Daria Can Cook – and so can you!

In honor of Trent’s cultural heritage, we made latkes tonight to mark the first night of Chanukah. Neither of us is religiously inclined, but we both believe in celebrating oil, light, and organic potatoes.

We cobbled together a few different recipes to come up with ours. We grated 5 or 6 organic potatoes from our CSA, along with one small CSA onion, then wrung as much water as possible out of the grated potatoes. We then added 2 eggs and 2 tablespoons of flour…

…and dropped heaping spoonfuls of the mixture into a quarter inch or so of hot oil. After they browned thoroughly on one side we flipped them for maximal fry-age.

Imagine the most amazing hash browns you’ve ever tasted, then imagine them getting 10 times better. That was how these latkes tasted. Success!

For our protein, we stuck with the frying theme and made salmon patties. I mixed together a can of wild Alaskan salmon, a pinch of dill, a squirt of Sriracha, 3ish tablespoons of flour, and 1/4 cup or so of mayonnaise. I formed this mixture into 2 patties, which we then fried. Trent cooked them to perfection – crispy on the outside, creamy and smooth on the inside. To balance out the heaviness of our meal, we added some steamed CSA broccoli.

Although fried foods obviously aren’t a great idea every day, I felt pretty good about this meal. I just read about “The 7 Foods Experts Won’t Eat,” which include farmed salmon and non-organic potatoes. Make sure you’re buying wild Alaskan salmon and not “fresh” Alaskan salmon – “fresh” is apparently a euphemism for “farmed.” Boo! And remember that potatoes are one of the so-called dirty dozen. They get sprayed with fungicides and herbicides while they grow, and then with more chemicals after they’re harvested to stop them from sprouting. So if you’ve got the choice, spring for the organic potatoes.

Which winter holidays do you celebrate? I grew up celebrating Christmas, but I enjoy being introduced to traditions from other belief systems…especially when they involve delicious food.

…our weekly CSA haul! It’s yet another bountiful late summer week:

The haul, before we split it with our partners

Chinese broccoli

Kohlrabi - our CSA partners got this

We got the cukes, garlic, and cherry toms

After we split our share it was dinner time. We started with a little raw appetizer:

The orange ones were so sweet and tomato-y! I’m always excited when I can taste actual “tomato-ness” and not just mushy water when I eat a tomato.

We hadn’t thawed any meat or planned any other protein source, so we winged it with an impromptu menu of canned salmon sandwiches garnished with fresh CSA cukes and lettuce and a Chinese broccoli and eggplant stir-fry. We got to chopping:

I can't believe we have fresh garlic!!

and ended up with this:

This meal was a rousing success. I love canned salmon but Trent does not, so I usually just have it for lunch occasionally. With the addition of the cukes and lettuce, though, he was into it.

I tried to photograph the salad I made this morning for my lunch later today, but every time I pushed the “take picture” button my camera shut itself off! Ack! Has this ever happened to anyone? I’m really hoping if I leave it alone it will fix itself. Blogging would be rather difficult without a camera.