The “Tell” – Springdell Winter CSA Pickup #1

 in Springdell Show and Tell  tagged Tell by

Hi everyone, Jess here.  I hope you had a wonderful long weekend!  We had fun here at the Anderson household, celebrating with family and friends on Thursday and Saturday.  

It has been a busy week in the kitchen!  Let’s take a look at the inventory of goodies!

As I had big Thanksgiving and Friendsgiving plans for most of the food in the crate, I spent the earlier part of the week rationing what I could from the CSA crate. Pictured here was a chocolate chip zucchini bread from the summer CSA. 

I thawed a kielbasa and simmered it in a sinful sauce I treasured from my grandparent’s neighborhood barbecues, a glaze of grape jelly and ketchup.  Yup, it’s rather blasphemous, but I can’t resist this combo from time to time, it whisks me back to a childhood where Jarts were legal and badminton was all the rage.  

Also thawed from the chest freezer was some Rotkohl, a tangy cabbage dish that holds up wonderfully well in the freezer and goes great with kielbasa.  

Also enjoyed was a simple and delicious apple cornbread stuffing made from the two stated ingredients, along with butter and broth. It’s a great use if you have a bit of extra cornbread to use. Stir all eyeballed ingredients together and bake at 350, covered for about 25 minutes then uncovered.  If the cornbread appears very dry, add broth/melted butter to desired texture at the point you uncover it.  Bake for another 20-30 minutes and enjoy!  It’s good as-is but some sage would make a nice addition too.

I forgot to take a photo before my other half slathered Gochujang all over this lovely sizzling bowl of Bi Bim Bap featuring broccoli, spinach, egg and thinly sliced beef kabob.  I love this dish because the kids can have their simple steamed rice, broccoli and beef, while the grown ups can stir in this lovely sauce and take the dish to the next level.  

A couple of times this week we had spinach and onion fritattas for breakfast. It’s as simple as sautéing the onions and spinach like so.

Toss an egg mixture on top of your sautéed veggie combo of choice, and either give a quick flip or toss it in the oven at 350 (if you have an oven safe pan) until the eggs are set. I have a link to the fritatta recipe, but many times I just whip the up messily like so.

This was the brine for the turkey I picked up on Tuesday from the farmstand.  It’s from an old Martha Stewart recipe that has since been updated by the both of us and morphed into this:

  • 10 cups water (or 5 cups water, 5 cups ice if you’re in a rush)
  • 3 cups kosher salt
  • 5 cups sugar
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 2 leeks, chopped
  • 2 celery stalks, chopped
  • 2 carrots, chopped
  • 2-3 bay leaves
  • a few sprigs of thyme
  • a few sprigs of parsley
  • 1 scant tablespoon of whole peppercorns

Combine these ingredients in a stockpot and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar and salt has dissolved.  If you’re operating on fast mode, only combine 5 cups of the water in your pot, and after cooking add 5 cups of ice (for a total of 10 cups of water) to help speed the cooling of the brine. Cool completely before adding your turkey to the brine. If you don’t have enough brine to immerse the turkey, it’s best to get the breast immersed first and foremost. Cover and refrigerate your brining turkey for 24-36 hours until the big day. Remove the turkey from the brine and pat it dry 2 hours before you plan to cook it (ideally it stands at room temp for 2 hours before going into the oven.)  The brining step really adds a moist and flavorful touch to your turkey that makes it totally worth it!

Thanksgiving is one of those times that I happily dig into the chest freezer with complete gratitude. Here is some herbed thyme butter being thawed and ready for use in the turkey basting and hasselback squash. Sage butter made an appearance in the chestnut stuffing. Frozen celery was used in the stuffing, stock, soup, and just about anywhere else I could think of. For flavor, I’d take frozen Springdell celery over fresh store-bought celery any day!

Here was the lovely 18 pound turkey! We are most grateful and savored every morsel.

Some quartered brussels sprouts were sautéed with onion and garlic before I added a splash of broth and white wine.  Once the centers were tender, I tossed in some chopped and toasted pecans and the tiniest drizzle of maple syrup.

Here was my plate on Thursday, complete with chestnut stuffing, mashed potatoes, turkey and the very best gravy teeming with farm flavors, fresh cranberry sauce, roasted mashed carnival squash and brussels sprouts with pecan.  Everything was so delicious!

Thursday night I picked the meat off of the carcass, saving a piles for slicing and and piles for cubing.  The carcass went into a stock pot with peppercorns, carrots, onions, garlic scape tops (frozen from earlier in the season), celery, leeks,a heaping handful of herbs (parsley sage rosemary and thyme) my two parsnips (which I accidentally left on the counter overnight and they went limp- perfect for flavoring stock though!) After a very slow and low simmer for about 20 hours I strained the liquid gold and made a soup.  The soup had carrots, onions, celery, potatoes, hull less barley and egg noodles.  

One leftover dish I adore is a good turkey soup with dumplings made from the leftover stuffing.  I made a double batch of stuffing just for this purpose.

For Saturday’s Friendsgiving I whipped up some hasselback butternut squash working loosely from this recipe from Bon Apetit. I swapped the bay leaves for thyme and subbed some jalapeño pepper jelly for some of the maple syrup and fresno chile. It was a welcome change to the traditional mash and I’ll definitely try it again. Next time I’ll allow for more cooking time, as this could have gone a little longer in the oven but I had several other side dishes vying for oven occupancy.

Finally, I’m grateful that my mother is cleaning out my grandma’s house and found a stash of honey from my late grandfather’s hives.  Since my grandfather passed away over a decade ago, I’m further grateful that honey has no real expiration date and that I can enjoy this with Nan in the days to come. The taste of this honey takes me back.  

Well that’s about it on this end!  Please check in with comments or questions anytime, I’m here to help!  I hope you are enjoying your Winter CSA as much as we are, see you back here soon for the next “show” of the Springdell Show and Tell!  

About Jess

Jess Anderson is the creator of CSA|365 and is passionate about the local food movement. A long time member of Springdell and a busy mother of two, Jess loves keeping her family fed by honest local food.

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