Out of the Box, Week 4

We were in such a rush last Thursday to catch the last bus down to Boston that I didn't photograph the produce before we split it up. We took some zucchini, garlic scapes, parsley, and lettuce to Boston for Zach and Maria, and left some zucchini, a summer squash, garlic scapes, turnip greens, and kohlrabi here. I know Maria made zucchini bread with her zucchini. We used our zucchini, along with some sugar snap peas left over from week 3, to make a green risotto.

Last night, we had a friend over for dinner, but we also faced the challenge of trying to use up everything in our fridge, since we're leaving today on a ten-day trip. I sauteed the turnip greens with the garlic scapes in a little olive oil and steamed the remaining zucchini and summer squash. For the main course, I made lentils and brown rice, using Rebecca Blood's recipe, but I added a generous amount of garam masala spice mix. I also served the lentils with thinly sliced onions fried in a little butter and a scoop of plain nonfat yogurt. It might sound strange but the addition of those two condiments takes the meal from something simple, solid, and hearty to a complex and irresistible treat. The sweetness of the onions and the tang of the yogurt against the earthiness of the lentils makes for a surprising luxurious flavor.

For weeks five and six, we'll be out of town, so we've offered our box of veggies to the house that we belonged to in college. I've asked them to let me know what they used them for and to take pictures if possible, so hopefully I'll have an update when I get back. In the meantime, I'm spending the next ten days in New York, North Carolina, and Cape Cod, for a family reunion bookended by two weddings!

I won't be doing much cooking, although at the family reunion, I will be cooking one night. Hopefully that will be preceded by a visit to a coastal North Carolina farmer's market. I'm hoping for peaches. I will also be eating out a lot, so I'll post pictures and reviews in the last week of July, once I'm back here.

Out of the Box, Week 3

Clockwise from top left: chard, garlic scapes, sugar snap peas, parsley, lettuce, zucchini, kai-lan.

I had planned to stir-fry the kohlrabi in the middle of last week, but when I heard we might be getting some bok choy in box #3, I decided to hold off and use them together. It looks like we ended up with kai-lan instead, but that's just as good for stir-frying.

The garlic scape, like the kohlrabi, is exactly why I wanted a CSA. Not only had I never bought garlic scapes, I'd never even heard of them. I think they are strangely beautiful. If I were a floral designer, I'd be sticking these babies in arrangements whenever I could get my hands on them. Here is a nice little article about them. You can use them however you would use garlic, steam them and serve them with butter, or make pesto with them. I decided to split my share in half, using some for the stir fry and some for this spinach pesto recipe, which will also help me use up the last of that gigantic bag of spinach.

Here are all my stir-fry ingredients, ready and waiting while the fire heats the wok. In the colander are most of this week's sugar snap peas. I have cubed tofu and bottled oyster sauce, for convenience. Some frozen corn and a shredded carrot add color. The leaves are from the kohlrabi and kai-lan. In the little prep bowls, clockwise from top left, are garlic scapes and the white scallion parts, kohlrabi, and kai-lan stems.

Less than ten minutes later, dinner was ready. I had previously made scallion pancakes with the last of the bunch from week two. I used the recipe from the New Moosewood Cookbook. These were a little tough. I may have kneaded the dough too much. I baked these, instead of frying them, in a small nod to nutrition.

Overall the stir fry was tasty and I really liked that I got to use so many new vegetables in it. We had plenty left over for today's lunch, too, and even a little more for tomorrow's bentos.

Last but not least, we enjoyed a tasty glass of cheap bubbly to celebrate the fact that I am now fully self-employed!