Member Diary #6 – Pamela & Jon

Posted on July 26, 2010 by ryan la chica

Since this is our second year being members of the Southside CSA, we always know that Mondays we’re in for a whole new dinner surprise.

We love to cook but don’t have a lot of time, so we cook when we can. CSA is a good way to encourage ourselves to cook, which is something we really enjoy doing, especially with awesome, fresh, local ingredients.

We eat as local as we can, and we eat everything. If it has cheese or cream, we eat more of it. The only thing we don’t eat is bananas, and Jon doesn’t like cake or cookies (I know right?!).

Lemongrass was a new addition to the roster of CSA produce, so it was what inspired us to get cooking first.

Since it was a big bunch, we made some lemongrass tea, using a recipe we found in Epicurious. It turned out a little too sweet for our taste, so when life gives you iced tea… make lemonade! We squeezed half a lemon into a glass of ice, topped it off with some lemongrass tea and garnished it with some fresh mint – voilá, lemongrass lemonade.

Feeling refreshed, we decided to add some heat into the mix and start cooking dinner. We made green lemongrass curry with shrimp and a salad with one of the lettuces we got from the share, plus some mango, avocado, and sautéed squid.

We eat out a lot during the week, but we did manage to incorporate a lot of leftovers into our CSA delivery. One night was kale, sautéed with some leftover bacon from breakfast at Egg, accompanied by pan-fried skate and leeks.

Since we still had eggs from our last pickup, we decided to use a bunch and make a caramelized onion tart. It was a huge hit, so I am including the recipe, adapted from a Williams-Sonoma cookbook.

I recommend this recipe (or any quiche recipe) to use up any of your leftover veggies. You can make small tartlets and freeze them, and they make a quick breakfast (heated up in the toaster oven), or easy dinner with a great green salad using your CSA lettuce. We will probably be making more of these, as we have tons of veggies still leftover!

Caramelized Onion Tart

– 1 basic pie crust (sans sugar, use your favorite recipe).

– 4 eggs

– 3 large onions, thinly sliced (we used all the onions from our share, the one red and two spanish)

– 1/2 stick of butter

– 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream

– salt, pepper & nutmeg to taste

For Crust (adapted from Williams-Sonoma)

2 1/2 cups organic all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 lbs. (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes

6 tablespoons very cold water

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, and salt. Use your fingers to pinch the butter into the flour until all the butter has been incorporated and the mix looks like coarse sand. Add the water and mix with a spoon just until the dough pulls together.

Combine first 7 ingredients in large bowl. Toss gently to blend.

Roll out 1 dough disk on floured work surface to 13-inch round. Transfer to 9-inch-diameter flass pie dish. Trim excess dough, and flute edges. Place in freezer until filling is ready and oven is preheated to 375 degrees.

For Filling

Heat olive oil and melt butter over medium low heat in a large pan. Add onions and cook slowly, until slightly golden and starting to caramelize, about half and hour. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Spoon onion evenly into prepared crust.

Whisk eggs and cream together and more salt and pepper to taste. Pour evenly over onions.

Bake until set and golden brown, 30 – 40 minutes. Let rest about 15 – 20 minutes before cutting and serving.

Since my husband doesn’t eat cake, the onion tart was the perfect way to wish him a happy birthday too!

(happy birthday Jon! are you embarrassed yet?…)

Filed under: Member Diary | Tagged: cool drinks!, curry, Egg, kale, leek, lemongrass, mint, onion, salad, Savory Ideas, seafood creations, tarts & quiches |

« Haiti FUNdraiser – Wednesday 7-10pm @ d.b.a The Peach – fuzzy & sweet & uncommonly good »

Southside CSA

Archives