Deliveries and Disasters

Tuesday night, along with some grilled chicken that I had socked away in the freezer, we had our first bites of Swiss chard. "Bob" made it using the crystallized ginger recipe and it was very tasty. Unfortunately, the crystallized ginger and lemon flavors were so pronounced, I still have no idea what Swiss chard really tastes like. Good thing that some more chard was included in today's shipment from the CSA.

Which brings me to today's topic. "Bob" was not happy at all with our CSA today. The share included: a bunch of moldy-topped onions, a blackened garlic bulb, a rotting head of lettuce, a decent head of savoy cabbage, a wilty bunch of basil, three rather small red beets, one very small flat squash, and a single average-size summer squash. The only good thing about this week's share was that it was delivered to our doorstep. "Bob" is reconsidering his desire to sign up again for next year. I guess we'll just have to see how the whole year goes before we make a firm decision. But this locavore eating has it's ups and downs.

"Bob" has some theories regarding our sad looking shares: we're either getting the worst of the batch because the farmer is selling better produce at farmer's markets (while our food is already paid for no matter what it looks like) OR we're getting the leftovers from farmer's markets. Either option is not all that appealing.

Of course, Bob is not alone in his conspiracy theory. Another disgruntled CSA-er (and friend of mine) has decided to blog about her CSA frustrations. For more laughs than you thought possible from the very, very serious topic of saving the planet through eating locally and organically, you MUST visit Complaining Jane's new I Hate My CSA blog (as with "Bob" her real identity will remain a closely held secret).

Last night I had dinner with some friends and "Bob" had the Italian turkey sausage dinner (made with chicken sausage) with pasta. When I got home, we had no electricity thanks to a large storm in our area. For a few hours I worried that all my frozen soups, meats, pesto, pot pies, and bread crumbs were going to suffer a horrible meltdown. No worries. Power was restored at about 2:30 a.m. and everything was still intact this morning (I didn't dare open the freezer last night; I didn't want to let any cold air escape).

I had a huge lunch of mussels and popcorn shrimp and fried calamari, so there's no dinner planned. The rest of this week's menu will have to be made tomorrow. I have off tomorrow so I still plan on making a dill potato salad and maybe even some cole slaw with that new cabbage head.

Spinach and Bok Choy, Oh Joy

Sure, we lost half of our CSA delivery due to exploding water bottles, and last week's menu was hardly followed at all (no Asian soup and no peas and carrots, since I went out a few nights this week). But all was not lost.

Last night we grilled chicken (just marinated in olive oil and salt and pepper) and I made saag (an Indian dish) with the spinach (because I made it with spinach leaves, I believe it's more appropriately referred to as palaak paneer). It was delicious! I think I could've added a bit less of the cumin and more of the garam masala (which is alongside the regular spices now, thanks to McCormick's worldly ways). I served the saag as just a side dish, but "Bob" would've liked it much more if I had made some rice or put out some nan (or any bread for that matter). He found it a bit strong to eat all by its lonesome—he likened it to eating pesto without the pasta. Me? I just shoveled it all in.

Tonight, after the great vegetable disaster, we decided on having bok choy and some crackers and cheese (and wine). The bok choy was a bit wilty and in need of immediate attention. The stir fry with ginger was flavorful and quick. The recipes for both vegetable dishes follow.

Saag/Palaak Paneer
Serves about 4 (but I ate twice as much as I should have)

12 ounces spinach (stems removed and leaves washed and chopped)
1 medium onion (chopped)
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
1-inch piece of ginger (quartered)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground coriander
2 tablespoons tomato puree (or 2 teaspoons of tomato paste diluted with 2 tablespoons water)
1 teaspoon garam masala
2 tablespoons evaporated milk

Directions
1. Put onion, garlic, and ginger in a blender with a little water and blend to a paste.
2. Heat oil in a small-to-medium pan, add onion mixture and cumin, and let this turn golden-brown over medium heat (add additional oil if necessary)
3. Add turmeric and the spinach.
4. Stir for 5 minutes and add the coriander and tomato puree.
5. Let the spinach cook for about 20 minutes on medium heat.
6. Add the garam masala and the evaporated milk and stir.

Nutrition Information per Serving
Calories: ; Carbohydrates: ; Protein: ; Fat: ; Cals./g:
*Points:

Ginger-Garlic Bok Choy Stir-Fry
Servings 2 -4 (we ate it all since it was our main course)

1 "head" of bok choy
1/2 red pepper, seeded and chopped
1/2 cup of English peas
2 garlic scapes, minced
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil

Directions
1. Separate the dark green top leaves of the bok choy from the white portion of the bulb.
2. If the leaves are still firm and fresh, separate the small leaves from the large leaves (put the small leaves aside). Otherwise do not use the leaves if they are too wilted.
3. Chop the large leaves into 1-inch pieces (put aside with small leaves.
4. Chop the white portion of the bok choy into 1/4 slices (on the diagonal looks nice).
5. Heat up oil in pan on highest heat.
6. Toss in white slices of bok choy and red pepper and saute for 2 to 3 minutes.
7. Then toss in the minced garlic scapes and grated ginger and saute for another 30 to 45 seconds.
8. Add the leaves, cook for 30 seconds more and then deglaze with soy sauce.

Nutrition Information per Serving
Calories: ; Carbohydrates: ; Protein: ; Fat: ; Cals./g:
*Points:

Menu a la Week: 6/21/08 - 6/27/08

It's a day late, but what follows is this week's menu (and what happened last week).

Recap: Friday night we had nothing for dinner since we both had big lunches and Thursday night my husband had oatmeal and raisins since I went out drinking for the departure of a colleague to grad school (Bye Sarah! See you soon for cocktails).

Since the broccoli head from our first CSA share looked a bit wilty, we started with that first. ("Bob" passed on the offer of broccoli leaves since he couldn't think of anything to do with them; I've since learned you can use them like kale and as a base for broccoli soup). About a third of the broccoli florets was used for last night's salad. We also had one of the frozen chicken pot pies (and it was fine without the egg wash, just not as glistening and pretty).

Since we didn't get through all of our frozen foods last week, we'll have more things to choose from in our freezer this week. With all the planting we did yesterday, there wasn't much time to cook anyway.

This week, we'll have to get through the broccoli (easy) and the scapes. What are scapes, you ask? A green flower from the garlic bulb. These shoots emerge from the ground and are ripe for harvesting for about 2 to 3 weeks. Check out The New York Times article on scapes that was published last week.

There are so many English peas, that they'll be coming out of our ears by Friday. As for the spinach, I know what not to make with it. I also have some new ideas on how to prepare it. For lunch Friday, I had a great Indian spinach dish (I believe it is called palak paneer). Now I'm on the hunt for a good recipe for it. I already have a good semi-Italian spinach recipe, and, of course, spinach will be incorporated into our salads. Armed with four or more recipes/uses, we should be able to get through all the spinach they throw at us.

By the looks of this week's menu, we'll be needing plenty of ginger. In searching around for various pesto recipes (Gail needed some basil/pesto advice), I came across this blog: Kalyn's Kitchen. This post talks about freezing basil but I also noticed that she freezes ginger root. I didn't know that could be done.

My freezer is going to be jealous of hers. Hers is so much better looking.


Hers
vs.

Mine

Menu 6/21/08 - 6/27/08
Saturday June 21, 2008
Chicken pot pie and salad (with broccoli and red leaf lettuce and mustard vinaigrette)

Sunday June 22, 2008
Garlic scape pesto with pasta and salad

Monday June 23, 2008
Ginger chicken and broccoli stir fry with brown rice

Tuesday June 24, 2008
Chicken and palak/saag paneer

Wednesday June 25, 2008
Scape pesto and green salad

Thursday June 26, 2008
Turkey meatloaf and herbed English peas and carrots (with garlic scapes!)

Friday June 27, 2008
English pea Asian chicken soup (or some other English pea soup)