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Arganica Week 5

We decided to add a second "trial month" to our Arganica membership. We repeated some favorites from earlier weeks and tried new things too. This week we received:

Plain Yogurt (with "yogurt cream" on top ... delicious)
Cucumber
Red Onion
Fresh Parsley
Avocado
Hydroponic Lettuce
Croissant
Lemon Poppy Scone
Granola
Polyface Farms Delmonico Ribeye Steak

... and a local food magazine.

Arganica Week 5

Italian Week (Jan 24)

Our Arganica order for this week brought us some pizza dough and fresh roasted garlic linguini and some organic cremini mushrooms.

Our menu for the week revolved around using those ingredients - naturally a pizza (Jon usually prefers to make his own dough, but that's time consuming and very messy), a shrimp scampi with the linguini, sauteed mushrooms, and creative leftover-ing.

Arganica Week 3

This week we received our third Arganica delivery (apologies for forgetting to take a picture and post about our second delivery, which included locally milled flour).

This week's delivery includes:

Farm Eggs
Pizza Dough
Roasted Garlic Linguini
Cremini Mushrooms
York Apples
Hydroponic Lettuce
Avocado
Parsley

When this 1-month trial is done (next week), expect a longer post on our overall experience.

Arganica Week 3

On Beer

Our First Arganica Delivery

Today we received our first delivery from Arganica, a DC-based local farm foods delivery business. Basically its a cross between a farmer's market and a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farmshare. They carry a broad list of produce, breads, cheeses, and prepared foods from a variety of local farms. They send you a list of products and prices on Monday, you choose exactly what you want to order, and they deliver it to your door on Thursday evening.

Arganica Week 1

Winter Drink Edition

My fall/winter pumpkin porter turned out well, and at our Xmas Eve party last night we also served Jamaican Sorrel (a hibiscus, ginger, and lemon rum punch), mulled wine, hot cider, and egg nog. The local blogs have been featuring other, more innovative winter/holiday libations available at our local bars:

http://www.thehillishome.com/2009/12/winter-libations/

http://dcist.com/2009/12/the_weekly_feed_mulling_it_over_edi.php

DC To Arlington: You can come back, but it won't make us happy.

It turns out the Virginia's retrocession of their original land grant to the District (now Alexandria and Arlington) may not have been constitutional. Via the DCist:

DC Blog post round-up

The KC Pit BBQ truck makes the proudest, biggest-belt-bulked, thereifixedit-stylin' Texan BBQ master weak in the knees, by the Washington City Paper's rundown on it's specs, including walk-ins (freezer and fridge, dry storage, plasma TVs and a "separate, customized wood-smoke pit hidden behind the massive 18-wheeler."

What Shall We Do with a Green Tomater?

So it's snowing here in DC. Though it seems to do this every year, it remains a surprise to DC residents ... every year, causing panic on the level I associate with Texans who deal with this whole freezing precipitation problem less reliably.

My tomato plants didn't really get the memo about summer being over, so remain(ed) laden with tons of green tomatoes (and blossoms...). I tore them up this morning as the snow was getting started and now have a rather large pile of green 'maters to deal with. I'm already ripening some in newspaper wrappings in a closed off bag.

The Secret to Good Salads

After a long and careful study of what makes a good salad, I have decided upon three key components, in addition to your standard greens and veggies:

1. Something sweet (like dried cranberries, raisins, pomegranate seeds, chopped apples, etc.)
2. Something crunchy (like croutons, crushed pita chips, tortilla chips, nuts, etc.)
3. Cheese (depending on the salad, goat cheese, feta, and parmesan are all good choices)

Of course you must use these things in moderation to avoid overdoing it and adding too much fat/calories/etc to a dish that, essentially, is supposed to be a healthy addition to your meal.

More on salad dressing after the jump.

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