Garlic Scape Pesto, Two Ways

It seems like everyone is into making pesto with their scapes. Ever since the CSA started offering these chartruese specialties, I've been racking my brain and researching scape ideas. I came across suggestion after suggestion to make scape pesto. I read the words "Dorie's Pesto" over and over again. (Have you read Dorie Greenspan's blog? She has 5 James Beard awards.)

Zucchini Relish

Confession: I am not a member of the clean-fridge club this week (see my last post for details on why). It's frustrating, since I'm very goal-oriented, and frankly, not reaching my goal of using all my vegetables makes me feel like I failed. However, one of the many lessons I've learned in my very lengthy 28 years on the planet is that I get to learn from my mistakes, and I should really be grateful for screwing up (for more ways I've screwed up lately, see my broccoli rabe and turnip vs radish posts).

It's natural to not reach all of the goals you set for yourself, right? It's all part of life's process....

Party Excess

David and I threw a baby shower bbq for our friends this afternoon. We made everything from scratch; my couscous salad (I substituted spinach with swiss chard), a pasta salad with homemade pesto from last year's basil overload (we froze pesto in glass jars, and this was our last one... good thing it's almost basil time!), and a coleslaw that my Mom always makes for picnic-y events, which everyone loves. In addition, Chef D made his famous ribs and we grilled up some chicken that we marinated in dijon, garlic and olive oil (recipe courtesy of Chef D's Mom).

Oh, and there was fresh hummus with lemon and garlic scapes, pita chips, fruit salad and crudites for snacking. (And the soon-to-be Mom requested ice cream sundaes, so, we had those, too)

Have I mentioned that there were only 14 people at this party? David and I prepared food for about 40. This is what happens when a girl of Italian heritage marries a Jewish boy...there is ALWAYS enough food.

Fabulous Feathery Fennel

Fennel is one of my all-time most favorite vegetables. I love them because they are crispy and licorice-y (this is ironic because I do not like anything that tastes like licorice, except fennel), and delicious raw or simply roasted.

Fennel made it's debut at the CSA this week, and I've got 12 fennel plants in my garden, so I am feeling very lucky. I'm including my top three favorite ways to use fennel at the bottom of this post. I plan on spending some time researching and devising more ways to incorporate the fennel fronds and harvest fennel seeds, because I cannot imagine that everyone just throws them out.

Dumpling Soup with Roast Pork

I had grand plans of trying out some new recipes yesterday. However, when I returned home after work, working out, and running errands, I realized that I had only two goals for the evening (as opposed to, say, my usual 4 or 5):

Eat Dinner and Lounge

The full fridge was calling to me, but I just could not muster the strength. I'm blaming it on the lack of sunlight. Lame? Maybe. But that's the only excuse that seems to make sense.

Happy Hour

I wanted to take a moment to say hello to all the Mountain View Farm CSA readers, and I also wanted to send a huge THANK YOU to Ben and Liz, who included the link to my blog in the latest Newsletter.

I am so flattered that you've taken the time to visit my site, and I hope you find inspiration, enjoy the photographs (starring our very own Mountain View Farm Vegetables!), and maybe have a laugh or two when reading my posts. Welcome!

Mondays have become my favorite day of the week. This is my "pick-up day", and I truly look forward to leaving work, coming home, doing a quick wardrobe change, and then heading back out with my husband for the farm visit. I LOVE pulling in to the farm parking lot (sometimes in a car, sometimes on a bike) and seeing everyone mulling about. Some are toting their empty bags in to the barn, others are returning to their cars with bags brimming with fresh vegetables. I love it even MORE, when I get a glimpse of the lovely rows of vegetables, fruits, and flowers, with the lush, dark treeline in the distance. There are kids running around, dogs are hanging out with their owners, and people picking their own strawberries, herbs, and flowers. AND, there's a row of beautiful red poppies right in front of the flower beds. (If you see a tent in the fields next week, it's because I've decided to move in).

Did I mention that I LOVE this? Well, I do.

It is my Monday happy-hour.

Week 3 in Review

My week 3 came and went way too fast. I honestly have no idea what I did last week. I can't think of any hilarious stories, and I can't even think of anything remotely witty. And, the first thing I thought about doing when I woke up was to write this:

Dear Sun,
I miss you. My plants miss you.
Please come back.
Love, Nicole and her garden

I then thought about writing this:

Hey Sun,
Get your lazy butt out from behind those clouds and DO YOUR JOB. STAT.
(I'm hating you right now)
Nicole

Now that I got that out of my system, let me tell you how I cleaned out my fridge before the Week 4 pick up....

In addition to all the tasty recipes that I posted recently, we made fresh fettuccine with our leftover greens and strawberry syrup this past Sunday. Both store well, as the fettuccine can be frozen and syrup will last for a good long time in the fridge. Actually, I'm not really sure just how long the syrup lasts...it's usually been eaten well before the "time's up" date.

Check them out:

Strawberry Syrup

Greens Fettuccini

Greens Fettuccine

This recipe's been adapted to utilize my leftover cooking greens, not spinach, as the original recipe requires. It's from Lidia's Family Table, by Lydia Bastianach. This is time consuming, but the results are really delicious, and you can freeze the pasta.

Strawberry Syrup

I must confess, I cannot eat 3 pints of strawberries in one week. Or two weeks. Last night, as I was taking fridge-inventory, I noticed that the strawberries were not looking their best. In retrospect, I should have frozen them as soon as I got them home last week, so I could save them for a jam making session in the Fall. I could not bear to toss them in the compost, so I thought back to the days when my parents took us strawberry picking and when my mom made jams and syrups. On Sunday at 5pm, I was not about to start a canning assembly line. I was, however, willing to spend a little making strawberry syrup.

Quick Tips: Scallions,Radishes, Beet Tops, Chard

Have scallions and radishes?
A friend in Maine (who has an amazing garden and two cute kids) gave me the idea for this quick and tasty breakfast.
Pick up some cream cheese
(I like whipped. Less calories and easier to spread.)
Stir in chopped scallions.
Spread on toasted english muffin, bagel, or toast.
Top with thin slices of radishes.Devour happily, knowing you've just had some veggies first thing in the morning.

Have Beet Tops?
David always looks forward to fresh beet tops!
Wash, trim stems and steam.
Serve with a twist of lemon or sprinkling of parmesan.

Thinking of Tossing the Swiss Chard Stems?
People often throw out the large stems, thinking they'll be too bitter or tough to eat. Not so!
Heat up a pan with a generous, but shallow coating of olive or vegetable oil.
Trim ends of stems.
Dredge in egg, then coat with a combination of breadcrumbs or panko, parsley, and parmesan.
Fry until crispy and golden brown.
Place on a plate lined with paper towels to soak up oil.
Serve with slice of lemon or nothing at all.
Enjoy!

Syrian Beet Salad (I Heart Beets)

Beets were not a household staple when I was growing up. In fact, I don't think I ever had beets until a few years ago, when I discovered that they were delicious with goat cheese, nuts and green apples in a salad. I'm now somewhat obsessed. I love them because they are sweet and slightly earthy, and kick ass in the color department. They make me feel insanely healthy, even when I'm eating golden beets, boiled, sliced and tossed with butter and salt.

Kale with Spicy Italian Sausage

Whenever my husband (Ok, ok, his name is David. "My husband" sounds too.... well... possessive, doesn't it? From now on, he'll be referred to as David, or, if he's cooking, Chef D).

Ahem... Whenever Chef D makes this meal, he says something like "Ah, this recipe reminds me of my bachelor days, when I'd make this for just myself. Mmmmmmm...."

Pan-Fried Cod with Sauteed Garlic Scapes and Swiss Chard

This was my first attempt at using garlic scapes. When I heard we were getting scapes, I was excited. I also had no idea what they were, what they looked like, or how I'd use them. However, because the word 'garlic' was in the name, I was sure Mr. Scape and I would be fast friends. With a lovely bright green stalk, a little bulb that's not yet flowered and a graceful tapered top, the scape is almost snake-like. They taste sort of like a cross between a string bean, asparagus and a chive. I'd suggest substituting beans or asparagus to this recipe if you don't have scapes, and maybe a clove of garlic, sliced super thin.

What is a CSA, anyway???

Community Supported Agriculture

A farm sells crop shares to community members prior to the growing season. Some CSA's require their share-holders to work a bit at the farm, others offer shares on a sliding-scale, or "large" and "small" veggie boxes. Once the season begins (that's June for me), share-holders visit the farm once a week to pick up produce or the produce gets delivered to directly to the share-holder. In exchange for supporting our local farm, we get loads of fresh veggies and fruits (and flowers) and we get to cultivate a relationship with the people responsible for providing us with local, delicious, as-fresh-as-it-gets food. I love the visual of rows and rows of greenness and beautiful barns, with a backdrop of mountains and lush landscape. And as I remarked to my husband, as we pulled in to the farm during the downpour this past Monday, "Ahhh, I love the smell of rain, dirt, and manure."

For more information on the CSA I belong to visit:
http://www.mountainviewfarmcsa.com

and for locating a farm in your area, check out:
http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

When is a Turnip Not a Turnip?

When it is a RADISH...

The List, Week 3

And...we're back to the beginning of the week!

My fridge is full of:
Radishes
Hakurei Turnips
Beets
Summer Squash
Broccoli
Bok Choy
Mixed greens
Red Leaf Lettuce
Rainbow Swiss Chard
Kale (Russian Red and the Curly Stuff)
More Cooking Greens
Kohlrabi
Scallions
Garlic Scapes

I'm psyched for the garlic scapes. They look cool and smell awesome.

Week in Review (And some recipes)

YES! It's Sunday night and there's nothing but some lonely lettuce in my fridge. I am feeling victorious and mighty healthy. I would like to use this evening's post as a reflection of how many veggies we managed to consume this week AND to show how you, too, can be a member of the clean-fridge-club. As a teaser to keep you reading, the recipe that utilized the most veggies was Vegetable Dumplings. We ate 12 tonite, and we've got another 50 or so chillin' in the freezer for later meals, appetizers, or additions to soup.

You may be thinking that I'm over-exaggerating how much we receive from our CSA share, so here's a breakdown of what we picked up last Monday (The list below reflects only 1/2 of the share, as we divide it with our CSA buddies) and what we yanked from our little garden in the past week(which is ALL ours!)

1 head of lettuce 1/2 bag* of mixed lettuces/arugula 1/2 bag of mixed greens (tatsoi, mizuna, komatsuna, mustard greens) 1 1/2 quarts strawberries 2 radishes 1/2 kohlrabi

1/4 bag of spinach 6 baby bok choy 1/2 bag of larger "cooking" greens (more mature tatsoi, mizuna, komatsuna, broccoli rabe) 1 very large bok choy 4 medium scallions 2 hakurei turnips

*Go to your grocery store and grab a produce bag. Fill it to the top with loose greens. Then triple that to see what a full bag of mixed greens looks like. Intimidated? Yeah, I thought so. And if you're reading this and you have a CSA share, you're nodding your head in agreement.

Simple Green Salad with Garlic and Lemon

Simple, easy and delicious.

You'll need:
one large head of lettuce, washed and cut
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 large clove of garlic, pressed (this makes it a little tangy, so if you're not into garlic, use less)
pepper
fresh parmesan, optional

In a large bowl, combine olive oil, lemon juice and garlic, swirling it in the bowl to coat the bottoms and sides. Add in lettuce and toss, evenly distributing the dressing. Finish with fresh ground pepper and parmesan, if you're feeling so inclined. Makes enough for 4 as a generous side-salad.

Couscous with Spinach, Pignoli and Mint

I made this one up on Wednesday evening...it was light, fluffy and refreshing.

Couscous with Spinach, Pignoli and Mint

by Nicole

You'll need:

• 1 cup uncooked couscous
• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp butter/olive oil (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups fresh, chopped spinach
• 1 scallion-I used just the green portion in this.
• 1/4-1/2 cup pignoli (pine nuts)-I used raw, but toasted would be nice.
• Mint-infused olive oil*
• Salt and Pepper, to taste

*I know, I know. Who has this, right? I was in O&Co. and saw this tiny can of mint olive oil and I was in love. This is the first time I used it, and it was great. If you don't happen to have this in your pantry, try finely chopping a few leaves of mint and add to the bowl of couscous and spinach.

Put water and butter/oil in small saucepan and bring to a boil.
Stir in couscous, cover, and remove from heat. Let sit 5 minutes, until water has been soaked up.
While couscous is resting, toss spinach and scallions together in a medium-sized bowl.
Fluff couscous with fork and add to spinach and scallions.
DO NOT STIR TOGETHER YET!
Cover the spinach with the hot couscous to warm up the spinach, 3 minutes. Then toss to combine.
Drizzle mint-infused olive oil over the couscous and spinach if you didn't add fresh mint. Otherwise, drizzle some extra virgin olive oil.
Add pignoli, salt, and pepper.

Serve as a side dish, warm or cold.

Strawberry Love

I'm lucky. I got a quart and a half of beautiful strawberries from the CSA. I'll probably get antsy later in June and start looking for tart recipes and oother time-consuming projects such as strawberry jam, but for now, I'm really only interested in eating them. If you have strawberries, you should do the same. Whip up some cream with a tad of vanilla and a sprinkle of sugar (You do have a hand-mixer, right? Because it's going to take some serious arm energy if you're using a whisk...). Grab a bowl of strawberries, top them with some fresh whipped cream and enjoy.

If you've got strawberries that are starting to look less then glamorous, cut them up, toss them in a little sauce pan with a sprinkle of sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice (if you have it) and heat everything up, stirring so you're not burning. Just 5 or so minutes, and you've got yourself a delicious strawberry topping for angel food cake, pound cake or ice cream. Top with the whipped cream and be thankful for summer. And if you're my husband, you'll drizzle the whole thing with some chocolate, for extra decadence.

Lessons Learned: Broccoli Rabe

Let's get one thing straight. I'm just a regular ol' girl who likes cooking. And eating. I have no training whatsoever in the food field, unless you count my stint as a dishwasher during my high-school days, or when I waited tables at a tiny Italian restaurant in the West Village after college. While it is rare that I make something inedible, I do make silly mistakes. I also manage to get whatever it is that I'm cooking all over my kitchen floor, even if it is something simple, like, say, eggs.

I had a bunch of broccoli rabe from the CSA. The stalks were really quite large, and since I'm into using the whole veggie, I coarsley chopped everything up. I just figured I'd heat up some olive oil, sautee some garlic, add scallions and hot pepper flakes and then cook up the greens (I also added a bit of fresh lemon juice). The plan was to have a simple little dinner of sauteed broccoli rabe and leftover grilled chicken over pasta, with freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano and a glass of red wine.

I should have realized after I chopped up the rabe, that the thicker stalks with the white center probably weren't going to cook down well. And that thought did cross my mind, just as I was dumping all the greens into my sautee pan...

My pasta and rabe was delicious!
I did, however, spend most of my meal picking through and pulling out the thick stems. They tasted the way I imagine snacking on bamboo might taste.

Good thing I had that glass of red to wash it all down.

Vexing Indexes (or Why I should not judge a book by it's cover)

Feeling inspired by the abundance of vegetables, I visited my awesome local used book store and procured another cookbook. I chose it based on Cuisine (Chinese) and Photographs (Delicious-looking). The food photography was lovely and many of the recipes in the book reminded me of the real Chinese food I've eaten; None of that chow fun/fried egg roll nonsense. I brought my fancy new book home, and after tying up the out-of-control peonies and attacking the weeds in my garden, sat down to devour my new text.

I tend to read cookbooks in the following order:
I look at all the pictures first. I can't help it.
And then...
I go right to the index and look recipes up by ingredient.

This new book I purchased? Total sham. Here I was, distracted by all the pretty pictures, and when I looked up bok choy, the index pointed to ONE STINKING PAGE that referenced bok choy. I was forced to read the whole damned cookbook. And you know what? There were practically a dozen recipes that showcased bok choy. Same thing with scallions (For the record, Scallion Pancakes were only listed under Appetizers. Ridiculous.)

And this brings me to what I hope to provide in the future: A search function on my little blog where you can type in your veggie and, voila, a list of recipes that showcase your veggie. Or at least include that veggie. Is this helpful? Or would you rather just type in "appetizer" and come up with a list of recipes you probably don't have the ingredients for...

Quiche of Greens

So far, the first 2 weeks of the CSA have been fun. Week 1 was really just a warm-up for what week 2 had to offer...after about 4 hours of sorting, having a veggie "photo shoot", cleaning and figuring out exactly where these chock full o' vitamin-goodies would live (fridge AND cooler on back porch, and that's after I divided the share for our CSA Buddies), I finally had it under control. However, I'm beginning to feel the pressure of locating/devising enough new recipes to use everything up and to make sure we won't be turning green after the week's end.

The Hakurei Turnip

We were picking out our first bunch of Hakurei Turnips when we heard a tiny voice behind us. "Momma, can I have a turnip?" We turned to see our farmer's daughter begging for a turnip snack. Really? I thought. This 3 year old wants a turnip? Yup.

Wok'd Greens (Greens, Greens and Greens)

June 1 marked the first CSA visit for the season. Make that the first CSA visit ever for my husband and me. Last summer, when we decided to join, we also promised that in 2009, we wouldn't plant much in our backyard garden...a tomato plant or two, some basil, and maybe a few other herbs. And some dill. And fennel. And then, I decided that square-foot gardening was the way to go, which gave me so many little spaces to plant. So, I planned spaces for the aforementioned veggies, plus chard, red cabbage, and carrots, eggplant, peppers, onions, and potatoes. Yup. Just a few things to keep us busy. But, enough about our garden. I'll get to those tasties later.