Monthly Archives: June 2010

[7] White Bean and Spinach Soup

Enchanted Broccoli Forest

The soup I was originally contemplating after we received our first CSA share called for escarole (which we didn’t have), but said we could substitute just about any green for the escarole, including kale and spinach. Since we got what appeared to be an obscene amount of spinach in the first CSA, that’s what we did.

In reality, we only got about a half-obscene amount of spinach, since we got a little over half the amount of greens the recipe called for (and that was truly copious). While we could have, and maybe should have, rounded it out with kale, we instead decided to cook just half the recipe. The only thing that wasn’t super easily halved was the bay leaf, and I just tossed in a small one as my solution.… Continue reading →

[6] Braised Turnips

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian

A delicious (albeit very small) side dish to our salmon dish was a dish out of _How to Cook Everything Vegetarian_. This was our first time eating turnips (at least as adults), so I decided to make something simple that would just highlight their flavor. Furthermore, these were fairly small turnips, which Bittman says are the tastiest. (My friend Pants confirmed this before I’d had a chance to eat them, and who am I going to believe, some nationally known and renowned cookbook author or my buddy?)

Ingredients

2 tbsp butter or extra-virgin olive oil (while we had some amazing butter from the farmers’ market, I opted for the oil)
1 lb turnips, rutabaga, trimmed radishes or diakon radishes, cut into chunks (we used turnips, as should be obvious)
1/2+ c white wine, veggie stock or water (we used inexpensive white wine)
Salt & fresh ground pepper
Freshly squeezed lemon juice (I totally forgot this, and it would have helped)
Chopped parsley leaves for garnish (didn’t have these)

Instructions

Combine the oil, turnips and 1/2 c wine in a saucepan, sprinkle with salt & pepper and bring the mixture to a boil.… Continue reading →

[5] Slow-Roasted Salmon with Yogurt and Cardamom

Big City Cooking

As you can probably imagine, right now a lot of our meals start with, “What do we have in the house?” and “What recipes do we have in cookbooks?” This was particularly hard until 2 June 2010 (when we made this dish) because we had been holding off on buying very much food until our first CSA share arrived. We purchased a few things at one of the city’s farmers’ markets two days before the share arrived to supplement what we already had, but that was it.

This salmon dish was the first recipe we made after going out for groceries. I was rather hesitant about it, but it turned out fairly well. The best part? Having leftover salmon to top salads with the next day!… Continue reading →

About our CSA

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  • Saturday, June 5, 2010
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As mentioned in the “About” section, Bill and I have a small share (5/9 bushel per week) in “Tomato Mountain Farm’s CSA program”:http://tomatomountain.com/csa.html. So far, we’ve had one delivery and we’ve been enjoying it immensely. Mostly it was lettuces, which have made for many delicious salads so far. We’ll get the next share Monday, 7 June 2010.

The CSA share, of course, is a very large part of what catalyzed this blog from “pipe dream” to “active reality”. As such, we feel it only appropriate to catalog what we get with you each week, as well as to link to the program at every possible turn (partially because their Sun Gold Tomatoes are amazing, and you will regret not eating them if you’re in the Chicago area and not buying them when they hit the farmers’ market).… Continue reading →

[4] Orange & Sesame Dressing

Enchanted Broccoli Forest

It turns out, for those who were waiting with bated breath, that the correct answer was neither salmon nor soup. It was salad.

Bill and I realized that we would rather go to the store to pick out side-dishes and such together than for me to just head out midday and do it alone. So, back to the drawing board to determine what we were having for dinner. Given we had a giant pile of lettuce, I decided our best bet was a salad. Unfortunately, all the salad recipes we have in the books call for ingredients we didn’t have, which was basically useless.

Luckily, in digging through The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, I found a whole section on salad dressings. I have to admit, that was the point at which I said, “A recipe!… Continue reading →