CSA Box Ideas!

For those of you getting CSA boxes this year, I'm going to try to post an idea or two each week for what you can do with some of the treasures you're receiving in your box. Some of the veggies we get are ones we aren't familiar with, so it's hard to know what to do with them. And sometimes we get more than we can eat, so ideas on preserving food are also helpful. Tonight, I'll just post a few ideas from what we have done the last two weeks:

Turnips:
I had actually never eaten a turnip before getting a CSA box last year. What is it? What do you do with it? Where do you store it? Well, it's a peppery root vegetable and you should definitely store it in the veggie drawer in the fridge (even though it feels as tough as a potato). I left mine out last week and it started to wilt in a few days! Oops! So last week I made turnips based on a tip from my handy "Joy of Cooking" book and they were SO tasty and SO easy - the perfect combo. You scrub the veggie with your potato scrubber, slice it into thick french fry slices, toss them in olive oil and a little salt, and roast them on a sheet or cookie pan in the oven at 375 degrees for 35 minutes. They caramelize slightly while roasting and are peppery and sweet and delicious. It is so hands off, which I love. The kids did not go for them, but we adults loved them.

Strawberries:
Ok, strawberries are easy, I know. The best way to enjoy them is the day they are picked, standing over the sink as you give them a quick rinse and let the red juice run down your chin. No better way to "fix" a strawberry. However...once May passes, there are no more strawberries and that can be very sad. We haven't bought a berry at the grocery store in over a year (after reading In Defense of Food, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and other books). We only eat strawberries in April and May. We eat them until we are so sick of them we are almost glad for the season to end! But several months later, we do begin to miss them. So I am researching ways to preserve that wonderful treasure to enjoy the rest of the year. So far, the best options for us are: freezing, making jam, and dehydrating.

To freeze strawberries (for smoothies): Remove hull and any bruises, rinse, pat dry, and stand on a tray lined with wax paper cut side down. Place tray of strawberries in the freezer for 12-24 hours until they are well frozen, then dump into a plastic bag or freezer storage container (this will keep them from clumping and sticking together).

For jams: I don't have a canning kit, but I recently discovered an alternative to real canning - making "freezer jam". With freezer jam you don't have to boil anything or worry about perfect seals and butolism and all that. It is so simple and SO delicious. Here's how it works. You smash a bunch of strawberries until it is a mushy mix with some chunks still in it. You add a little sugar (or honey) and pectin. Stir for 3 minutes and you are done! (When you buy pectin, follow the instructions on the package for specific quantities for your jam. Also, make sure the pectin is specifically for NO COOK jam). I reduced the sugar content on the recipe I followed in HALF because we are trying to keep our sugar under control in this house and frankly the berries don't need much in my opinion. Fill jars and freeze them for up to a year. They'll last in the fridge for up to 4 weeks. The flavor is so intense and so wonderful, so much better than any jelly or jam I've ever had. Even better than other homemade jams because apparently cooking strawberries takes something away from that fresh-picked flavor. So far I've made 5 jars and will make 7 or so more so we can get through the entire year on our own fresh jam. It cost about $1 worth of strawberries for each jar plus $0.30 of pectin and a few pennies of sugar. That's great value. One thing to note, however: even with the pectin, the jam is runnier than typical jam. We've discovered that its runnier texture is still fine for PB&J's and toast, and it also makes it a great way to flavor your own plain yogurt and oatmeal! (We have also stopped buying flavored yogurts at the store because the sugar content is outrageous, so this is a very tasty and welcome alternative for us! I did the math on the sugar I used in my jars and it works out to about 2-3 grams per generous serving of jam plus the natural sugars in the strawberries and yogurt - which I imagine totals to much less than the 20-30 grams per serving in a flavored yogurt).

OK, more next week. Happy eating.

Dr. Me

I finally defended my doctoral dissertation last week and I am almost officially a PhD! I flew out to Austin with my mom on April 16, spent the weekend enjoying the town and visiting Fredericksburg and then I successfully defended my dissertation to my committee on Monday April 18! Here's a quick summary of how it all worked... (for those of you who got my email this will be very redundant!)

All doctoral defenses are public events, so anyone is welcome to attend (but who would want to?!?). The morning of my defense I met briefly with my advisor to make sure it would be ok that my mom came and sat in on it and she said, "Of course she can. There will be lots of people there." "What?" I thought? "Lots of people? Like who???" I had assumed it would just be my committee of 5 professors (minus the one who had to back out last minute because of an illness), me and my mom. My advisor then told me that they were encouraging graduate students and faculty from the department to attend my defense so that the students could learn about the process. That last minute information made me a little extra nervous! I had never been to a defense before and certainly wished I had. I did not know what to expect at all.

So, I went back to our apartment, put on a very smart looking suit (thanks to Zia for giving it to me) and some pointed-toed heels that mom described as "mean looking" so that I could at least LOOK professional. About ten or twelve people showed up to watch the defense (plus mom), so that was interesting. It actually probably helped because it balanced out the dynamic of the room somehow. There were fewer PhDs and more students and it made it feel less intense. Plus I was able to give my presentation like I was teaching a class since most people in the room hadn't read my paper and didn't know what I was talking about! After my brief presentation, I was asked number of questions (none of them "mean" or tricky, most of them being questions the professors didn't actually know the answer to). My committee also provided me with some comments, suggestions and gentle criticism. They then all suggested that I take two of the chapters from my paper and publish them as articles sooner than later. They also suggested I reorganize the paper by dropping one chapter and adding another (that I had mentioned as a possibility in my presentation) in order to make it a book. Then we all had to leave the room for a few minutes while my committee discussed my fate. They brought us all back in and my advisor said, "Let's all congratulate Dr. Burkhart for an excellent job!" Yay for me! And the dozen or so people I'd never met all clapped. :)


Yay for finally finishing such a major project! After two children, several moves and a few years off, I ultimately prevailed!

Sometimes they do smile