honey spice beer cake

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Originally uploaded by stephykay

I love spice cake, and I love beer... so I couldn't pass this recipe from The Washington Post up! They adapted it from the book Booze Cakes. I used the beer they recommend, Leinenkugel's Honey Weiss beer, which someone had recommended to me as a nice summer beer. Of course after the cake is baked you can't taste the beer, but it made the cake nice and moist. Although most people prefer spice cakes during the winter, I think this one was "light" enough to be used year round.

For the frosting I used Formaggio Kitchen's Hefeweizen, which is made for them by Cisco Brewers (pictured behind the cake). I screwed up the frosting - my butter was too soft. It's more like a glaze. The flavor is just kind of meh to me, so I think next time I would stick with a traditional white frosting. The walnuts were nice - I might try to bake these in the cake next time (yes, there will be a next time!)

I went ahead and ordered the book, so I'm sure you'll be seeing more spiked baked goods from me!

Moroccan carrot soup

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Originally uploaded by stephykay

This soup is much more to my liking than the corn soup, not only in terms of consistency and texture, but spice. It's the Moroccan Carrot Soup recipe from Bon Appetit, April 2010. I used carrots and onions from my CSA delivery. I've made ginger carrot soups before, but this recipe caught my eye because I love cumin. I simply used ground cumin instead of toasting my own cumin seeds - I am sure that the toasted cumin seeds would add another dimension to the soup, but for a quick and easy after-work dinner, ground cumin works just fine. The soup is low fat but it tastes very rich - once again the immersion blender works its magic!

It would be easy to make this vegan - simply replace the chicken broth with a vegetable based broth, and skip the yogurt on top, which isn't essential to the dish.

corn soup

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Originally uploaded by stephykay

Food52 is a crowd-sourced cookbook of sorts. They announce themes and invite people to submit recipes. Although I have perused their website many times, I had yet to try any of their recipes. Corn season is upon us, and I am always looking for new uses for my CSA produce, so I decided to give cold corn soup with basil chili oil a go.

Although this is one of those recipes where I whipped out my immersion blender (love it!) the soup never reached the creamy consistency that I was hoping for. Next time I would probably add a potato or two to help it along. The basil oil was delicious and really made the dish, since the soup on its own was not memorable. It's hard to place blame on the recipe, though, as the corn may not have been at its peak.

beet and carrot latkes

I received a small bunch of beets in my CSA on June 10th. I hadn't paid attention to the farm's website update, so I didn't realize what type of beets they were until I sliced them open. I was pleasantly surprised!

Shredded, they look like confetti:

These lovely candy striped beets were so deliciously sweet - after shredding them it occurred to me that they would have been great in a slaw of some sort. But I had already come across this recipe for beet and carrot latkes, so I stuck with the recipe.

With the carrots:

And the final product!

This recipe is definitely a keeper for me. I will have to give it a try with different types of beets.

Asian kohlrabi slaw

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Originally uploaded by stephykay

I received several kohlrabi in my CSA, as well as a big bunch of cilantro. It just so happened that The Washington Post featured a recipe for Asian kohlrabi slaw that very same week. I simply used cilantro instead of parsley. And of course I used sriracha, which was listed as optional in the recipe. The heat provided a nice contrast to the crunchy cool kohlrabi.

You can read more about kohlrabi in the accompanying article.

banana coconut macadamia nut muffins

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Originally uploaded by stephykay

When I have overly ripe bananas I usually make banana bread... but I decided to try this banana coconut muffin recipe from epicurious. I added 1/4 c crushed macadamia nuts and I subbed rum for the vanilla. They were quite tasty and I will make them again, but they are no replacement for an actual tropical vacation.

CSA

Last night was my first CSA pickup of the season. I already knew that this summer's CSA would be very different from last year. Not only was I doing my own pickup, but Steve has been extremely diligent about keeping everyone up to date on the Parker Farm's website and on the Parker Farm Facebook page. It definitely has more of a community feel to it than the CSA that I participated in last year. On pickup days, he sends a reminder e-mail and lets us know what we can expect that week.

So I already had a lot of positive feelings about Steve and Parker Farm, and I am happy to say that he did not disappoint. Not only did the CSA get an early start this year (many do not start until later in June), but the first share was quite a windfall:

• 1 head Bibb lettuce
• 1 head red leaf lettuce
• 1 bunch chicory
• 1 head pak choi
• 1 bunch mizuna
• 1 bunch spinach
• 1 bunch pea tendrils
• 1 bunch red Russian kale

And that was a small share - the large share had two of everything. And the greens looked great! Vibrant colors and not a single wilted leaf. I can't wait to try the mizuna - even though I see it at all of the farmer's markets, I have yet to sample some.