What I’m Loving Wednesday 9.12.12

1. My Fall CSA with Gruber Farm started yesterday. I’m so excited to have a fresh box of produce every week again. I’ve really missed it these past few weeks! I’m also happy to see that I’ve encouraged a few friends to sign up with Gruber. I hope they’re just as pleased as I have been.

I will share all the goodies with you tomorrow, along with a recipe.

2. I should probably make this salad from Ali Baba, right? It’s delicious. Their misspelling of “raisins” makes me laugh.

3.  I bought this shirt from Forever 21 last weekend. It just seemed right with the whole Xtina/X thing. I’m a sucker for anything with an X or XO.

4. When I found the Candy Corn M&Ms at Target, I also spotted Candy Corn Oreos. I cannot commit to a box, but I do want to high-five anyone else who tries them. Let me know how they are.

5. Candy proposal? I don’t mind saying yes to that.

6. Is this Boding’s future child?

7. Love.

CSA Week 5: Orzo with Chicken and Green Beans

I’m now on my 5th week of my CSA with Gruber Farm. I’m really enjoying the variety of each box and how fresh the vegetables are. Every box is a new surprise. Sometimes I don’t even wait until I leave my pickup location to look at what’s inside.

Week 5 contents:

• collards
• broccoli
• purple potatoes
• zucchini
• yellow squash
• strawberries
• string beans
• kale (not pictured – I donated it to one of the nice gym employees)

This face shows how excited I was about the purple potatoes.

In my right hand are some fancy beets that are known as both “Candy Cane Beets” and “Bullseye Beets” for the striped pattern inside.

The inside of the purple potatoes are pretty too. They are a purplish color because they contain anthocyanin – the same antioxidant found in blueberries.

I’ve shared plenty of beet recipes with you: Beets with Yogurt & Walnuts, Citrus Walnut Beet Dip,  Beet Chips, Glazed Beets, and my very favorite Beet Risotto with Goat Cheese.

I’ve even made mashed purple potatoes with goat cheese!

Time for something new. Check out this recipe from my hero, Martha Stewart. Did I choose to share this recipe with you because it contains Orzo? Yes.

Orzo with Chicken, Corn, and Green Beans

Ingredients

• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1/2 pound orzo
• 8 ounces green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 package (10 ounces) frozen corn kernels, thawed
• 1 whole roasted chicken, (3 pounds), skin discarded, shredded (about 3 1/2 cups)

Directions

1. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook orzo until al dente, according to package instructions; add green beans during last 6 minutes of cooking. Drain; rinse under cold water until cooled.
2. Meanwhile, in a large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium. Add garlic; cook until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Add corn and 1 teaspoon salt; cook until warmed through, 2 to 3 minutes.
3. Toss pasta and green beans with corn mixture and chicken. Season generously with salt and pepper.

(via)

You can make this in about 20 minutes! And when you pick up that box of orzo, I hope you think of me. ;)

I pretty much just asked for a slew of tweets of orzo pictures, didn’t I?

Tonight is the first meeting of the book club I organized last month. I’m so excited to have everyone over to discuss Fifty Shades of Grey. I  can just imagine the conversations we’ll have…

What’s your favorite green vegetable?

Are you in a book club? What are you reading right now?

Weekend Update - I Love the Blogosphere!

Saturday morning I woke up at 7:30 (!?!) so I could go to a Body Step, Body Pump, and Body Attack launch at Erica's gym. She was teaching Step and Attack and since Pump was in between, I did all three! This was nearly 2 hours of exercise and I loved every minute of it. Here we are after it all. SWEATY! 

Saturday afternoon, I met up with Margaret, Mary, Boding, Julius, and Kelly to watch football at Red's. Let's not talk about the results of the games.

Kelly, me, Marg, Mary:

We also played with Robby's balancing bracelet. Look how skeptical Mary is.

That thing works. I was semi-confused, semi-shocked that something could fix me.

 Margaret was very impressed! 

 But not as impressed as you are of our muscles. 

And now I have an awesome stalker story. Last week when I posted about boot camp with Amanda and Mary, Mary's friend Lauren wrote on her Facebook wall:

"Nice sprinting form at Boot Camp! ha. I am more than a little obsessed with your friend Christina's blog - one of my friends showed it to me and now I've blown wads of cash at Whole Foods emulating her food choices."

Hilarious! Naturally, as a stalker myself, I immediately friend requested her. She told me that she and a group of her girlfriends from CSOL use my blog as a study break and have made a bunch of my recipes! I was so flattered. I then became friends with two of the other girls, Carolyn and Laura. Carolyn told me they were actually making my Orzo Stuffed Tomatoes recipe Sunday night and invited me to join!


We of course joked back and forth how semi-creepy this whole thing is, but we loved it! I have met a lot of great friends through the blogosphere so it wasn't that weird to me. I invited Margaret to come along, and with a bunch of cookie batter, we went to Carolyn's for dinner. 


Everyone was so nice and we had a blast! We drank lots of wine, chatted, and munched on  a spinach dip that Lauren made with Greek yogurt:

Carolyn did a wonderful job with the stuffed tomatoes! They were huge and so delicious.

We also had salad and green beans with potatoes.

My plate full of yummy food - look at all the colors!

Callie, Tiffany, Carolyn, Lauren, me, Margaret, and Jenna:

Thanks so much for having us Carolyn! Can't wait to have another dinner party soon :)

Stuffing Tomatoes with Rice and Bellies with Wine

I'm a nerd. I love gadgets. I love my Blackberry like it's my child, but I love kitchen gadgets even more. Last week, Serious Eats featured a fun wine gadget: the Vinturi Essential Wine Aerator. As soon as I read that it would make my "$7 wines taste like real winners too" I knew I had to have it. One stop at Bed, Bath, & Beyond and $40 later, I had my new toy.

Margaret and I had planned a wine & dinner night tonight - my first opportunity to try out the new gadget. I had jokingly purchased a $7 wine to see how fabulous the wine aerator could make it. Margaret also brought over a cheapo wine. There's absolutely nothing wrong with getting your wine on for a few dollars, but with my new gadget, we were about to wine and dine. 

The gadget is really easy to use - you just pop in the filter, hold over your wine glass, and pour in slowly. In order to test the effectiveness of the aerator, Vinturi suggests that you sample wine that has been aerated and compare it with the same wine straight from the bottle. My little Bio major and I thought it would be fun to test this product to see what it would do with our $7 wines.

Here I am with craptastic wines and a fantastic gadget:

Close up of the gadget:

First, pour a little sip of the wine straight from the bottle:

Then pour a sip through the aerator. Be careful not to spill. 

Sample the sip that was poured straight from the bottle.

VOMIT a little as it burns your esophagus.

Then sample the sip that has been passed through the aerator. 

Smile at your delicious $40 wine.

Mmm, good. We noticed that the wine was much smoother and tasted less aciditic. After quite a few samples, we decided to start cooking. Wine + cooking = FUN.

Fun and a whole lot of forgetfulness. I forgot to photograph most of the cooking. I had bought all the ingredients needed for the Christina Orzo recipe because I thought it was so good. We decided to revamp the recipe and make Orzo Stuffed Tomatoes.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound shrimp
• 2 large heirloom tomatoes
• 1/2 cup orzo
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 medium vidalia onion
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 2 tsp fresh oregano
• 2 oz goat cheese
• salt & pepper

Directions:

• Cook rice according to directions. Set aside.
• Preheat oven to 375*.  Cut tops of tomatoes and set aside. Scoop out tomato pulp and set aside with tops. Dice tops & pulp.
• In a medium pan, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add onion; saute for 3 minutes. Add garlic and crushed red pepper; saute for 1 minute. Add reserved tomatoes, wine, and shrimp. Cook until wine evaporates and shrimp is fully cooked.
• Combine rice, tomato mixture, and goat cheese. Place tomatoes in a baking dish and add rice mixture among the shells. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until tomatoes are tender. Serve immediately.

Creamy tomato and rice mixture:

Action shot! Hair blowing into the...steam. So hot right now. No, really. I told you it was 375*.

Duh, I love posing with my food. Duh, I drank too much wine and had a sassy little head tilt going on. Fug. Stop judging, please.

Glamour shots of the stuffed tomatoes:

Glamour shots of the wine lovers:

So...we might have had too much $7 wine because we were acting like it was $1,000,000 wine. Now we're making banana bread. Gotta go! XO.

Birthdays, Crave, and a "Christina Orzo" Recipe

Saturday evening was my bestie Nancy's 26th birthday party. We celebrated the fact the she is old, but not as old as me. I have 1 1/2 months on her. This was cool in high school, but now, not so much.

 

As part of her birthday present, I gave her pretzel m&ms. I think she was pretty happy about that.

Approximately six hours later I was up for some more birthday fun with my favorite Italian stallions. Santo & Frankie had a birthday brunch at Crave Kitchen & Cocktails. Crave's brunch menu offers 10 different entrees that all include corn bread muffins, fresh fruit, and your choice of juice, coffee, tea, or soda for $11. I chose the Create Your Own Omelet option with shrimp, spinach, and mozzarella. It came with fruit and a side of hand-cut home fries.

The omelet was enormous! They must have used 10 eggs. Here's a picture of the inside, nice and stuffed!

 

And here's a picture of me stuffed between the two birthday boys. Kindly ignore the fact that I am a midget.

That evening, I decided to try a new recipe. I have to admit that I have 46 starred recipes in my Google reader. (God bless that thing.) It was time to knock down the number to 45 and make something that I apparently thought sounded tasty on November 16th, 2009.

This was the Serious Eats recipe for Baked Shrimp and Feta Pasta. I made a few changes that I thought my taste buds would find more appealing and renamed it Christina Orzo Shrimp & Feta Bake. Haha, is that legal? Can I name a recipe after myself? Maybe I need to be arrested, because I just did. Technically I'm not naming it after myself because my last name is actually Orso. In Italian, Orso = bear and Orzo = barley. Moving on.

Christina Orzo Shrimp & Feta Bake

Ingredients:

• 1 cup orzo
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 white onion, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 cups tomatoes, chopped
• 3-4 tsp fresh oregano, chopped
• 2-3 tbsp fresh chives, chopped
• 3/4 pound shrimp, peeled
• 4 oz feta, crumbled
• Salt and pepper
• Juice of 1/2 lemon

 Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425°F. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Cook the orzo according to the directions on the box. Drain and set aside.
• Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add onion and cook for about 5 minutes. Add garlic and red pepper flakes and cook for 30 seconds.
• Pour in wine, tomato, and oregano. Stir and bring mixture to a simmer. Cook for five minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
• In a large baking dish, combine the cooked orzo, sauce, shrimp, and chives. Sprinkle on the crumbled feta cheese. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until the shrimp have cooked. Squeeze lemon juice on top. Makes 4 servings.

 The onions, garlic, and red pepper flakes:

 Wine, tomatoes, oregano:

 All mixed up in the baking dish:

Crumbled feta on top: 

All done! Doesn't this remind you of the lasagna pic? And yes, my makeup had worn off. Yikes.

A bowl of delicious Orzo:

It's a shame that I waited 9 months to make this recipe, because it was so good. I was really happy with the results. There was so much flavor from the heirloom tomatoes, fresh herbs, feta, and lemon juice. I definitely recommend using fresh herbs whenever possible. It makes your dish full of flavor and color. If I make this again, I'll add spinach. Now I'm left with a bunch of oregano and chives. Any recipes you'd like to share?