks like this.

 And this is how I clean the jars.

Kidding. 

Not really.

Now wait overnight. Or 6-8 hours, or however long you want to wait. Just check the texture now and then until it's what you want. If you let it go for 24 hours, you get yogurt cheese, which is a nice substitute for sour cream or cream cheese.

 This is what it looks like in the morning (look at what a nice job those dogs did on the jars!).

 That yellow stuff in the bottom is what strained out overnight. It's whey. I'm fairly certain there are creative things that can be done with this, but I think it's what's responsible for that funky smell.

 I'll pass.

You let me know if you find a use for it.

 Anyway, you can see here how firm the yogurt is. Yep. That's what I like.

 And so, out of 42 ounces of milk, I got about 2 cups of super-firm, creamy, yogurt yumminess. 

 Those little plastic cups are handy.

I like to mix some cherry preserves into my yogurt. Hubby likes orange marmalade in his. Lemon or lime curd is nice, too. The dogs like it plain or with preserves.

So we'll pick up another CSA box today. I'm excited. We also got a nice zucchini off the plant outside. I'm sure I would have had a bumper crop of zucchini, but I made the fatal mistake of sending my younger son out with a knife to cut off the vegetable. He was, apparently, offended by the fact that zucchini vines escaped the raised bed and started to root in the yard, so he cut them all off. 

Sigh... 

Here's a recent dinner:

 Who's coming over?