CSA experiment #5: Three Ways with Arugula, or How to serve your husband (and yourself) 2 whole bunches of arugula at one sitting and remain married

So, I got sort of behind on cooking the CSA veggies...to the point that I had *3* bunches of arugula in the fridge yesterday, one of which was dangerously close to becoming compost heap feed. Yesterday, I aimed to use as much arugula as possible for dinner. I had already planned to grill some tuna steaks, so that part of the meal was pretty much set. With the help of my trusty Culinary Artistry, I made a tasty, and relatively light, 3-course meal that used up 2 full bunches! And that the grudging vegetable-eater I'm married to enjoyed as well.

Happily, there were no salad greens in this week's share, so I think we will conquer the mountain of arugula within a couple of days. :)

First course:

Rocket* Salad with sliced avocado, dried cranberries and sliced almonds

Avocado Vinaigrette

1/8 avocado, mashed
1 T olive oil
1-2 t. white wine vinegar
1-2 t. water
touch of lemon juice
salt & pepper

Mix well, toss with salad ingredients. Serves 2.

* arugula...but rocket sounds more fun (and less like arugula)

Second course:

Lemon Arugula Soup

1 bunch arugula, washed, destemmed and chopped roughly (this is where I used the stuff that was already a bit wilty)
1 shallot, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 c vegetable broth
1 T olive oil
2 T lemon juice, divided
1 c milk
salt & pepper

Heat oil over medium heat, saute shallot and garlic until soft. Add arugula and a little salt and saute until wilted. Add broth, bring to a simmer; simmer for ~7 or 8 minutes. Add 1 T lemon juice. Simmer for 1 minute more. Turn off heat. Puree with immersion blender in pot or in blender/food processor in batches. If you want it really smooth, this is where you would strain it, but for every day, I don't see a point. Return to pot on med-low heat. Slowly stir in milk and season with salt, pepper and remaining lemon juice. Serve ASAP...careful not to let soup get hot enough to simmer or the milk might break. Serves 2.

Third course:

Grilled Yellow Fin with Thyme Butter, served over arugula and mashed potatoes

A big spoonful of your standard mashed potatoes: a couple potatoes scrubbed, boiled for 25 minutes and mashed with milk, butter, salt and pepper

Topped with a bed of fresh arugula leaves,

The fish,

Preheat grill to 500-550 degrees & clean grates.

2 yellow fin tuna steaks, fresh or thawed

Coat with olive oil and sprinkle all sides with salt and pepper. Grill for about 3 minutes per side.

and the herb butter.

1 T unsalted butter, room temperature
2 t fresh thyme, chopped fine
salt & pepper

Mash together; put half on top of each tuna steak.

Hopefully I'll remember to add the photo of this when I can, but I've been so bad about posting, I thought it best to get the menu out there while the getting was good. :)

CSA experiment #4: In my pickinic basket

Inspired by this recipe, on Friday I made a summer salad with feta.

Summer Salad with Feta

4 generous servings

1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 large cucumber, seeded, quartered and sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/4 c red onion, chopped (mine was a full super tiny one, half of a normal small one would be about right)
20 or so chopped kalamata olives
salt and pepper
2 T sherry vinegar
1/4 c olive oil
1/2 c crumbled feta (I used Trader Joe's fat free feta, and I couldn't tell the difference)
1/4 c fresh mint, chopped

Toss together the tomatoes, cuke, onion and olives. Mix vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper and toss with the veggies. Add the feta and mint and toss again. Adjust seasonings to taste.

This salad was delicious! My normally anti-vegetable husband was so taken with it that he had seconds, and I caught him standing in front of the fridge eating leftovers out of the bowl.

Tonight, we decided to have a picnic in the park, so to the leftovers of this salad, I added 1 1/2 cups of chopped leftover cooked chicken. I put big leaves of green leaf lettuce in whole wheat pita pockets and stuffed them with the chicken salad mixture. It was divine! The boy noted that it tasted so good that one might have thought that I made the salad for this purpose. I served the pita sandwiches with leftovers of this chilled cucumber soup made with mint instead of basil.

We had a great time. The food was refreshing and light, the park was beautiful and remarkably empty, and it was a perfect end to a relaxing weekend.

Summer in a bowl, or CSA experiment #3

Okay, so I've actually done more than three experiments with my lovely CSA produce, but I've been dreadful about recording them for posterity...

I've been really grooving on my Culinary Artistry book since it basically has lists and lists of flavors that mesh well. I got more cucumbers this week when I still had one left from last week, and as I've got a full container of cucumber onion salad marinating in the fridge, that was out. I checked the pantry and found a can of light coconut milk and I thought--ooh, a cold cucumber soup would be perfect for a hot July evening when I got home from work after 7pm. The recipe below chronicles the experiment.

Chilled Cucumber Soup

2 medium cukes, chopped (I left the peel on)
1 can light coconut milk
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 fat doobie of basil, minced fine (about 1/8 c.)

Put cukes, milk and garlic in blender. (Nothing fancy is necessary. I use the Osterizer Galaxy that my parents got as a wedding gift in 1975.) Puree for a minute or so until pretty well blenderized. Add basil and a little salt and blend. Taste.

It still needed something so I added:

1 T lemon juice
4 good shakes of white pepper
more salt

Blend. Taste.

At this point it still wasn't quite right, so I added a little more salt and pepper.

There was still a place in the back center of my tongue that the soup was missing. I decided it needed something tangy, so I added:

1-2 T. white wine vinegar
a couple more shakes of white pepper
a touch more salt

Blend. Taste. Perfect! Chill for a few minutes (or more) before serving--in retrospect I probably should have added a couple of ice cubes to help with the chilling process. But it was still good only a little cool.

Makes about 3 servings, 2 generous servings.

The boy called this "the best cucumber I've ever eaten." It was crisp and cool and the flavors meshed really well. I'm not always that into cold soups, but this was excellent, and also super easy and quick.

for beets' sake! or, CSA experiment #2

Okay, so... I hate beets. Or, at least I thought I did. So, I'll admit it wasn't entirely unintentional that the veggie from our CSA that I decided to experiment with for a dish I was taking to a party to share was the bunch of beets we received.

Turns out that apparently beets can be pretty good. So many people asked for the recipe that I am posting it here. I'm pretty proud of myself given that I made this for the party in hopes that at least *someone* would like it, and I wouldn't have to take the offending beets home with me. I had no idea the dish would be completely empty by that evening! It was inspired by an epicurious recipe, but is substantially different because I had different ingredients and proportions.

Beet Risotto with Goat Cheese

6 large or 8 small servings

1/2 stick unsalted butter
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 bunch baby red beets, diced (Mine were a combination of red ace and chioggia, about 1" to 1.5" in diameter. You could probably also use a couple of large beets, peeled and diced)
1 c (or so) arborio rice
3-4 c vegetable broth (low sodium if not homemade)
1 T (or so) balsamic vinegar (I used a 10 year aged O brand one. I think the more expensive aged vinegars are worth it for uses like this. I didn't really measure, so you may want to add more to taste.)
Salt & pepper
3-4 oz. soft goat cheese, crumbled

Melt butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add beets and onion and sprinkle with salt. Saute for a few minutes, until onion is soft. Mix in rice and saute for about 1 minute until rice is coated and translucent. Add 3 c. broth and vinegar. Increase heat slightly and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat slowly to keep the pan at a simmer constantly. The whole dish should be brilliantly red! If the rice starts to look dry, add more broth. Stir frequently to ward off sticking. Simmer uncovered until rice is tender and creamy and beets are still barely crunchy. This took me about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Taste and adjust as needed. I'll admit I skipped this part because I was scared of the beets, so it's a good thing that it turned out for the best. Serve topped with crumbled goat cheese.

My goat cheese got sort of warm in my purse while I was walking to the party where it was served, so it didn't really crumble very well, but it was just as good with a little hunk of goat cheese cut off the log on top. :)

It was really pretty--I'm kind of sad that I don't have a photo. :) I have beets again this week, so maybe we'll have beet risotto again next weekend!

CSA experiment #1

The Boy and I started receiving a weekly CSA (community-supported agriculture subscription) last week. It is clear that I'm going to have to get creative with my preparations because (to be honest) I've never cooked with a lot of these things before.

Aside from the fact that I couldn't quite identify what the rapini (a.k.a. broccoli raab) was that we recieved (even though it was delicious and had pretty yellow flowers), we have been pretty mundane with it. Salad and that sort of thing. Yesterday was my first major CSA experiment:

Orzo with Spinach and Green Garlic

serves 2

2 c. fresh spinach, chopped
1 green garlic, chopped
1/4 c. orzo
1 T. olive oil
salt
pepper

1/4 c. grated parmesan

Boil water, heavily salted. Cook orzo to package directions in salted water. Meanwhile, cook green garlic sprinkled with salt and pepper in 1/2 T. olive oil in nonstick skillet for a few minutes until soft. Add spinach and 1 t. oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper and cook until done, about 4 minutes. Drain orzo, and reserve a few Tbs. of pasta water for later. Combine orzo with spinach mixture. Add remaining oil and parmesan. Add pasta water to loosen as needed.

This recipe turned out well--it was fast enough for a weeknight dinner, but tasted quite complex. I think I like green garlic.


Today, I made a midweek pizza concoction with Trader Joe's premade pizza dough, jarred sauce, pregrated light mozzarella cheese, Morningstar Farms soy sausage crumbles, chopped green garlic, chopped rapini and chopped fresh basil.

I had, as always, a little trouble with the step where you transfer the prepared pizza from your "peel" to the stone in the oven, but it ended up working out okay, and I got compliments on the topping choices!

The rapini had even begun to bloom (which I wasn't aware that it did) so we had adorable yellow flowers on our pizza. Cute cute cute!