Admit it. If you’re a strawberry fan, you’re buying them by the bushel right now. Savoring sweet local strawberries in any form you can conceive of–muffins, pies, salads, soups, shortcake, crumbles. But what happens after strawberry season? Sure, you can turn them into jam. But what if you’re not looking for a huge drawn out process. What if you have a fear of boiling water baths? You could freeze them. That’s easy enough. Though a bit boring. The only logical option is to move to condiments.
Success! The nontraditional heart and chocolate Valentines Dinner was a success! If you happened to be seated at our dinner table, and didn’t know you would be eating heart, you probably wouldn’t be any the wiser. Beef heart (at least went slow cooked and smothered with mole sauce) tastes a lot like tender steak, think Filet Mignon. At first I was pretty worried the meat would be chewy. When I stirred the pot partway through the cubes of meat seemed very tough and dense. However, the dish was nothing but delicious. I noticed the heart had a stronger beefy flavor and was firm but super tender. I think my next experiment will include it in a stew or maybe chili.
This Week’s CSA Bounty
If you’ve ever participated in a CSA, I’m sure you’ve used the word “struggle” to identify the program at least once or twice. This is my second time participating in a CSA. My first one was the Yellow Hook CSA in Bay Ridge. A 5 minute walk from my apartment, the location was perfect! I was so excited by the bounty of fruits and veggies I was promised. Little did I realize that “veggies” really equated leafy greens. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good bunch of kale or bok choy, but getting 3-4 varieties of greens every week was too much for a family of two to handle. Pickups were on Thursdays and we often went away on weekends (or at least cooked less), so we’d struggle on Thursday and Friday night to consume as may green as possible only to end up having the rest wilt and end up in the trash or compost pile. I took the 2011 season off, but when a coworker suggested the Tribeca CSA, down the street from my office, I felt I was ready to take on the challenge again.
Brooklyn Locavore 