CSA 2009 Week 1

The new year of the CSA began today. Not a huge batch since it's still early in Spring, but I'm happy to have some ramps and sorrell. And fresh rhubarb! The in-laws are in town for the weekend, so A. is planning on making something with the sunchokes, spinach, and rhubarb. I'll make some soup with the sorrell, and I don't have a plan for the ramps yet.

I went pretty simple for the first meal from this delivery--fried up some chicken breasts and roasted the the parsnips with some of the burdock. The chives, along with some scallions, sherry, vinegar and cream made a sauce that went over everything. The parsnips had a great sweetness, and despite the rather ugly appearance of the cooked burdock, it had a nice texture, not too woody.

Polenta Puttanesca

This turned out really great, but the polenta made it quite heavy. After one serving I was feeling quite fat and happy.

Polenta
2 Anchovy Fillets
3 cloves garlic
3 TB Olive Oil
1/2 cup pitted olives (I used kalamata, but wanted to use black)
2 TB capers, drained
1 28oz can whole tomatoes, drained, seeded (at least somewhat)
1/2 Cup Red Wine
red pepper flakes
1 can tuna

I went straight from How to Cook Everything for the polenta, but a recipe isn't hard to come by. This one is pretty close to Bittman's, except that I cooked it soft, so really only about 20-25 minutes, and spooned it into bowls.

The sauce was an amalgam of Bittman and a similar one in Cooks Illustrated. I heated up the oil, medium low (I didn't really have a good size skillet for this, so I actually used our stir-fry pan...), crushed the garlic, and cooked it and the anchovies until the anchovies were entirely broken up and the garlic was golden (3-4 minutes, maybe). Add the wine and reduce it about half. Crush the tomatoes, and add with the remaining ingredients. Increase heat to medium-high, cook until saucy, add a touch of oil.

We spooned the sauce over the polenta. We used the remaining polenta for breakfast the next morning (just topped it with a fried egg). Then we tossed the remaining sauce with pasta for a quick dinner.

Chicken Salad

For Debbie:

2 Chicken Breasts
Salt, Thyme, Lemon Peel
Mixed Greens (in this case, Boston Lettuce and Spinach)
1 Cucumber
2 Tomatoes
Dressing (in this case, Green Goddess)

The interesting stuff here is primarily in the dressing. We used the Penzey's Spices Green Goddess dressing base and mixed it up ourselves. I also used homemade mayonnaise (from How to Cook Everything, but recipes are pretty easy to find. Basically just egg, lemon juice, oil, and some spices). Any good herby dressing or vinagarette would work well, though. Then I put a little salt, thyme, and grated lemon peel on a cutting board and chopped it finely. Rub that on the chicken and let it stand for 10 minutes or so. Preheat the broiler and set the rack close to the heat. Brush the chicken with olive oil, and broil for about 4-5 minutes/side, or however long it takes to get done. Cut it into strips. The rub can be varied however you like, and can be omitted (at least salt and pepper the chicken, though).

Toss the greens and vegetables, serve in bowls with dressing and chicken strips on top.

Italian Tofu Curry

My attempt at "fusion" cuisine, I guess. I started with the idea of seared tofu, and when I was done brainstorming I had spinach, tomato, and basil. My measurements here are approximate.

1 Pkg Firm Tofu
1 Onion
1/2 Cup Coconut Milk
1 Can Diced Tomatos
2 Tsp Minced Ginger
2 Cloves Garlic
1 TB Lime Juice
2 Cup Spinach
1/4 Cup Chopped Basil
1 TB Sweet Curry Powder
2 Tsp Red Pepper Flakes

Press the tofu and cut into triangles or strips. Dice the onion. Sear the tofu in a pan with a little oil and set aside. Sautee the onion, garlic, and ginger for about 3 minutes, add tomato, coconut milk, lime, basil, curry powder, and red pepper flakes. Simmer for a few minutes, then wilt in the spinach. Serve tofu on pasta or rice and top with sauce. Grate some parmesan on top.

I messed this up slightly, as I tried to do it all at once in a single pan, and ended up wrecking the tofu. It tasted just as good, but I imagine having crisped up the tofu it would be even better. There is something, though to simmering the sauce in a pot that the tofu is also in, so I need to figure out how to perfect this. We served it all over a spinach linguini. I forgot the parmesan, but it would be delicious, I'm sure.

Tuna Cabbage Rolls

This goes down as one of my more spectacular failures. We had about half a cabbage head left from some potstickers A made over the weekend, and I thought trying to come up with a cabbage roll recipe would be fun. I hold that, conceptually, this was a good idea, but there was one fundamental flaw: Napa Cabbage.

Long, narrow cabbage leaves do not rolls make. You need a wide-leaf cabbage instead. It quickly became apparent that the size simply did not allow for rolling anything. That, and I think I over-boiled the leaves, so it wouldn't really roll without tearing anyway. What we were ultimately reduced to was a plate of a tuna/rice mixture with bland, boiled cabbage on the side. All in all, a depressing dinner.

But... the theoretical recipe, that I still believe can work...

1 head Cabbage
1 can Tuna
about 2 c cooked Rice
Lime
1 Onion
Ginger
salt and pepper
red pepper flakes

Boil the cabbage for 5 minutes or so - get it tender and rollable, but not overcooked. Steaming might work as well.

Drain the tuna, dice the onion. Mix tuna, minced ginger, salt, pepper, red pepper, and any other spices that might marry well with the flavors. Squeeze a lime wedge or two over it. Sautee the onion over medium heat for 3-5 minutes, increase the heat, add the tuna and sear for a couple of minutes. Remove from heat, mix in rice.

Heat oven to 375.

(I didn't get to this part, so I'm just speculating here, extrapolating from some recipes I consulted) Put a little tuna rice mixture on a cabbage leaf, roll tightly and place in a baking dish. Add liquid about an inch deep to the baking dish and cook for 30 minutes. Water would work as well as anything, but I bet white wine with some vinegar, maybe, would work great, too.

I also had plans for a sauce that was kind of like a mayonnaise. I had reserved some of the onion, and had a couple of egg yolks I needed to use. I was going to whisk the yolks with some champagne vinegar and salt, then slowly add in a little oil (maybe sesame). Then I was going to flavor it with onion, some minced garlic, maybe a touch of soy sauce and some lime. It was going to be delicious... A is suspicious of anything that involves uncooked egg yolks, maybe moreso egg yolks that have been sitting in the refrigerator for 3 days, and the whole thing had collapsed by this point, anyway, so we went without the sauce.

It could work, though.

Pork Fried Rice

Back to it after getting the dog threw off both my cooking and my noting of it...

Pork Chops
Soy Sauce
Fish Sauce
Oyster Sauce
1 TB Sesame Oil
Ground Ginger
Brown Sugar
Red pepper flakes
Instant Brown Rice
1/4 cup Chopped Scallions
1 Tsp grated Ginger
2 cloves minced Garlic
2 cups chopped Pineapple
2 Eggs, lightly beaten
1 Red Pepper, diced
3 TB Peanut Oil

I cobbled this together from a couple of different recipes I looked at, with the basic formula coming from Bittman's How to Cook Everything. I made a marinade with 2 TB soy sauce, a dash of fish sauce, 1 TB sesame oil, some red pepper flakes, and about a TB of ground ginger, and let the pork sit for a little while. I roasted it at 375 for 45 min to an hour, checking it periodically to flip and baste, while it got good and crisped. When it cooled, I shredded it.

Prepare the rice according to the packaging. Mix a sauce with 2 TB soy, 1 TB oyster sauce, dash fish sauce, red pepper flakes, and about 1 TB brown sugar. Heat the oil in a wok on high (though you may need to put the heat down a bit - it started spitting all over the kitchen), then sautee the garlic, ginger, and scallion for a couple of minutes. Add the pepper and sautee for a minute. Put the heat to medium high, add pork and rice, and stir fry for a couple of minutes. Add the pineapple and stir for a minute. Make a hole in the middle and add the egg, scrambling it until cooked and then mixing it into the rice. Cook for a minute, stir in sauce, and serve.

We ate tons, and only had 2 leftover servings, but probably could have gotten 3 out of it if we'd not been so hungry...

Note: The rice had way too much moisture content - everything I looked at recommended using day old rice, but I tried to go the instant route. I'd do the day old route next time, or try to cook the rice with less water.

Tuna with Tomatoes, Parsnips, Spinach, and Chickpeas

This is one of those "clean out the pantry because I don't want to go to the store" kind of recipes, but it's pretty good, easy, and made almost entirely of stuff that I typically have on hand. A. was initially suspicious of this, but seemed to like it.

2 cans Tuna
2 cans diced Tomatoes
2 cans Chickpeas
2 Parsnips
Spinach
Onion
Garlic
Rice

Steam parsnips. Sautee onion and garlic for about4-5 minutes. Add tomatoes, parsnips, and chickpeas and bring just to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 5-7 minutes. Add tomatoes and a couple handfuls of spinach and simmer, covered, for another 5 minutes or so. Serve over rice.

We had 3 good-sized servings leftover; could probably have stretched it into four. The parsnips were the one thing that I added that weren't standard on-hand ingredients, and I didn't actually steam them beforehand. I would steam them the next time, though, as they didn't get as tender as I would have hoped.

Winter Stew

I made this stew on Sunday but we didn't eat it until Monday, as I could let the flavors spend a day diffusing. This is another dish where I was taking advantage of the new dutch over. We had some chicken thighs in the freezer, so I thawed them out, and decided to build a stew around them and some winter veggies (my measurements here are very inexact):

1-2 lbs. Chicken thighs
Salt and Pepper to season
1 lb (approx) Parsnips (chopped 1/4-1/2 in. thick)
1 lb (approx) Sweet Potatoes (chopped 1/4-1/2 in. thick)
2-3 cups Kale (chopped)
5-6 cloves garlic
1 onion, sliced
1 TB tomato paste
1 beer (stout)
Chicken stock
1/4 cup flour

Set oven to 300. Season the chicken and brown it in the dutch oven, medium high, set aside. Heat oil and sautee onion and garlic with the tomato paste, medium low, for 3-5 minutes. Add flour and sautee briefly. Add parsnips and potatoes, chicken, and pour the beer into the pot. Add chicken stock to bring the liquid level up to cover the ingredients halfway. Stir and put the pot, covered, in the oven. After half an hour, add kale. Cook an additional half an hour.

This turned out really well. I think maybe the stout was a bit too strongly flavored—next time I'd consider either a slighly lighter beer, or even some white wine. Some herbs might have flavored it a bit more, as well. A. thinks maybe kale and parsnips are too much, that one or the other would be a better choice, and have a more neutral veggie instead (or beans, since I know kale and white beans is a fairly classic combo). I did like, in this combo, the visual aspect of it—it looked like a basic stew, but the potatoes were actually parsnips and the carrots were actually sweet potatoes. We've got probably 4 servings left over.

There's a basic stew template in the Jan/Feb Cooks Illustrated that was indispensable for this, as it provides a good chart of times for various meats and veggies. This is the best basis for variation I've seen.

Dumplings with Soy Slaw

A. picked up stuff to make this recipe from Real Simple. She changed it up with some Broccoli slaw instead of coleslaw, served it warm rather than cold, and tried frying the dumplings in sesame oil and garlic after cooking them in boiling water (the package only had instructions for boiling). This didn't work well—the pot stickers fell apart in the oil. Next time we won't boil it and just cook it straight in oil (though we're not entirely sure how long we should do it...).

Chicken in a Pot

So, I got this great enameled cast iron dutch oven on Friday and wanted to try it out. So I went for the basic Chicken in a Pot, with a variation of cabbage and sour sauce (this particular one was from How to Cook Everything, but there's a recipe for it in pretty much any book). This was my first whole chicken, but it was pretty easy to manage. Not much to say about it, really, except that it's sort of time-consuming on the prep side. It made lots of leftovers and has lots of possibility for variation.