Bounty for sure!

I've not blogged in a while, but I've been cooking and preparing nonstop. AND I realized that I LOVE beet greens! I think I've always cut them off because they were never so fresh. Always wilted and browning. I made them twice and in between went to Table Local Market in Bedford Hills to get more. I couldn't get enough of them!

Beets and their greens

I boiled the beets and the greens separately then chilled them, then added a vinaigrette dressing. I would usually roast beets, but it's too hot to turn on the oven.

Beets and their greens again, bought at Table Local Market

And again!

So many carrots! I made a quinoa, chickpea, carrot salad with a lemon vinagrette. With the leftovers, I added an egg and made patties that I sauteed in olive oil.

quinoa, chickpea and carrot salad

Oh, and I made garlic scape pickles!

Yummy!

And then, because the watercress was a bit spicy, I decided to tame it. I boiled it, and the stems, along with sauteeing the leeks, an onion and some garlic. Also boiled the new potatoes. Mixed it all together with an immersion blender and had watercress potato soup

watercress, potato soup

Great hot and cold!

We also had many salads from the awesome lettuce and I made a great vegetable stock from the remnants of many of the vegetables

turkey vegetable srock

The plums this last week were awesome, we just ate them as is. Can't wait until Wednesday for the next pick-up!

Spigorello & Sorrel. Those were the wrenches thrown into the CSA last week

Spigorello is a leafy green that looks like lacinato kale, but  tastes more like broccoli, sort of. I shredded it, blanched in water, then sauteed with one of the spring onions in olive oil. Drizzled a bit of honey into it, to tame the bitterness. My 7 year old and I loved it. My daughter wouldn't try it. For my husband, it was not love at first bite, and he never got to a second bite. He actually spit it out into his napkin in disgust. I don't know what his issue was, but to me, the spigorello was pretty tasty. That being said, if I saw it being sold somewhere, I wouldn't opt to buy it, but it was nice to try something new.

Spigorello

The sorrel

This stuff is so tangy raw. I decided it would be excellent on fish. I made a sorrel and cream sauce. Then I made some pecan crusted salmon and served it with the sauce. This sauce was so good, I'm definitely making it over and over again. I could eat it by the bowful plain.

Chopped sorrel & spring onion

I made a chiffonade of the sorrel and chopped up some spring onion into a fine dice. Then I sauteed that in some butter. Added half a cup of heavy cream, salt & white pepper. Done!

Pecan crusted salmon on sorrel cream sauce

The pecan crust was basically pecans and some tarragon and basil from my garden mixed with some butter. Then I baked the fish for 15 minutes.

I finally made my own granola bars. This has nothing to do with the CSA or my garden, but I've been wanting to do this for a while now. They are really good.

Granola bars

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. honey 
• 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 1/2 c. peanut butter
• 2 c. quick oats
• 2 c. Rice Krispy cereal
• 1/4 c. flax seed
• 1 c. total of your favorite mix-ins {I used chocolate chips, mixed nuts and some shredded coconut}

In a small sauce pan, mix honey {or corn syrup} and brown sugar.

Cook over medium-high heat until sugar is completely dissolved – stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and quickly stir in peanut butter.

Mix the oats, cereal, flax seed, and optional wheat germ in a large bowl.

Pour honey mixture over dry ingredients — mix well.

Stir in chocolate chips, nuts, fruit, and any other “mix-ins"

Last week was so hot that I didn't do much cooking. I made a lot of simple salads with all the lettuce, carrots, spring onions - which are so sweet you can eat them plain.

Simple salad

And, I'm still throwing scapes into just about everything!

Broccoli with garlic scapes

I'm looking forward to the CSA pick up today. I saw on the list that we'll be getting beets and watercress among other things. I love beets and watercress!

Garlic Scapes, Green Garlic, Garlic Chives (No Vampires Here), and I Conquered the Collards!

I have been throwing green garlic, garlic scapes, spring onion and garlic chives into anything and everything except dessert.

I made a really yummy kale salad with the apples cubed, added some raisins, carrots and toasted almonds. The dressing was honey, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper and olive oil. Garnished with parmesan shreds. It was similar to the famous Dan Barber kale salad, but the added apple made it sweeter.

Kale Salad

I made a delicious chicken dish. Stir fried chicken with green garlic and spring onion. It was great over rice and the kids devoured it big time.

Stir Fried Chicken

PEAS!!

So, the peas we got in the CSA, the shelling peas, my kids ate on the ride home. They were good, but I have to say that as soon as you pick a pea, they begin to turn starchy. I have about 1/4 of my garden planted with shelling peas. We pick and eat them on the spot, discarding the shells on the lawn. They are sweet as candy. Farm to table, yes, but backyard to table, oh my!

Peas in My Garden

The sugar snap peas I decided to saute with the beautiful red turnips. The sweetness of the peas and the spicyness of the turnip played off each other well, and the color was amazing! I just sauteed these in olive oil, adding some green garlic and scapes of course.

Sugar Sanp Peas with Red Turnip and Scapes

I've been making salads most nights with the yummy freckled lettuce. The night I made the stir fry, I made a dressing using rice vinegar, toasted sesame oil, soy sauce and canola oil. really good!

Salad with all things from the CSA

COLLARD GREENS!! 

I never liked them much. I decided to treat them as cabbage and make a slaw. And it was a success! First I rinsed them, cut out the center rib, stacked them on top of each other, rolled them and made a chiffonade.

Choffonade

I added some regular cabbage for color contrast, sliced in some spring onion. Red onion would have been prettier, but I wanted to use up the CSA produce. The dressing was 1/2 cup red wine vinegar, boiled, reduced to half, then I stirred in 2 TBSP honey, mixed that and poured it over the cabbages. The added about 1/2 cup of mayo, salt, pepper, and it was done. It's best made in the morning so the dressing macerates the collards and breaks down the tough leaves.

Collard Slaw

The same night I made the slaw, I also made sauteed chicken cutlets with a garlic scape sauce. I sauteed the garlic scapes in olive oil, added a few squeezes of lemon. I served this on the side, knowing my kids wouldn't touch the chicken if it had garlic scapes all over.

Scape sauce on top of sauteed chicken breast. The chicken breast was dusted in flour, dipped in egg, and sauteed

And then I made a scape pesto. My kids love pesto. But they didn't love the scape pesto. I thought it was very similar. I used a handful of basil and lemon thyme from my garden to tame the scape, then I even mixed in mayo, which Ina Garten does in her pesto pasta salad that my kids LOVE. Who knows...

Scape Pesto Pasta Salad

That was it so far. Tonight I'm cooking some flounder in parchment with Asian flavors. I'm sure I'll throw in some of the scallions and garlic chives. I'm also going to stir fry the mizuna. I used some in a salad raw, but tonight I'll cook the rest, adding sesame oil and soy sauce. Can't wait!

Sorry, but we just didn't like the mustard greens, we tried

But the fish with green garlic was fantastic!

flounder dipped in egg and sauteed with green garlic sauce

Then I made potato latkes with the potatoes, some spinach and some carrots. 

The kids loved the latkes with spinach and carrots

Can't wait to see what we get on Wednesday!

The CSA Season for Bet Torah has begun, and we got greens, greens and more greens!

In this blog, I write about the things I cook from my CSA share and my home garden. My goal is for my kids to eat it alongside my husband and I. I'm lucky they aren't picky kids. Tonight, the first meal I cooked with my CSA produce, they gobbled up. I swear I have never seen them eat so many veggies as tonight.

Tonight's dinner was chicken baked over a mixture of rice, garlic scapes, green garlic and mushrooms. The green garlic & garlic scapes came from the CSA. Swiss chard with garlic scapes (all from the CSA), and sugar snap peas (from my garden), with green garlic and scapes from the CSA. Everyone loved it. It was awesome. I told them afterwards that they had just eaten garlic scapes and green garlic. Jack said YUCK. I reminded him that pesto has a lot of garlic, and he felt better. He loves pesto.

Baked chicken over rice, garlic scapes, green garlic and mushrooms

I was fortunate enough to have ripe sugar snap peas from my garden today. The pea part of my garden is so overgrown. I planted everything way too close together. And I labeled nothing. So at first I wasn't sure which were sugar snaps, and which were undeveloped peas. But I finally figured it out, even though they were all intertwined. I'm an expert now, so if you need help in this area, feel free to ask away. Oh, I'll just tell you. The sugar snaps have a thicker skin, like more plump. The regular peas have a harder thinner skin and you can see individual peas inside. Plus the sugar snaps are ready to pick now. The peas probably wont be ready for a week, they are quite thin, look more like snow peas.

raw sugar snap peas

I sauteed these with garlic scapes and green garlic. Way to yummy. The kids ate them all! Begged for more. I picked all that was ready. Maybe more for tomorrow.

sauteed sugar snaps with garlic scapes and green garlic

Then I made the Swiss chard. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Swiss chard. And the woodchuck thing in my woods that ate all of mine in the pot on the deck will have to be dealt with somehow. I grow a lot of lettuce type things on my deck in pots and leave the actual fenced in garden for tomatoes, cukes, squash, peas & peppers. I've never had an issue with critter eating from my deck, but this year some critter ate the Swiss chard, bok choy and some sunflowers. And he also got into the fenced in garden and ate a cucumber plant. I'm going to go all Caddyshack on him if this keeps up. Sorry PETA.

So the Swiss chard was the best. Simply sauteed with olive oil and scapes. I put the scapes and stems in first and almost carmelized them, then added the torn leaves with the water still clinging to them. It was the best.

Swiss Chard with Carmelized Scapes and Chard Stems

That was just day 1.

Tomorrow I plan on making fish, maybe flounder sauteed with green garlic. There was a recipe 2 weeks ago in the NY Times.

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/green-garlic-says-spring/

I'm also going to probably make a spinach salad, or sautee the spinach from the CSA.

I'll roast the potatoes with green garlic and rosemary from my garden.

The mustard greens... Never made them, we'll see what happens. I'll probably save them for Saturday's dinner.

Well, The CSA Ended For The Season And I'm Bummed!

The CSA ended the week of Thanksgiving. It happened to be one of the best pick-ups all season. We got baby sweet potatoes that were the sweetest things ever. I roasted them with some parsnips we also received, then drizzled on some honey and sesame seeds. This is a traditional Japanese street food called "University Potatoes."

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey and Sesame Seeds, Typical Japanese Street Food

I made a seriously amazing Asian Slaw with almost all CSA ingredients, and some stuff from my garden. I used the napa, the bok choy, garlic, cilantro, scallions, jalapeno, mint, then added ginger, rice wine vinegar and olive oil.

Seriously Awesome Asian Slaw

We did get a lot of cabbage at then end, so there was another slaw I made last night from the last of my white cabbage. It was shredded cabbage, a diced apple, diced red onion. The dressing was 2 TBSP of mayo, 1 tsp of dijon, zest of 1 lime, juice of 1 lime, olive oil, salt and pepper. Then garnished with mint I still had.

Last Head of Cabbage With Mint and Lime

With the celeriac, I made a classic French remoulade. The kind that appears on every lunch plate in France. Basically shredded celeriac, and a dijon mustard dressing. My kids wouldn't touch this, oh well. Rob and I loved it! The hardest part was peeling the celery root!

Celery Root Remoulade

And then I made a wonderful salad with the turnips. Melissa Clark, one of my favorite food writers who cooks seasonally from her local farmer's market, and writes about it in the NY Times, recently had an article on turnips. Usually they're roasted. Well she decided to shave them thin on a mandoline and eat them raw atop some arrugula. Since I had 2 turnips, I tried this and they were wonderful raw!

Thinly Shaved Turnips with Arrugula Salad

All I have left is some napa and I'm going to make kimchi, again, of course!. The 2 jars I made are almost gone and the stuff keeps for 6 months if kept in a Ball jar. I'm counting the days until the CSA starts again, but in the meantime, I still have herbs in my herb garden. Arielle came home from school with some string beans in a pot. I put the plant in a sunny window and it's about to flower! We'll see what we get. My parents gave me 5 old windows and I was going to make a cold frame, but it never happened. I plan to do it in the Spring and start early!! I was thinking of trying it now and putting that string bean plant under it, but now with snow predicted for overnight, we'll wait til Spring.

About 4 Weeks Left of the CSA

So it's winding down. About 4 more weeks of fresh farm produce. So glad I canned some veggies this year for the winter!

We received some yummy eggplants the past 2 weeks and I've been doing all sorts of things with them. I made a sort of deconstructed eggplant parmesan. I followed one of my favorite food writers (Melissa Clark), from the NY Times recipe, loosely.

Peeled, sliced and salted the eggplant, let drain in a colander for 20 minutes. Then patted dry. Placed in a baking dish, covered the eggplant with a dollop of ricotta, then some homemade sauce, then some panko crumbs I had browned in butter. Drizzle with olive oil and cover with mozzarella, then bake.

Today I made a quick pasta sauce with eggplant and tomatoes, some garlic and basil all thrown over whole grain pasta, which has become the norm now in my house. No more plain pasta if I can help it. I don't get the whole wheat, I get the Barilla PLUS. It's got all sorts of grains in there and a ton of protein.

I sauteed the cubed eggplant, added garlic and chopped plum tomatoes, some capers and basil.

This is the yummy Barilla whole grain pasta

This was dinner tonight along with a kale salad. I got a handful of dinosaur kale, also called Tuscan kale or lacinato kale in my CSA share. You could make this with regular kale or collards, I'd just make it early in the day instead. With the Tuscan kale, you can make it and eat it right away.

I chopped the kale and put it in a bowl. I literally had enough kale for a 1 person salad, which is fine because my husband took the kids to his mother's and I'm solo for dinner.  So then dressed it with this yummy dressing. Finely chopped 6 dates, put in a smallish bowl. Chopped 4 anchovies. DON'T be afraid of anchovies! They have this amazing flavor, not fishy and totally have a unami thing about them! Put the anchovies in the bowl, zest one orange and 1 lemon into bowl. Use a rasp zester, it's the only way. Then grate in 1 garlic clove with the zester, watch your fingers! Add about a tbsp of red wine vinegar and about 2 tbsp of olive oil. pour over kale and seaon with salt and pepper. AMAZING!!

salty, sweet, citrusy, tangy

I've been trying to come up with all of these creative salads since we've been getting loads and loads of lettuce. A few weeks ago there was an article in the Times about chicken skin. They were calling it Jewish bacon. So I thought I'd make some and crumble it over a salad, like you would with bacon bits. I took the skin off of some chicken parts and lined them on a grate over a cookie sheet, salted them and baked until it was crispy. It was so yummy! I'm never buying skinless chicken again!

Chopped lettuce with tomatoes and chicken skin, with a vinaigrette dressing. Kids loved it!

Another Melissa Clark recipe I made was a salad with clementines (totally in season, but not from the CSA). This had a melted butter dressing instead of olive oil. It was velvety smooth and complimented the buttery lettuce and sweetness from the clementines.

A few weeks ago we got some lovely broccoli. we sauteed the florets and they were delicious. But I also saved the stems and made a broccoli stem kugel. It was more of a crustless quiche I guess. I steamed the stems, then put them in the food processor with eggs, cream, cheese, garlic, scallions (because I had toms), salt, pepper. Then baked it in a baking dish for about an hour.

broccoli stem crustless quiche/kugel

One thing I have to comment on is the white cabbage I got last week. I couldn't believe how fresh it was. When I cut into it, it made this sound, this squeak, like I was just picked and I'm so fresh and yummy. That night I made a chicken broccoli stir fry, and then I made an Asian slaw with the cabbage. Simply shredded the cabbage, added a dressing of rice vinegar, a bit of sugar, toasted sesame oil and some grated ginger. I then sprinkled on some furikake. If you don't know what that is, it's a Japanese condiment that is typically sprinkled over rice. There are so many different kinds. I have one that the kids love from Mrs. Greens and it's just toasted sesame seeds, seaweed and salt. I think the brand is Eden Farms or something. I also have some from Japanese groceries that have dried fish eggs in them. If you go to a Japanese grocery store, like Daido, in White Plains, they have an entire section of just furikake. It's fancy salt!

All I have left from last week now is some lettuce, the green tomato which has turned orange, but I think I'll still cook it rather than eat it raw. They tend to be mushy this late in the season. I also have tons of scallions and I've been dying to make a scallion kimchi. I hope I have a chance this week before they go bad. I did use a bunch of scallions in some chicken broth I made on Friday. And Arielle loved smashing garlic for that. But seriously, I've used up all of my garlic and there was tons of it! Oh well, keeping those vampires away.