Guest Post - Blackened Catfish with Corn Succotash

Hi crop share members - Erin here - you may have met me up at the register or seen me on the floor obsessively adjusting recipe cards. I've commandeered this blog for a post because my family has been part of the crop share program for a long time and I wanted to share one of our favorite recipes with everyone.

The corn we've been getting in the store has been amazing recently, and we recieved beautiful green peppers and onions in our crates last week, so I knew I had to make this catfish with succotash. I discovered this recipe in New Orleans, where my sister lives. Other than Mardi Gras, the best thing to experience in Louisiana is the amazing soul food. Usually soul food does not equal healthy food, but there are enough veggies in this succotash to excuse the bacon.

You know a recipe is good when it starts with bacon. 

Best thing about the recipe? It’s easy! All you have to do is dice up your vegetables, fry them with the bacon, and cook the catfish. Dizzy Pig's Bayou-ish seasoning also gives you that great Cajun flavor, and makes it easy to blacken fish without burning it. To keep your corn as fresh as possible, refrigerate it in the husk and shuck it just before cooking. You can also be flexible with these ingredients. Use white, yellow, or bicolor corn and try substituting tilapia or any firm white fish for the catfish.

Make sure you've got a big enough cutting board for all those veggies.

Now that the weather is getting warmer, try cooking your catfish on the grill. Yeah, it's not summer (or even Spring) yet, but I can dream right? Season the fish and place it on a well-oiled grill at 100° for 3-4 minutes on each side. Also during the summer, throw in shelled butter beans with the veggies. A lot of southerners say it's not real succotash if it doesn't have lima beans. So put on some Louis Armstrong, break out the Tabasco, and sit down to this simple New Orleans-style family supper!

Most of the snow is gone, that means it's time to grill right?

Catfish with Corn Succotash

Ingredients:

• 2 strips of bacon, chopped
• 1 1/2 pounds of catfish
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 2 bell peppers, seeds/stem removed and diced
• 1 small sweet onion, diced
• 2 stalks celery, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons of thyme
• 4 ears of corn
• 2 tablespoons Dizzy Pig Bayou-ish or your favorite Cajun blackening spice

Directions:

1. Heat large skillet over medium-high heat. Add bacon to the pan; cook 3 minutes or until crisp, stirring frequently. Remove bacon from the pan to a paper towel.

2. Add onion, bell pepper, celery, and thyme to the pan. Cook for 5 minutes or until vegetables are crisp-tender. Add minced garlic, cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly. 

3. With a sharp parring knife, strip the kernels off of the ears of corn into the pan. Stir to mix all the vegetables together. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook 8 minutes - stirring occasionally. Add the bacon back into the corn mixture.

4. Pat the catfish dry with paper towels. Rub spice mixture evenly over fish. Heat another large skillet over medium-high heat, add olive oil to the pan. Cook the catfish for 4 to 5 minutes on each side or until fish flakes easily with a fork. Serve over the corn mixture.

Servings: 4

Cook Time:  30 minutes

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming!

Crudités, Anyone?

Another item that can move grease off of the game day buffet is utterly simple:  crudités, or, simply, cut up veggies with dip.  Pick up some carrots and anything else that looks appetizing at the store this week, and either put out your favorite salad dressing with it, set out some hummus, or use this utterly simple dip.  My mom has been making it since the beginning of time, I believe.

Thanks, mom, for the recipe.

Photo via Saveur

Vegetable Dip With Dill

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup mayonnaise (light mayo works just fine)
• 1/2 cup sour cream (again, fat free is just fine)
• 1 tablespoon dried onion or 
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon dried dill weed (double for fresh)

Directions:

Stir it all together.  finis.  It's better, though, if it can sit in the fridge for a day or two prior to serving to allow flavors to integrate.

Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup via Two Peas & Their Pod

If you've even remotely peeked outside you know this is some serious soup weather we have going on!  And since it looks like possibly a bit more snow tomorrow night at Saturday, we're all going to want to whip up something comforting with our Crop Shares.  So prepare to use up your celery and lemon this week, and check out this bright and delicious looking Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup from Two Peas & Their Pod.

Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup via Two Peas & Their Pod

Green Warrior Smoothie

You knew it had to happen.  All of those greens in this week's Crop Share, it was inevitable.  Yes, that's right, ANOTHER green smoothie!  I can't be stopped, I won't be stopped!

So, this morning I rose early to get back into the practice of yoga to start the day, and as I was holding Warrior III, instead of concentrating on my breathing or finding a focal point on my mat...I was thinking about what to put into my blender.  I'm very zen like that.  Thus the name for this smoothie, the Green Warrior, as it was devised whilst in Warrior III.

With the inclusion of celery in this smoothie it has much more of a "green" taste and there's more "substance."  So if you're not a fan of much pulp in your smoothie, just leave the celery out.  And if you're wanting to have less of a "green" flavor, then add more tangelo juice or even throw in a banana or a handful of strawberries.  Or again, just omit the celery.  I threw it in for giggles and I wanted it to actually taste more like veggies rather than a dessert.  Because I'm very into health like that.  Please ignore that wrapper from a completely eaten bar of chocolate.  Our invisible, imaginary bulldog, clearly got into the pantry again.  Darn pooch.

Green Warrior Smoothie

Ingredients:
12 ice cubes, divided
3 gala apples, cored and cubed (no need to peel)
Juice of 2 tangelos
1 rib of celery, ends trimmed and chopped
8 kale leaves, removed from stalks
Juice of 1 lime
1 1/2 cups unsweetened vanilla almond milk (I use Almond Breeze)

Into your blender, add 6 ice cubes, apples and tangelo juice, and blend until the apples are fully incorporated.  Toss in your celery and again blend until all chunks are gone.  Add kale leaves and lime juice and blend down until only flecks of green remain.  Then finish with almond milk and remaining 6 ice cubes.  Blend until ice is fully crushed.  Serve immediately.

Makes just shy of 3 pints (I serve mine in mason jars).  I drank one and bottled up the other two, so I'll let you know if after a day in the fridge, they're still good tomorrow.

Juice It Up!

So this Monday I had the pleasure of partnering with Pat Backe of Senior Fall Prevention and Kingstowne Pilates to host a Juicing With Greens workshop at the Kingstowne Center for Active Adults.  It was a fantastic class with lots of hilarity (a juiced apple spurting across the room) and extreme randomness (ginger root pilfering), but the juices that Pat whipped up for all of us were fantastic.  So since much of the ingredients focused on seasonal items that we're all getting right now, I thought I'd share the two recipes from Monday with you.  If you don't have a juicer, you can still use a blender to make these items, though I'd recommend peeling the items first, and just know that they won't be as smooth and pulp free as if you were using a juicer.  But no matter what equipment you have, just be sure to wash all of your fruits and vegetables well beforehand.

ABC (Apple-Beet-Carrot) Juice

Serves 1

Ingredients:
1 apple (we used Suncrisp)
2 beets
3 large carrots
1" knob of ginger, peeled
Handful of kale, spinach or even toss in the beet greens

Kale-Aid Juice

Serves 1-2

Ingredients:
5 large kale leaves
1-2 cucumbers
1 lemon, peeled
1 apple (we used Suncrisp)
1" knob of ginger, peeled (for more kick add 2 or 3 pieces of ginger)
1-2 large celery ribs

For both recipes, wash your ingredients well, then cup them up as needed to fit through the chute of your juicer or to make blending easier.  Juice the ingredients in the order they're listed and serve immediately with or without ice.

Moroccan Harira

Thanks to having a food-allergy friendly menu, Busboys & Poets is a favorite DC area haunt of the Mister and I.  Which as an aside, if you have to avoid gluten, you need to run not walk to the closest Busboys and get their GF hazelnut chocolate cake, it's like Nutella in cake form.  Just sayin'.  Any way, back to the topic at hand.  Busboys serves an amazing vegan version of a traditional Moroccan stew called harira.  It's essentially a spiced chickpea and lentil stew, and unlike many stews, this one is actually quite healthy.  So after the Mister went bonkers for the harira at Busboys, I made it my personal mission to recreate it.  This is another all-purpose Crop Share veggie recipe, but it will make a great vehicle for the bundle of parsley you'll all be receiving.  And while this stew has it's fair share of heat to it, you can easily cut back on the cayenne and then serving each bowl with a dollop of sour cream or plain Greek yogurt will help cut any additional heat.  They say you need to fight fire with fire, so perhaps this is just what this weekend's hot forecast calls for.

Moroccan Harira

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp olive oil

1 onion, diced

3 celery stalks, diced

4 carrots, diced

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp cinnamon

2 Tbsp ground ginger

2 Tbsp turmeric

2 Tbsp cumin

1/4 tsp cayenne

3 Tbsp tomato paste

2 cups stewed tomatoes (not Italian style), drained

5 cups vegetable or chicken stock

1 bay leaf

2 Tbsp Kosher salt

Ground black pepper

2 cups chickpeas, drained

1 cup brown lentils

1/2 lemon, juiced

Bundle of parsley, chopped

Sour cream (dairy-free or regular) or plain Greek yogurt to garnish

In a large stock pot or dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium high heat.  Add onion, carrot, celery and garlic and saute until tender, about 4-5 minutes.  Reduce heat slightly and add all of your spices, being careful not to allow any of them to burn on the bottom of the pot.  Add tomato paste and stir until well blended.  Add stewed tomatoes and stock, taking care to get any bits off the bottom that have started to stick.  Stir until blended and creamy.  Add bay leaf, salt and pepper.

Stir in chickpeas, cover pot, reduce heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes.  Stir in lentils, cover and simmer for an additional 30 minutes.  Check part way through lentil cook time, and add more stock if needed.

Add lemon juice and chopped parsley, and adjust seasoning to taste.

Serve each bowl with a dollop of sour cream or plain Greek yogurt, and garnish with an additional pinch of fresh, chopped parsley.

Adapted from v:gourmet (http://vgourmet.ca/tag/vegan-harira/)

Grammy Freer's Chicken In A Wine Sauce

Some of my most beloved childhood memories are of cooking and baking with my Grammy Freer (yes, I am 31, and yes I will call her Grammy no matter how old I get).  Much of what I know about kitchen fundamentals comes from spending good chunks of my formative years, standing on a step stool, at her side while she baked pies and cookies or made homemade french fries.  There was even a somewhat "explosive" incident involving our first attempt at cream puffs.  So it's no surprise that I've been waiting in hopes of just the right mix of items in the Crop Share so that I can feature one of my Grammy's recipes, her Chicken In A Wine Sauce.  If you're anything like me, she had you at "wine sauce."  So enjoy putting this week's carrots and fresh parsley to good use in this recipe from one awesome lady!  Oh and...Hi Grammy!  ;)

Grammy Freer's Chicken In A Wine Sauce

Ingredients:
4 bone in chicken breasts, skinned
4 bone in chicken thighs, skinned
4 bone in chicken legs, skinned
1/2 tsp Kosher salt, divided
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp canola or olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup thinly diced carrots
1/2 cup thinly diced celery
1 Tbsp minced garlic
2 cups dry white wine
1 cup chicken stock
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour (sub in gluten-free flour or cornstarch for gluten-free version)
3 Tbsp fresh tarragon, chopped
3 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 bay leaf
1 Tbsp butter

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Heat oil in a Dutch oven or other heavy-bottom, oven-safe pan over medium high heat.  Season chicken with salt & pepper, and begin to add about half of the chicken to the pan to begin to brown, for about 4 - 5 minutes.  Remove from pan and repeat with remaining chicken till all are browned.  Set aside chicken

Add onion, carrot, celery and garlic to the pan and cook for 6 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add wine and cook for 2 minutes, stirring to remove any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.  Return chicken to pan.  Combine flour and stock in a bowl, whisking until smooth.  Add to the pan and stir to incorporate.  Stir in tarragon, parsley, mustard and bay leaf.  Bring to a boil, then cover and place in oven to bake at 325 for 1 hour or until chicken is very tender.  Remove chicken and bay leaf and stir butter into sauce.

If sauce is too thin when you remove the chicken, bring back to a boil on the stove top for about 5 additional minutes until the sauce reduces and thickens to more of a gravy consistency.  Serve pieces of chicken topped with the pan sauce.

The BEST EVER Corned Beef & Cabbage Recipe

So this weekend is St. Patty's Day. That means green beer, leprechauns, gold coins, and, of course, corned beef and cabbage. It is debatable whether people really even like corned beef and cabbage all that much. I do. *gasp* I even make it other times of the year. REALLY.

I also love Alton Brown. He appeals my nerdy side and tells me why, like scientifically why, I should cook something the way he recommends. If anyone has thought about brining a turkey, do it his way. So moist and juicy!

Now, I have never made my own corned beef, and to be perfectly honest I can't see myself doing it anytime soon. I just skip that part of the recipe. If you are a crop share member, make sure you pick up some carrots and onions to finish off the recipe. Enjoy!!

Ingredients

• 2 to 2 1/2 pound Corned-Beef Brisket, recipe here to make your own
• 1 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 pound diced carrots, approximately 4 small
• 1/2 pound diced onions, approximately 2 small
• 1 pound potatoes
• 1/4 pound diced celery, approximately 2 stalks
• 1 small head cabbage, chopped, approximately 2 pounds

To view the rest of the recipe, please visit: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/corned-beef-and-cabbage-recipe/index.html

To finish off the meal make Alton's Creamed Corn Bread.

Wine Marinated Pot Roast

This week, you'll have just about everything you need to make this wonderful pot roast. There's something about egg noodles that makes a hearty dinner just right.

Ingredients:
3 to 3 1/2 pound boneless beef chuck
1 (750mL) bottle red wine (I used Zinfandel)
salt and pepper
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 (10.5 ounce) can beef consomme
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 Tablespoons herbes de Provence
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 cloves chopped garlic
2 bay leaves
1 onion, sliced
4 carrots
4 parsnips
2 cups cremini mushrooms
2 stalks celery
1/4 cup flat leaf parsley
To view the rest of this recipe, please visit: http://bakedbree.com/wine-marinated-pot-roast

Thanksgiving Survival Kit

Thanksgiving is only a week away! Can you believe it? I can't wait to to slip into a food-induced coma after all the festivities. We know that you have a lot of running around to do before the holidays. You have relatives to pick up, a mile-long shopping list and dietary restrictions to consider when making dinner. Well, we want to make things just a little bit easier for you. Our Thanksgiving Survival Kit puts everything together for you. We gather quality produce for you along with other great items like butter and dinner rolls and just have you pick up a couple days before Thanksgiving. All you have to do is find the turkey or ham. You can simply print out the form here and bring it in. The deadline is Thursday, November 15th.

Any questions? send us an e-mail at info@nallsproduce.com or call us at 703-971-4068. You can always stop by, we are located on 7310 Beulah St Alexandria, VA 22315 and our hours are 9:00 to 6:00 Monday - Sunday.