Week 8 - two marinated salads

Well, I once again missed the deadline to order produce from the CSA this week. But I took this opportunity to shop at the farmer's market near my workplace, where a neighborhood farm was selling the most adorable and perfectly-round cherry tomatoes that I couldn't ignore. The kale at the co-op also looked great and cheap (and, ok, the reason I really went there was to buy mozzarella cheese). I've never gotten on the raw kale salad bandwagon, even though I'm a huge fan of eating vegetables raw when all of your human nature and inclination would tell you to cook them (raw beet salad? yes! cabbage in everything? yes! shaved asparagus? (isn't there a better way to refer to this? but) yes!)

So this marinated kale salad is for those of you out there who are all like:

whenever somebody mentions raw kale salad.

I'm excited about both recipes because there's no massaging of kale involved (no, I don't want to rub my fingers all over the food I'm about to eat or possibly serve to others, thank you) and both use marinating to improve the flavor. This also solves a few issues I sometimes have with salad, which is that it generally can't be made in advance and stored, and that even on days when I'm being good and craving a salad, the prospect of washing, spinning, chopping, etc. seems daunting. But now! Just reach in to the fridge and scoop out two tasty helpings of salad, pack them up for work, and enjoy!

Marinated tomato, basil, mozzarella and chickpea salad:

This is a take on the caprese salad, but the ratio is very heavily skewed toward chickpeas for some more protein and to make this into a more substantial, meal-type salad. If you double the amount of tomatoes and mozzarella or halve the amount of chickpeas, that would bring everything back into balance. (If you're doubling tomatoes and cheese, though, double the amount of dressing as well). Of course you can eat this salad without marinating it, but it's seriously a 100% improvement if you wait.

-1 pint of cherry or grape tomatoes, or about 2 C of chopped/mixed other kinds of tomatoes
-1 small shallot
-4 oz fresh mozzarella (watch this carefully, in my experience fresh mozz often comes in 8 oz portions. Not that too much cheese would be that big of a problem...)
-1 25 oz can of chickpea, or ~2.5 C
-handful of basil leaves (enough to fill 1/4 C sliced)
-1/2 tsp coarse salt
-1/4 C olive oil
-2 TBSP balsamic vinegar
-black pepper to taste 

Rinse and slice tomatoes into halves or quarters, depending on their size, so that they're bite sized. Try to slice along the core of the tomato (down the middle), so that all the "guts" stay in place. Peel and slice shallot in half, and then into very thin half-moon slices. Slice cheese into cubes, roughly the same size as your tomatoes. Chop basil leaves into thin ribbons -- the easiest way to do this is to stack the leaves, roll them up on the long side into a thick roll, and slice perpendicularly with a sharp knife. Open the chickpeas and drain and rinse very thoroughly. Add everything to a large bowl or Tupperware where you'll be marinating the salad. Combine remaining ingredients in another bowl and whisk to emulsify/combine. Taste to see if the salt and acidity is right. Err on the side of more oily and more salty. Pour dressing over the tomato mixture in the bowl, stir gently to combine and cover and refrigerate for at least a few hours, keeps for several days. Bring back to near room temperature before eating, because sometimes the olive oil can solidify in the fridge a bit.

Marinated kale salad:

This is more a technique idea than a singular recipe. You can easily do this with whatever dressing combo you like. I will say that if you want any add ins that would get mushy or weird if stored in the salad (croutons, nuts, seeds, cheese etc) you should not include those in the marinade and just top the salad as you serve it. Fresh or dried fruit or cooked beans should be fine though.

-1 bunch kale, any type
-about 1/2 C of your favorite dressing. I use my Dijon vinaigrette from this post

Chop kale into ribbons as thin as you can get them, removing the leaves from the stems if the stems are tough. Rinse and drain well. Pour dressing into the bottom of a Tupperware or bowl or large mason type jar with tight-fitting lid (make sure the container is large enough for all of your kale). Add kale to the Tupperware and seal. Turn upside down so that the dressing collects on the lid, then turn right-side up. Shake the Tupperware a bit so that the dressing gets distributed evenly. Refrigerate for at least a few hours, keeps well for a few days. It's a good idea to remove the Tupperware and shake or stir every once in a while so it marinates evenly.

Once again, stir and bring this to room temperature before serving because olive oil may separate or solidify a bit in the fridge.

Week 7 - escarole and chickpeas

Sometimes you just need spaghetti. There's something about it, it's so comforting and delicious and filling and somehow exactly the right shape. But I also have this food guilt complex where I would never, despite my love for spaghetti, sit down to a whole bowl of it without any supplemental vegetables, and yet I really prefer pasta dishes to be as plain/with as few ingredients as possible. Hence the "side veg" I've written up here. As a vegetarian, many of my meals are actually comprised of a few different "side veg" dishes that compliment each other. Rather than one stand-out protein I'll aim for a few different dishes with smaller amounts of complementary proteins.

I served this alongside a spaghetti with a quick sauce of garlic sauteed in olive oil and butter with a small splash of white wine thrown in, plenty of salt and pepper. Nothing is more satisfying to me than a big ol' fork-full of spaghetti, picturing, as I eat, the lustrous flowing spaghetti tsunami of Strega Nona: 

Hem. But I really do love escarole and chickpeas cooked this way. In my mind, it's essential to cook chickpeas from dried for this dish, because you use their cooking liquid (which, Mark Bittman taught me, tastes *incredible*) to add flavor and body to the greens. You could easily serve this on top of the spaghetti or another pasta or grain if you're not a weirdo like me, or it's delicious eaten as a main dish on its own. It's also tasty cold, in my opinion, if you're not in a hot foods mood because, oh, it's the middle of summer in Philadelphia.

Escarole with chickpeas:

-1 medium bunch of escarole, mine was ~1 lb
-1 C dried chickpeas, picked over for stones or broken beans and rinsed quickly in cold water
-2 cloves of garlic
-parmesan rind if you have one handy
-1 lemon
-salt and pepper to taste
-generous glug of olive oil
-parmesan or pecorino romano cheese as garnish

Place chickpeas in your largest pot, and fill to around 3/4 of the way full with water. Add parmesan rind if you're using it and one of the garlic cloves, peeled but left whole. Bring the chickpeas to a boil, and leave to boil for a full two minutes. Stir, cover the pot, lower the heat to "low" or whatever heat setting leaves you with constant, mild bubbling, and cook until the chickpeas are soft enough to bite in to but still firm, probably around 40 minutes but it can really depend on the age of your beans. At this point, when they're just beginning to soften, add a palm-full of salt to the pot, stir, and cover again. Chances are, that was the halfway-point in cooking the beans, so it will probably be another 30 - 40 minutes before they're ready.

In the meantime, remove the core or end to your escarole bunch (this step is very important to properly rinse the escarole of dirt or sand) and slice into approximately 1 inch strips. I do this by holding the butt end and cutting the whole bunch in half, then turning the newly-flat side down on the cutting board and slicing perpendicular at 1 inch intervals. Rinse well with cold running water and leave to drain in a colander in the sink. Mince the remaining garlic clove and set aside. Juice the lemon and set that aside as well in a small bowl. This is usually the point at which I start cooking the pasta I'm going to serve with.

Taste the chickpeas after the 30 or 40 minutes have gone by since you added salt. If they're ready and at the texture that you like, slowly and carefully add in your escarole. It will seem like it won't all fit at first, but by that miraculous property of cooking greens they'll shrink down in volume by like 2/3 or something. Cook greens until tender, about 2 minutes. Reserve a small amount of cooking liquid, you'll only use a tablespoon, and then drain the greens and chickpeas together. Add a generous amount of olive oil to the same pot back on the stove on low heat, and cook the garlic you set aside before until fragrant. Add the 1 TBSP of reserved cooking liquid, a generous amount of salt and pepper, and cook stirring frequently until the volume has reduced some. Add the chickpeas and greens back to the pot and stir until the greens and beans are evenly coated. Top with lemon juice (although, this will discolor the greens slightly and make them look brown-ish as they look in my picture at the top of this post. If that bothers you, save the lemon juice until you're ready to serve the dish) and sprinkle with cheese to serve.

Week 6 - fresh pea hummus

I hope you're not averse to eating green foods, because this amazing hummus combines two foods I love: fresh English peas and tahini. I could eat tahini by the spoonful (I won't, but I could). Unfortunately, this is a recipe I don't think you could make without a food processor. One thing you might do is use the peas in a salad (cold potato salad with peas??), and make a lemon and tahini dressing. Fresh pea hummus doesn't taste exactly like real hummus with chickpeas, but it doesn't taste completely different either. It almost tastes like you dipped some peas in hummus, if that makes sense. Very summer-y, and great with cucumbers or carrots dipped in, and of course pita bread.

I adapted this recipe from Smitten Kitchen's smooth hummus. I can't say that my version was "ethereally smooth" but it was absolutely delicious! 

 

Fresh pea hummus

-2 C fresh peas, shelled
-2 cloves of garlic, or less to taste
-1 lemon
-1/2 C tahini
-1 tsp salt
-1/4 C warm water
-olive oil for serving 

Fill a small sauce pan halfway with water and bring to a boil. Fill a bowl that will hold all of your peas with ice water. Add peas to sauce pan, cover and cook for no longer than 2 minutes, or cooked to your liking (but err on the side of 'al dente' because peas can get mushy quickly). Quickly remove from heat, drain and add to ice water bowl. Stir until peas are ice cold, and drain again. Coarsely chop garlic and add to food processor bowl with peas. Run food processor for one full minute, stopping occasionally to scrape down the bowl. Add remaining ingredients except for olive oil, and run food processor for another full minute or until the texture and consistency is smooth and to your liking. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil over the top. 

Keeps well in a tupperware or bowl in the fridge for a few days, with a thin layer of olive oil over the top and plastic wrap on top of the oil. 

Week 5 - omelet, watercress and cucumber salad with Dijon vinaigrette

 

Another week of nothing all too special, mostly inspired by these gorgeous fresh eggs I got from the CSA this week. An omelet and a salad is one of my favorite summer dinners, because it's filling but the stove only has to be on for a few minutes. The dressing I show here is pretty much the only one I make, I just love mustard so much. You can play with the proportions depending on how strong you like the mustard flavor or how thin or thick you prefer dressing to be. I made a side salad for this meal with watercress and a peeled and diced cucumber, both from my CSA.

Onion omelet:

-1/2 yellow onion
-2 eggs
-1 tbsp unsalted butter
-1/4 c cheese or more grated (optional/to taste; I didn't use any this time around)
-pinch salt (less if you're using a salty cheese like Parmesan)
-fresh ground pepper

Slice onion into very thin half moons. Crack both eggs into a bowl and beat with a fork until one uniform color, thinned out and slightly airy. Add pinch of salt and pepper. Melt butter in nonstick frying pan over medium heat. Once melted, add onions and a small pinch of salt. Cook for 5 minutes or until about 2/3 of the way cooked to your liking, stirring semi frequently so they don't burn. Turn heat down to low and cook for another 30 seconds. Pour egg mixture into the middle of the bowl and tilt pan around to evenly distribute onions and eggs around the pan. Cook undisturbed for two minutes. Run a rubber spatula around the edges of the pan very gently to help the middle cook evenly. Sprinkle cheese evenly over the surface if using. Keep an eye on the stove and cook until the eggs are as wet or dry as you prefer. I like eggs runny, probably cooked on low this way just for 4 or 5 minutes until just the minute before they're completely set. Turn heat off and shake pan gently, omelette should come loose from the pan. Slide out of the pan and onto a plate, folding it over on itself.

Dijon vinaigrette, for watercress and cucumber salad:

-1/4 C olive oil
-2 tbsp apple cider vinegar, or lemon juice, or white wine vinegar
-1 tbsp creamy Dijon mustard
-1 tsp or more to taste of finely diced shallots

Mix all ingredients together and stir vigorously with a fork to emulsify and combine. This keeps pretty well in the fridge for a few days in an air tight jar or Tupperware. I didn't include salt in this because some mustards are really salty, but obviously add salt and pepper to taste.

Week 4 - bonus pie!

Well, I accidentally forgot to order more vegetables from my CSA in week 4 because I missed the deadline for orders. Lucky for me, my parents were visiting over the weekend and shared some delicious local strawberries, cherries and rhubarb they had bought on the way. It was just enough for a mixed fruit pie, one of the best things about Summer. This was an opportunity to try something I've been eyeing for a while, which is an all-butter crust with some almonds incorporated. I really love almonds in combination with cherries, and often when I'm making a cherry pie will add a little almond extract to the filling. So, I wrote you a novel about how to bake a pie.

This crust recipe does use a food processor. The only way I can think of to incorporate almonds without one is to purchase almond meal, which is blanched almonds pre-ground into a flour-like consistency. I prefer the food processor way, because almond meal doesn't seem like something I would use regularly and it's easy enough to make yourself in small batches. You can easily use a regular pie crust here, or bake this filling with a crumb topping instead. But, I thought I'd share my recipe in case anyone else finds themselves with a fun assortment of very ripe fruits.

Almond pie crust:

Follow your preferred double-crust pie crust recipe, but replace 1/2 C of the flour with finely ground blanched almonds (not roasted ones). I always make my pie crust in the food processor, and use Mark Bittman's recipe. Be sure to flatten the dough into two discs and wrap well in plastic wrap, chill two halves separately for at least 30 minutes.


Strawberry Cherry Rhubarb pie filling:

-6 C of strawberries, pitted cherries and rhubarb, in any kind of ratio although I would only add one or two rhubarb stalks
-juice of 1/2 of one lemon
-1/4 C cornstarch
-2 tbsp sugar, more if you like sweet filling or are using sour cherries or lots of rhubarb

Cut tops off of strawberries and chop until they're approximately the same size as your cherries. For me, lots of the strawberries were very small so I left them whole. Pit the cherries (this part's a real pain unless you have a cherry or olive pitter, but! you can use a drinking straw and it works pretty well!) and leave whole unless they break as you're pitting them, or are really large. Peel any stringy edges from the rhubarb and slice into very thin slices. Toss all fruit in a large bowl with remaining ingredients except cornstartch, stir and taste for salt and sugar. I always err on the side of less sugar, but I had some feedback that this pie was not sweet enough so I might be crazy! Add cornstarch, stir and let sit while you roll out the bottom crust.

Assembling the pie:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Take one of your dough halves from the fridge, and place on a clean, floured counter or large cutting board. Flour your rolling pin and gently begin to roll out the dough. You're looking for something as much like a circle as you can possibly get, and it needs to be at least 2 inches wider than the circumference of your pie plate. About 1/4" thickness. Re-flour your rolling pin and the top of the rolled out dough just barely, then roll the dough up over the rolling pin and doubled over itself. Carefully pick up the pin and dough, and unroll over the pie plate so the dough is centered with at least 2 inches overhang, and clinging to the sides and bottom of the pie plate. Trim to 2 inches all around with scissors or a sharp knife. Put whole pie plate in fridge or freezer covered with foil or plastic wrap so it doesn't dry out while you roll the second crust in the same way you did the first one. Leave on the counter while you take out the pie pan chilling in the fridge or freezer, and take the filling that was resting and dump the entire contents of the bowl (soupy stuff at the bottom and all!) into the bottom crust. Mound the fruit slightly higher in the middle. Now do the same thing you did before with the top crust, and gently unroll it over the filling. Again trim to a 2 inch border. Take the top crust and gently fold it over the bottom crust and press down into the rim of the pie plate to seal the pie. You can crimp it with a fork to make a stronger seal, or pinch the dough to make a sort of frilly edge like I did. Cut four small slits in the top crust to vent the pie while it bakes. Brush a very thin layer of milk over the crust and sprinkle extra sugar over the top crust.

Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees, then lower oven temperature to 375 and bake for another 40 minutes, or until the filling is bubbling and the crust is browned on top and bottom (having a glass pie plate is the best for checking this!). If the crust seems to be browning too fast, cover gently in foil while the pie finishes baking.

Week 3: braised bok choy, fried tofu

This week I ordered "green garlic" from the CSA because I'd never tried it before; it looks like scallions on steroids, but with a slightly stronger garlic taste. You can easily replace with scallions in this recipe. I included an exorbitant amount of fresh-ground black pepper in the braised bok choy because I really like the spicy/floraly taste that it adds. If you don't care for black pepper, replace with some chili paste or red pepper flakes, or if you really don't like spicy food just leave it out entirely!

The fried tofu is a really quick way to make a tofu with a nice crisp crust, but without any kind of batter. The salting technique is one I learned from the Internet, and it really works to dry out the tofu and season it so that it crisps up when you pan fry it. Enjoy!

Green garlic braised bok choy:

1 large bunch bok choy (about 3 cups chopped)
1 stalk green garlic (about 1/4 cup chopped, could use scallions instead)
1 inch piece of ginger
1/4 tsp fresh grated black pepper
2 tbsp low sodium tamari (could use soy sauce instead)
1 tsp honey
Splash of vegetable or olive oil

Chop bok choy into bite sized pieces, leafy parts and stalks together. Rinse very well in a colander under running water, sometimes sand gets trapped in the stalk part of the bok choy. Leave to drain in the sink. Rinse green garlic and chop finely into thin slices, white parts and leafy green parts only (avoid the lighter green stem parts, they're a little tough) and set aside.

Peel the ginger and grate into a small bowl (you can dice but I find this difficult sometimes depending on how dry the ginger is). Add tamari, black pepper and honey and stir to mix. 

In a large frying pan or skillet with a lid, add splash of oil and cook green garlic on low heat until soft, about 5 minutes. Raise heat slightly to medium low, add bok choy and cook for 1 minute. Add tamari mixture, stir and adjust heat until simmering (just a few gentle and small bubbles), cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until the stalks are soft.  Remove lid and cook stirring frequently for another few minutes until the pan dries out. Serve hot, over rice if you can cook rice without burning it or making a mushy mess, which I cannot.

Fried tofu:

1 block extra firm tofu
2 tbsp vegetable oil (I use grapeseed oil)

If your tofu is packed in water, open and rinse tofu block. Slice into 8 thin rectangles (see my picture up top). Take a palmful of salt and rub on both sides of each tofu slice, the way you would salt eggplant for an Italian dish. Leave tofu to sweat for 15 minutes. Pat with paper towel to dry each slice. Add oil to a frying pan and heat on medium heat until shimmery. I use a nonstick pan, but you can do this with a regular pan if you're patient. Fry tofu 4 slices at a time, about 4 minutes on each side until golden brown. If you're doing this in a regular pan, you can't get antsy and try to flip the slices too early or they'll stick! They will release from the pan when more or less done, especially if you gently shake the pan occasionally and really get under there with a spatula. Remove slices and drain on paper towel. Once cool enough to touch, slice into triangles and serve with some tamari or soy sauce or Sriracha or chili paste or other dipping sauce on the side.

Week 2 - bbq mushroom sandwich, beans and greens

I am well aware that the two recipes I'm sharing today are typically made with pork products. And honestly, I'm sure they taste better that way. But! Vegetarians don't often get to eat tasty sandwiches, and I really love this recipe. I use a decent amount of tamari in both dishes to try and get a salty/smoky/savory flavor. You can replace with soy sauce, but I really like tamari because it's concentrated and I think imparts more flavor for its salt content, if that makes any sense. I made a quick BBQ-style sauce for the sandwich, but if you have a bottled or homemade one that you like just replace the sauce I make here with 1/2 C of your choice.

By the way, this is my "trick" for cooking dried beans. It goes quickly and there's no soaking or planning ahead required, only time. And obviously, it takes like 3000x as long as just opening a can, but since I'm a vegetarian and beans are often a main component of my main dishes, I like to cook them from dried myself so I can control texture, salt content, flavor, etc. It really is so easy to do it this way, honestly I'm not too sure what all the soaking, draining, and soaking is about really.

Beans and greens:
-1/2 C dried beans. I used beautiful heirloom beans called good mother stallard beans (who knew?) but pinto, navy, cannellini or kidney beans would be great.
-1 bunch collard greens, about 10 large leaves
-1 clove of garlic, peeled and left whole
-generous pinch of salt
-splash of tamari

Rinse and pick through the beans, discarding any stones or broken beans. Fill your largest pot about 2/3 of the way full, add beans and garlic clove and set to boil on high heat (it's going to seem like way too much water, but remember you'll add the greens later, and the large volume seems important for this quicker cooking process for some reason). When the beans come to a boil, leave boiling for a solid minute stirring semi frequently. Reduce the heat to low, stir and cover. Leave simmering for about 40 minutes, until the beans start to soften. This means you *could* chew and eat one successfully (i.e. without choking or breaking a tooth) but they're still not soft enough to eat in the final dish. When the beans reach this point, add in the salt, stir, and cover again. Cook undisturbed for another 20 to 30 minutes, longer if they seemed to have a long way to go when you tasted them. Meanwhile, cut all the ribs out of your collard greens. If you're obsessive like me, you'll cut all the leaves in half, stack them, cut them in half again, and slice thin even ribbons (see above). If you're not obsessive, you'll just tear or chop all the leaves into small, bite-sized pieces. Rinse the collard greens in a colander under plenty of running water and leave to drain. After those 20 to 30 minutes are up, add all of the collard greens to the pot, stir, and cover again for another 20 minutes or until the beans and the greens are cooked to your liking. Drain with the colander, pick out the garlic clove and discard it, then drizzle beans and greens with tamari to taste. Makes about 3 or 4 servings as a side dish.

BBQ mushroom sandwich:
-1 lb mushrooms, any kind or a mix. Go cheap! I used crimini.
-3 cloves garlic

-1 TBSP tomato paste
-1 TBSP molasses (I have blackstrap, any kind is fine though)
-2 TBSP apple cider vinegar
-1 TBSP dijon mustard
-2 TBSP tamari
-1 TBSP olive oil
-1 tsp smoked paprika

-4 hamburger buns, quarters of a baguette, whatever you like to eat sandwiches on

Wipe mushrooms and caps with a damp paper towel or cloth. Don't go crazy here, just gently brush away dirt clumps, etc. Slice all of the mushrooms into a fine dice, long thin matchstick shapes, or a combo of both. It doesn't matter how perfect this looks, as long as the pieces are relatively small, because they'll be cooked down and stacked on the sandwich. Peel and finely dice the garlic.

Mix together all of the remaining ingredients (except the buns) to make a quick BBQ sauce. Stir vigorously with a fork to combine. You can play around with this ratio to your own taste, this is just a sweet but mostly salty balance that I really like. You could replace the paprika with chili powder, just be aware that some chili powders contain salt (and so do tomato paste and dijon mustard!) so you might want to dial back on the tamari.

Take a large frying pan with a lid, add a small splash of olive oil, and set over medium heat. When the oil is hot, slowly add all of the mushrooms. Stir, and leave to sweat it out for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring semi-frequently and adjusting the heat so that they don't burn or stick. During this time they will shrink dramatically and release a lot of water. When the pan has more or less dried out again, add the garlic and the BBQ sauce and stir. Cook at a simmer for 20 minutes, stirring to make sure they don't burn. Taste and see if the mushrooms are cooked to a texture you like. You want the mixture to still be sauce-y, because that mushroom-infused sauce is the tastiest part! Turn off the heat, and pile about 1/4 of the mushroom mixture onto each bun or bread slice and serve.

About me!

Hi all! Welcome to my CSA recipe blog. This year, I'm very excited to try the Philly Foodworks CSA. This is a flex CSA which means that I get to choose exactly what I want each week, from a variety of veggies, fruits, herbs, breads, condiments, pickles, etc. All of the producers are local or relatively local to Philadelphia, and many of the partner organizations have a food justice and/or community organizing focus. I'll put together a post or two collecting some reflections on all these topics later in the CSA season, but for now I'll just be blogging recipes. Since CSAs inherently motivate me to think in weeks as units for my cooking, I'm going to post once per week, from late May to late October.

I'll try to describe one or a few recipes I made through the week where CSA ingredients are the focus. Often I'll cook a "main" and a "side" for myself for dinner and lunch the next day, so I'll try to always post two recipes that go together. My goal here is in part to take on a summer project that's fun and exciting for me, partly to share seasonal, vegetarian recipes and techniques that are relatively easy and make a reasonable volume for one person to eat throughout the week. I really believe that seasonal eating is better eating, taste-wise and balance-wise, not to mention better for the environment and the local economy. I also firmly believe in "seasonal cooking techniques" (i.e. not turning on the oven after ~mid June in a hot small West Philadelphia kitchen unless it is for baking a fruit pie). I'm really tired of boring, lettuce-based salads and I really love sandwiches, so I'll likely focus many recipes on that.

So! I'll be posting some of my favorite salads, sandwiches, pastas, pies, and more throughout the summer and fall. Hopefully you'll find some of them helpful, whether you're also doing this CSA and we're often in sync with the ingredients we are working with, or you occasionally pick up a cool vegetable at the farmer's market and are looking for a new recipe for it.

Week 1 - pasta with spicy kale, raw asparagus salad

Week 1 CSA box contents: apples, kale, spring onions, and asparagus

These two recipes I'm going to share are both really easy, and together they make a very tasty, spring-y meal. 

 

Spicy kale pasta isn't revolutionary or anything, but I thought I'd share anyway because that's what I cooked this week. I love pasta with greens, and this is my go-to recipe for nights when I need to make something quickly that doesn't dirty too many dishes. The asparagus salad is a recipe I took and barely modified from Smitten Kitchen, where I first discovered that you can eat asparagus raw. Asparagus is something I only eat when it's in season locally, and I love the taste but not always the texture of cooked asparagus. So! Eaten raw it takes on a really great, crunchy texture and a simple lemon dressing highlights the asparagus flavor. 

Spicy, garlicky kale pasta
-1/2 lb pasta, any shape
-1/2 lb kale, any type
-3 cloves of garlic
-1/4 c olive oil
-red pepper flakes, to taste
-salt

Grab your largest pasta pot, fill with water (about 2/3 of the way) and set to boil on high heat. While you're waiting for the water, peel and slice garlic cloves into thin slices, or dice finely.  Take a small frying pan and add the oil, sliced garlic and as many red pepper flakes as you want (1/4 tsp is a good starter guide for spicy but not too spicy and you could always add more later). Leave the frying pan on the stove but don't turn the heat on yet. 

Meanwhile, slice the kale into thin ribbons. I like to leave the kale bunched and scrunch it up in my left hand while I cut perpendicular with the knife in my right hand. If your kale has thick stems and ribs, cut or pull the leaves off first. (Mine was small, so I just sliced very thin ribbons and ate the stems attached to the greens.) Rinse all the kale and leave to drain in a colander set in the sink (just use the same one you'll drain the cooked pasta and kale with)

Hopefully by now the water is boiling, so add a generous pinch of salt and then add the pasta. Set a timer for one minute less than the suggested time for "al dente" or the shortest suggested cooking time. If you'd prefer the kale to be well cooked or "mushier" in the final dish then do two minutes less than al dente on the timer. 

Turn the heat on low or medium low on your oil, garlic and chili flakes. You want the garlic sizzling but not browning, cooking very slowly while the pasta boils. If the garlic starts to brown, turn the heat down.

When the timer goes off, add all the kale from the colander to the pasta pot and stir. After one minute, taste a piece of pasta to make sure it's done to your liking. If it's still crunchy, leave for another 30 seconds and taste again. Turn the heat off under the pasta and also the oil in the frying pan. Put the colander back in the sink and drain the pasta and kale. Quickly run some cold water over the pasta and kale to stop the cooking, drain again briefly, then return it all to the same pasta pot on the stove. Keep the heat off but pour the contents of the frying pan over the pasta and kale. Stir to coat the pasta and kale in the oil, add salt to taste. Serve with grated cheese. 

Raw asparagus salad with lemon and spring onion

-1/2 lb asparagus
-1/2 lemon
-1 spring onion (could replace with shallot or red onion)
-olive oil
-block of pecorino romano or parmesan cheese
-salt and pepper

Rinse asparagus under cold running water, especially the heads. Hold a stalk flat on the cutting board and take a vegetable peeler and run it from tip to tip, producing a thin asparagus ribbon. Your peeler will probably get caught in the head of the stalk, that's OK. The slices don't have to be perfect or uniform consistency. Add the ribbons to a large bowl that you'll use to serve the salad. Repeat with all the stalks until you have a bowl full of asparagus curls (bear with me...). Take a small glass or bowl for mixing the dressing and squeeze half of a lemon into it, taking care to scoop out or strain seeds. Cut the bulb of the spring onion into slices, as thin as you can get them (around 1 TBSP of sliced onion in total). Add the onion to the lemon juice. Add olive oil to the dressing and stir vigorously with a fork to emulsify. It's really up to you how much to add, I like the dressing really lemony so I didn't add much. If you're not sure, start with 1 TBSP and go from there. Take the vegetable peeler and run it over the cheese to make flakes or ribbons and add to the bowl of asparagus curls, about a small handful. Add the dressing to the bowl with asparagus and cheese, toss and mix in salt and pepper to taste.