Daria Can Cook – and so can you!

Did anyone else obsessively read The Monster at the End of This Book starring Grover of Sesame Street when they were little? I’m pretty sure my parents contemplated burning it so they wouldn’t have to read it to me again.

With “lovable, furry old Grover” as my inspiration, I’ve decided to work backwards through today’s CSA eats. First up: dinner. Nothing too fancy tonight – just simple deliciousness. We had some CSA lamb chops, seasoned with salt, pepper, and sage and pan fried:

and Swiss chard, sauteed with garlic, onion, (barely) hot pepper, and tomatoes:

All together:

For lunch I played with a new, super secret ingredient from our CSA: spey cabbage.

According to the CSA newsletter, spey cabbage is a very common crop in Cambodia, but it’s hard to find any information about it in English. It is a cabbage, but a very delicate, mildly spice variety. I made it into a salad along with some of our CSA tomatoes, non-CSA avocado, and the remaining basil-y bean dip from the other day. It was fabulous! Very crunchy and crinkly, but not quite as chewy or fibrous as the cabbage you can find in the grocery store. It was a nice alternative to lettuce.

And now we’ve come to the scary part of our post…the monster! (Hide yourself, Grover!)

That’s right, it’s a green monster bowl of oatmeal!! We bought some lousy bagged spinach early in the week to tide us over until our CSA share came, and it’s slowly going bad in the bottom of the refrigerator. Solution? Blend with almond milk until it forms a green, swampy, goo. Add to oatmeal along with sunflower seed butter, cinnamon, and frozen berries and cherries. Enjoy.

This pic is blurry, but it’s closer to the actual color of the oats:

See, Grover? There was nothing to be scared of after all!

I haven’t made any great meals in the past few days, but I have been playing in the kitchen. Last night I remembered that we have a bag of CSA potatoes hiding out in storage, so I made myself some oven-roasted beauties.

Potatoes aren’t potatoes without copious amounts of ketchup.

Then I got the baking bug and tried out two recipes with the almond meal I bought at Trader Joe’s. Note: almond meal is NOT the same as almond flour. It’s coarser are more suited for dense fare like breads than for cakes or lighter baked goods. There’s a good explanation of the differences here.

First up were the Savory Grain-Free Crackers from Karina’s Kitchen. I subbed in 1 cup of regular flour just because I wanted to ease into the whole nut meal/flour thing, and I used sage and tarragon instead of the Italian herbs since I didn’t have any. I also used paprika rather than turmeric for the splash of color.

These are SO GOOD! The parmesan really comes through, so they taste quite rich. I would make one small adjustment next time, however. The recipe tells you to just flatten the dough with your hand directly onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. This technique left the dough far too thick – most of these are more like flatbread rather than like crackers, which is what I wanted. Next time I’ll roll out the dough first.

Next up: Comfy Belly’s banana bread, made into muffins.

I had one for breakfast this morning and they’re also delicious. Very dense and nutty and satisfying. I subbed 1 cup of all-purpose flour here too (so I used 1.5 cups almond meal and 1 cup regular flour total). This recipe made 12 muffins that clock in around 300 calories each.

The verdict on baking with almond meal:

If you’re craving a light, fluffy, airy baked good, steer clear of nut meal. But if you want to pack some extra nutritional punch into your baked goods, almond meal gives you all kinds of vitamins, minerals, fats, phytonutrients, and antioxidants that you just can’t find in all-purpose flour. If you go in knowing that your muffins are going to be a dense, nutty affair, they’re absolutely scrumptious.

I have plans to try my hand at macaroons and lemon curd later today. Sometimes I just get into a domestic groove and want to keep going.

Just wanted to share this morning’s breakfast concoction. It is waaay too hot and muggy for oats today, but I went for it anyway. Weather be damned!

In this bowl: 1/4 cup steel cut oats, 1 tbsp maple syrup, 2 grated carrots, a handful each of raisins and walnuts, and a dash each of cinnamon and nutmeg. After this picture was taken I added some almond milk to cool it down and make it a little creamier (what’s carrot cake without a creamy frosting?).

I normally eat rolled oats because they’re fast and super bulky and filling, but Trader Joe’s only had Irish oats or steel cut. I went with the quick-cooking steel-cut, which takes about 8 minutes to make. I really like the nuttiness of the steel cut variety – it reminds me of wheat germ, which I’ve loved since I was a kid. I do miss the speed and bulk of rolled oats, though. I think I’ll switch in steel cut oats now and again to keep myself from getting tired of rolled, but rolled is still my go-to oat.

Happy Friday! I started to reach for the oats this morning, but then I realized that it’s finally warmish here. So instead I opted for a fruit plate, inspired by Kailey (aka Snackface):

Bwanana with peanut butter and organic strawberries (on sale for $3!)

Even though it was warm, I really wanted to try my new Chocomint Rooibos tea. I used the Teavana brewer T’s parents gave me:

Oh man is this stuff good! It smells exactly like an Andes mint and almost tastes like one. Excellent dessert tea! Or, you know, breakfast tea…

And for our final morning pick-me-up, Sarah at Sarah’s Sweet Lips is giving away some Amazing Grass bars. Check it (and her awesome blog) out!