Slow Cooking

Having a half hog and side of beef in our freezer results in a lot of roasts and other cuts of meat that require some time to make them tender and tasty.  From time to time on the weekends we'll play around with smoking items on our grill, but during the week we don't have time to babysit dinner for 4+ hours.  Our crock pot however gives us the opportunity to start something in the morning, head to work and have a meal ready when we get home.  It's probably one of our favorite and most indispensable kitchen appliances  This is a picture of our heavily used crock pot.  The knob on the top is a replacement knob made for pots.  The lid used to have a couple other parts that have since broke off, but the appliance itself still works well.  We use it about one to two times a week in the fall / winter and closer to once a week during the warmer months.  I'd say the absolute best feature of this crock pot is being able to program the time to the half hour and then flips to "warm" after the time has expired.  There are many slow cooker options that say they're programmable, but the only options are 4 or 6 hours on hi or 8 or 10 hours on low, being able to zero in a little bit better than this is invaluable.  It's perfect for making large amounts of food and having plenty of leftovers to enjoy the rest of the week or throw in the freezer for later. 

Recipes that we use our slow cooker for are all very easy, since our purpose is convenience.  For roasts we typically put the roast up on a bed of onions or sweet potatoes or something else that would support the roast.  Stews, soups, stocks are even easier, since we just toss everything in together and give it a stir.  Here are a couple of our favorite recipes:

Pulled Pork/Beef 
-3 lbs pork or beef roast
-1 medium onion - small dice
-1 bell pepper - small dice
-2 to 3 stalks of celery - small dice
-1 Tb pickling spice tied in cheesecloth or a tea ball
-1 tsp dry mustard
-1 tsp salt
-1 cup water
-4 oz tomato paste

Add all ingredients to slow cooker.  If you're putting the roast in frozen, set the timer for 8 hours on low, if thawed, 6 hours on low should be fine.  Once you get home and the time has expired leave the pot on warm and take the lid off, let the roast cool a bit and shred the roast either by hand or with two forks.  It's going to be very hot, so by hands is usually not my favorite option.  There should be plenty of juice in the crock, once shredded mix the meat into all of that juice and let everything sit together on warm for 20-30 minutes.

We vary the spices on this for whatever we're feeling like.  Sometimes a little more Mexican, sometimes Thai, or just barbeque.

Barbeque Short Ribs
-1.5 lbs of short ribs
-Favorite barbeque or steak rub, we found an awesome coffee barbeque rub that works well
-1 large sweet potato / 2-3 small, skinned cut into even sized chunks, inch or so high
-1/4 cup of water

Pour the water into the crock.  Place the sweet potatoes on the bottom of the crock, use these as the bed that you will set your short ribs on.  Give the short ribs a good rub down with the spice rub and place on top of the sweet potato.  Set the crock pot for about 6 hours if frozen and 4 hours if thawed.  Once complete pull the short ribs out, the top will have a bit of a crust formed, the rest should be tender and moist.  Pull the potatoes out, they're going to be plenty soft, and we typically just mash them with a little butter, salt, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper and have them as a side.  Jess like a sauce on most of her's so she will use some sort of bbq sauce, I usually just put a couple spoon fulls of the broth at the bottom of the pan on mine.

Chicken Stock 
- Carcass from chicken including neck, and any other unused innards
- 3-4 stalks celery
- 1 large onion
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 carrot
- Sage
- 2 Tbs vinegar
- Parsley / Oregano

Add all ingredients to crock, except parsley and oregano if using fresh.  Cover completely with water, but make sure you leave yourself an inch or so at that top of the crock. Set cooker on low for 12-14 hours. Throw the fresh Parsley and Oregano in during the last 2 hours.  Once complete let cool and strain the stock into mason jars.  Let cool completely before putting in freezer/fridge, otherwise too drastic a temperature change can cause the glass to break, fridge not as big a deal.  The fat will rise to the top once in the fridge/freezer, this can be removed.  You'll notice homemade stock has a jello-y giggle to it, trust me, it's good for you and it all liquifies once heated.  I don't salt until I actually use it in a dish.  The vinegar gives it a little zip in the background that I really like, but it's obviously option and not necessary.

Chilli
- 2 lbs ground beef
- 1 onion - chopped
- 3 cloves garlic - chopped
- 1 jalapeno pepper (or other favorite hot pepper) - chopped
- 1 bell pepper  - chopped
- 24 oz  salsa - we like Trader Joe's red salsa
- 36 oz  diced tomatoes, retain juice as well
- Chilli powder and cumin to taste
- Hot sauce to taste

Mix all ingredients together.  If you brown the beef beforehand, you can cook for as little as a couple hours, just to get the flavors to come together.  If you're not browning the beef then plan on 6-8 hours.  We'll swap in a half pound of hot Italian sausage sometimes as well for a little different taste, much more than that we've found too overpowering.  We also toss in some fresh parsley and oregano.

How do you use your slow cooker?

Beets

Beets are back on the menu for week 5.  This is a vegetable that all I knew until about a year ago was the canned variety and I knew I didn't like those.  Jess talked me into trying some from Green City Market last summer and it was like a whole different vegetable.  We've been playing with a pretty simple appetizer we got at the Purple Pig that was simply roasted cubed beets, a little sea salt, chopped pistachios, and goat cheese.  Very tasty!

SOO WEE!!

We picked up our second 1/2 hog from Meadow Haven Farms on Saturday morning.  The first one was amazing and lasted us about 9 months.  To the right is a picture of our half.  I'd estimate about 100 lbs of take home meat.  It's great from the standpoint that you get to chose how your hog is cut up and prepared.  We really enjoy getting our meat this way, it let's us try cuts (and offal)  that aren't as easy to find in the grocery store and the quality really is top not from MHF.  In a half, you can expect plenty of pork chops and bacon, some shoulder steaks, about 10 lbs of ground or sausages, ham, and roasts.

We have also been splitting half cows (MHF as well) with friends, so the two compliment each other nicely and the only protein we end up getting from the grocery store is fish. Grass fed beef is great, when cooking you can tell it's less watery and has more of a beefy taste to it than conventional, but the difference is even greater between grocery store pork and what you get from MHF's pastured organic pork.  The pastured pork is much more tender with a texture that stays firm yet juicy and has some real flavor to it.  Other than needing to cook it at a lower temp, I find it far more forgiving than conventional as well.  We did the pork chops this evening.  I did mine marinated in a tablespoon of lime juice, tablespoon of rum and a good rub of jerk seasoning.  Super tender, loved it, should be another great pig.      

Blueberries

We got a preview of the blueberries Granor Farm CSA members can go pick for themselves at the farm on July 23.  Popped a few of these right a way, they're wonderful.  Jess and I decided the distance was just a bit too far for us to make it next week with her being as far along in her pregnancy as she is, but can't wait to hear how it goes from those that can make.  Talking to Jesse, you should assume for about 2 hours from the city.  If you haven't already, RSVP directly with Jesse at the farm, you should have his email address from his weekly emails. 

Fennel

This is a picture of young fennel, which has made an appearance in the week 4 basket.  It's something I don't have a lot of experience with, so we'll look something up and let you know how it goes.

Radicchio

Radicchio is a red salad green, fairly firm and due to this we often use it as a shell/wrapper for tacos.

Kohlrabi

This was a last minute addition to the week 4 box for the Granor Farms full share members.  It will be our first time cooking with it, but I've heard you just peal it and then can slice it thin and eat it raw as well as steam or saute it.  We're looking forward to giving it a shot. 

Veggie Storage

One of the most frustrating parts of fresh produce is having it go bad before getting the chance to enjoy it.  We've found a couple of methods that have worked for us to help maximize fridge life.

Asparagus seems to work best of the wood stalks (not tips) wrapped in a moist paper towel.

Beets seem to do fine unwashed in the veggie drawer, though we do remove the beet greens, leaving about an inch on the fruit and store that separately, as described below. 

Kale, collards, chard, mustard greens, beet greens, turnip greens, etc.  Kale and collard greens are pictured to the left.  It's amazing how fresh and crisp items like kale look when you first get them home, but after one day in the fruit basket or just out in the fridge they've pretty much gone limp.  We've tried a few different ideas with these and found the following to work the best.  Lightly dampen a paper towel or cloth and spread the greens out on the towel.  Keep the layer pretty light, then just roll up the towel and place towel and veggies into a plastic bag.  We pulled our kale out last week on Thursday, so 5 days later and it was still as crisp and fresh looking as when we picked it up Saturday.  It would have been good for at least another couple days.  For beets and turnips, we just cut the greens off the fruit when we get them home and store them separately.

Salad greens, spinach, arugula, etc. Moisture seems to be the biggest enemy with these, so we pull the salad mix out of their container and onto a dry sheet or two of paper towel then roll them up and place them in a plastic bag making sure to squeeze as much air out as possible.  So the only difference from above is that the paper towel is dry.  If you notice the paper towel is getting pretty moist, swap it out.  To the right is a picture of two bunches of mezuna, the one on the left was prepped as noted above, the one on the right was just in a brown paper bag.  There was the same amount of both and you can see that the one stored in the paper bag was starting to wilt down.

Mushrooms do really well in paper bags.  I learned this tip from one of the farmers at Green City Market.  They'll start to look a little dehydrated if left too long, but I'll take that any day over them getting wet and slimy, like when left in a plastic bag or left in the grocery store container. 

Onions and sweet potatoes have a pretty long shelf life and do best in a single layer stored in any cool place.  In the summer we use the fridge and definitely don't have the space to put these in a single layer and the do ok, but find we end up with some soft spots if left too long.

Radishes and Turnips do fine loose in the veggie drawer.

These are some of the items we've been seeing in our csa baskets as well as some other staples, at least in our kitchen. 

Red Saladbowl Lettuce

We just used this mixed into salads last week.  They're not an overly sturdy lettuce, but might see if they'll work as a wrap for burgers.

Mizuna/Arugula Mix

Typically we just use this raw for salads, but works well any way you use spinach, sauteed, steamed, etc.  I love the peppery taste of arugula.

Kale

Kale is probably my favorite green.  I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of you have for these.  We fall back on kale chips pretty often, but also steam it, eat it raw in a salad with grapefruit or other citrus fruit, or braised in chicken stock.

Greens - Joi Choi, Collard Greens

This is Joi Choi, it can be tough to distinguish from the collard greens, these have more of a violet stem, whereas the collards just have violet tips.


These are Collard Greens.  For similar items I'll group them together.  We prepare these in much the same way along with radish greens and beet greens.  They each have their own subtle differences in flavor, but in general like recipes can be used.

French Breakfast Radish

So far we've been doing these raw, sliced thin over salads as well as just popping them whole.  These have some kick to them, especially compared to those ones you find on a veggie tray.  Don't forget the green tops are edible as well.

Garlic Scapes

Jess and I have really enjoyed these, with last week being the first time we'd ever heard of or seen them.  The green end is solid all the way to the bulb and all edible.  We're working through the first one, we've been using it just like garlic.  The end seems to be the most mild and it gets a little more intense as you work your way down.  Works well raw or sauteed.

Welcome!

Welcome to "From Farm to Gym to Table."  I've worked over the last year to bring high quality food options to the members of Crossfit Chciago through our organic grass fed and pastured meats and eggs from Meadow Haven Farm as well as the CSA we've just kicked off with Granor Farm.  I'm hoping this blog will enhance every one's experiences of these opportunities through recipe sharing, some nutrition ideas, and other hopefully useful content. 

We'll get things kicked off by posting a flurry of entries with pictures of the items from the weekly CSA with the intent of folks posting what they're doing with the items.  I know I get stuck in a rut going back to the same preparation often, so I'm really excited to see what everyone else is up to.