Our summer of CSA - week 2

This week's CSA bounty included a lot of greenery: collards along with swiss chard, parsley, and something I finally identified as watercress. We also received some lovely raspberries and a small paper bag full of cherries. The fruit was easily dispensed with, but we pondered how to handle the rest in this hot weather, which doesn't make one like to turn on the stovetop, let alone the oven.

First up was tackling the watercress, since we learned via the Internet that it's fairly delicate and wouldn't last a terribly long time. Luckily I still had some radishes left from last week, and these, along with butter and some incredibly creamy goat cheese from Formaggio Essex, made a terrific foil for the tangy cress in a baguette sandwich. Serve with some sparkling water and - voila. Very French. We also found that buying a nice head of lettuce made watercress and radish salad an appetizing option as well.

Next we tackled the collards. A variation on this recipe, previously posted on the blog, was a great way to keep the stove use to a minimum. In the variation, from my new cookbook Fast, Fresh and Green, you make a little dressing with honey and cider vinegar and pour it over the top of greens cooked with garlic and pepper flakes just as they're finishing (not unlike this recipe).

Finally, one of my favorite soups, and one I usually cook in the wintertime: chard, potato, and white bean ragout. I just can't think of a better way to eat chard, so we braved the hot kitchen and cooked up a storm.

Next week, I'm hoping for some more delicious fruit, and we'll finish off our parsley in some lemony tabbouleh.

Grilling, New York style

Lentils with Spinach and Soy Sauce

One of my favorite recipes, this is a pretty simple way to get dinner on the table during a week night. We had just enough spinach from our CSA to put this together. I like using French puy lentils for their nuttiness and meaty, chewy texture; my honey liked the "comfort food" quality of regular, softer green lentils. Either will work for this recipe.

Lentils with Spinach and Soy Sauce

1 cup dry lentils
1 bay leaf
1/2 onion
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup diced, peeled carrots
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 medium bunch spinach, about 12 oz., trimmed & washed
1 tbsp soy sauce

Sort and rinse lentils. Add to a pot and cover with 1 to 2 inches of water, along with the half an onion and bay leaf. Simmer until tender, about 20 minutes based on the type of lentil (check the bag or container). Drain but do not rinse.

In a deep skillet, heat olive oil and then add carrots, sauteeing about 10 minutes, until tender. Add the garlic and stir to blend. Add the cooked, drained lentils (about 3 cups, cooked), the spinach and the soy sauce. Cover and cook for about 2 minutes, until the spinach has wilted down a bit, and then stir the pot. Cover and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Serve with rice or without.

Recipe modified from The Joy of Cooking.

Starting our Summer of CSA

This summer I signed up for a CSA share. I thought it would be an awesome way to support small farms, and it turns out that it's quite exciting, too. Every Tuesday I'll pick up a bag of mystery fruits and vegetables and have to figure out a way to cook with them. It's like Christmas every week!

This week we received strawberries, apples, radishes, lettuce, spinach, and cilantro. First, we made strawberry popsicles. We had a whole basket of tiny, ripe red berries and couldn't eat them all on cereal, after all. We mashed about a cup of berries together with a tablespoon or so of sugar and let them macerate for a bit, then added a half cup of plain yogurt and enough milk to thin it out. After a splash of lime juice, we added them to our popsicle molds and voila! They taste like strawberry frozen yogurt.

Dealing with our other ingredients required a bit more ingenuity. I haven't cooked much with radishes, and never with their fuzzy green fronds. A bit of research proved they were indeed edible and in fact tasty. So tonight, we made a pretty straight-forward salad: fresh green lettuce, paper-thin radish rounds, slivers of radish greens, and a mustard vinaigrette. It tasted fresh off the farm.


So far, CSA - thumbs up. Later this week we'll make a spicy tomato soup with lots of cilantro.

Quick Buttermilk Scones with Ginger

So you make a buttermilk cake and find yourself with half a quart of buttermilk. What to do? I made somethin' out of nothin' by turning my breakfast dilemma (empty fridge) into something delicious - buttermilk scones. These are basically quick drop biscuits, but they turned out so tender and buttery that A) it's hard to believe they're low-fat and B) I may have to cook with buttermilk all the time!

Buttermilk Drop Scones with Ginger
recipe from The Joy of Cooking

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 large egg
1 cup non-fat buttermilk
3 1/2 tbsp melted, warm butter
1/2 cup chopped candied ginger (or dried fruit of your choice)

• Preheat oven to 400F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper
• Wisk together dry indredients in a medium-sized bowl.
• Wisk together wet ingredients and candied ginger, then pour all at once into dry ingredients.
• Mix with a fork just until the dry ingredients are moistened. The dough will be quite sticky. Use a soup spoon or ice cream scoop to drop the dough in mounds about 2 1/2 inches wide one inch apart on the baking sheet.
• Bake until the tops are golden brown, about 12-15 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Strawberry Buttermilk Cake

Last week I made an amazing buttermilk cake, which turned out to be the very same on my friend C had found on Smitten Kitchen the week before. We all must have been struck by the simplicity and quiet elegance of this cake - the sort of thing you'd take to a picnic and serve with sparkling lemonade and linen cocktail napkins. It's also a wonderful vehicle for early summer berries, especially when you can't pass up a great deal at the farmer's market and come home with two quarts of strawberries.


Recipe adapted from Gourmet magazine, June 2009.

Is it obnoxious to say I think mine looks the prettiest?

Chocolate Pecan Pie

Grown-up dessert! A layer of dark chocolate topped with sweet, rich pecan filling. This pie has a buttery, shattery crust and a strong hit of chocolate, so use the best you can find. I had a big bar of bittersweet Sharfenberger that worked beautifully.

The recipe is wonderful as is, but I have a few tips.

When making the crust, use 1/2 to 1 tbsp of vodka if the dough needs moistening after the initial 3 tbsp of water. This is a Cook's Illustrated tip that keeps the dough from getting too tough while making it easier to roll out.

Because you're putting a layer of chocolate on the bottom, the pie is best served a little warm. If you eat it straight from the refrigerator, you've got a hard piece of chocolate to bite through (not the most appealing).

As always, I also suggest making your own brown sugar. Just mash together regular sugar and molasses with a fork until it turns the desired shade of brown (whether you're looking for light or dark brown sugar). The taste is always much richer than conventional brown sugar.

Here's the recipe, from Gourmet: Chocolate Pecan Pie.

Enjoy!