My family and I have been fighting a bad cold for the last month. Dominic got it first, and we have just passed it around the house, over the last few weeks. We are on week 7 of our Oakhill Organics Full Diet CSA adventure, and still loving it. The other day I made these gluten free apple oat corn muffins with the oat flour and cornmeal Dominic brought home from our Thursday pick up. My girls went crazy for these muffins. They are very flavorful and satisfying, with a hint of spice. They crumble easily though, and after my girls devoured two each, I had to get the broom out.

Well clearly I have to catch you all up on our amazing CSA offerings over the last month, so here goes. Keep in mind, Oakhill Organics varies their full diet every week,  so that we do not get exactly the same ingredients every week, keeping our diet relatively exciting and fresh in this Winter season. Brussels sprouts, mustard greens, lamb, beef, pork, chickens and turkeys, eggs, milk, apples, flax seeds, millet, Jacobs Cattle dry beans, black garbanzo beans, Tiger’s Eye dry beans, cornmeal, corn flour, oat flour, butternut squash, potatoes, salad greens, celery root, walnuts, carrots, kohlrabi, shallots, yellow onions, chicories, shelled corn, leeks, swiss chard, mixed cooking greens, cabbage, carrots, Marina di Chioggia winter squash, Butternut squash, and sunchokes.

Some of my favorite dishes from the last month are, baked apples with cinnamon, homemade brown sugar and walnuts,  fresh cheese frittata, fresh yogurt smoothies, homemade oat and corn breads with fresh made butter. We have roasted some amazingly unbelievable quantities of  Brussels sprouts, and even still, I was so sad when Dominic did not come home with any from last Thursday’s full diet CSA pickup. We have been baking different sourdough breads lately, with the starter I made from rye flour two years ago. Some comforting dinners included, cabbage and onions sweated in butter and olive oil, spaetzel, and a variety of slow cooked csa meats(lamb, pork, beef).  As for snacking, I have been making this cabbage, carrot, and celery root slaw which I keep in the refrigerator. When I want to snack on it, I dish some out and add rice wine vinegar and Thompson raisins, stir it up and let it sit for a few minutes. Other snacks include,  raw nut, dried fruit truffles, tons of muffins, a banana bread, and trays full of banana cookies…

Over the weekend, Dominic made beef brosole with herbed stuffing. He ended up with some leftover stuffing, so he formed into dumplings, and he simmered themfor a while  in a rich chunky tomato sauce.  our Oakhill Organics beef did not have a lot of fat in it, so it needed to be cooked longer in the same sauce to tenderize, and it was delicious. Sadly, I have not taken nearly enough pictures of our past month of cooking and eating. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, Dominic has a Oakhill Organics ham curing in our basement. It should be ready in six to seven months, and we can’t wait to share it.

I think my favorite thing I made over the past few weeks was a beer braised lamb with caramelized onions and carrots. it was so simple and I let it cook so long almost all the liquid was cooked out of it. The lamb was so tender and falling apart, and the carrots took on a beautiful glossy caramelized, smokey, sweet flavor, they were just succulent, but there was definitely not enough of them. The whole dish was so incredibly comforting, and truly tasted of the time, love, and fresh ingredients used to create it.

This past weekend I was feeling much better and even got out of the house with some friends. We walked down to to our Saturday Market, and made terrariums. That same afternoon, I was able to do some gardening, and pruned our raspberry canes, one of our espaliered Gravenstein apple trees, and opened up our currant bushes. It feels so good, and lifts my spirits to be outside working in my garden, and dreaming about all the fruit pies and puddings and cobblers, not to mention eating raspberries, red and black currants, and fresh apples right off our trees and bushes, with Dominic and our girls in the months to come.

These little beauties are the apples Dominic picked up our full diet last Thursday. The girls and I are still a bit under the weather, so after work, he went alone. These delicious apples were eaten quite quickly, and did not make it to the weekend. I am happy I got some good pictures of them, before and after polishing, just so you can see how stunning they are both ways.

At first glance we thought they were too small and that we would just grate them and bake with or cook with them. They were somewhere in the middle of crispy apples, and soft apples. They were sweet, with a touch of tartness to them, that made them really yummy. Our girls ate some of them with peanut butter, and I baked the rest with a sprinkle of cinnamon and some homemade brown sugar, topped with the last of our walnuts.

After the Oakhill Organics apples were consumed, I had to go purchase more apples at the store. I knew I would probably be baking with them, and also wanted them for snacking on, so I chose some nice looking Granny Smiths.

This recipe is adapted from In Erika’s Kitchen, Apple Cornbread Recipe. Enjoy these gluten free muffins, with some soft fresh butter and a drizzle of local honey.

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