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.