CSA Update: 5/5/12

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Here’s what we got in our Eatwell CSA box on Wednesday:

strawberries
mixed mustard greens
mixed lettuce
sugar snap peas
Italian flat-leaf parsley
eureka lemons
fava beans
stir-fry mix (kale, collards, chard, and arugula)
white spring onions
green garlic
fennel
turnips

I even remembered to take a picture this time! Aren’t you proud of me?

Front row, left to right: strawberries, green garlic, eureka lemons, fava beans, white spring onions, mustard greens. Second row: Fennel, turnips, sugar snap peas, stir-fry mix. Back row (in bags): mixed lettuce, parsley.

We ate the strawberries first, since they looked like they were already well past ripe. After eyeing the delicious looking pints of fresh strawberries at Whole Foods for the past 2 weeks, I was SO excited to get our own from Eatwell. Sadly, these did not live up to my expectations. They were kinda bland, and a couple were rotten. But hopefully this is just because it’s early in the season. I hope that by the time we go to the farm on May 19th to pick our own strawberries, we’ll get some nice sweet ones.

Here’s what we’ve made so far with this batch of produce:

1. Five spice eggplant and ground pork. Basically this recipe, subbing out the tofu with Marin Sun Farms ground pork, and green garlic and white spring onions in for the garlic and green onions. It was very good, if I do say so myself.

Five spice eggplant and ground pork. Yet another one of those dishes that tastes better than it looks.

2. Salad, featuring mixed lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, sunflower seeds, and homemade tahini dressing. I love tahini dressing, but I’ve never made it before. It’s so easy! Basically, it’s just tahini paste, water, garlic, salt, and sugar. I wasn’t completely captivated by the recipe that we used, but when I tweak it just right, I’ll be sure to post it here. We ate the salad with this unique, delicious, and healthy pasta dish from the Post-Punk Kitchen.

Simple salad with tahini dressing.

Creamy red chard linguine

3. Turnip and parsley cake. This was an utter disaster… probably the worst thing I’ve ever made. If TC and I weren’t sharing a plate, I would’ve spit it back out. What promised to be a potato latke-type veggie pancake turned out more like undercooked mushy turnips. The parsley only made it worse, IMHO. Even smothering the thing in ketchup couldn’t save it, that’s how bad it was.

Major turnip fail.

4. Steamed tilapia with sweet chili sauce. The same night as the turnip fail, we managed to pull off a fish win. This was a recipe that I originally got 10+ years from a family friend (specifically, my brother-in-law’s sister LO). It’s usually done with a whole fish, but I went with frozen tilapia filets from Trader Joe’s. It’s super easy and very tasty too!  I forgot to get ginger so I had to put some powdered stuff in there, and we subbed the green onion with white spring onions. Delish! I’ll post the recipe soon.

Steamed fish covered in yummy sauce.

5. Sautéed mustard greens with garlic and oyster sauce. Collard greens are still our #1 favorites, but these come in at a close second in my book. We got two varieties — a flat leaf and a curly green. The curly one was sort of spicy, in a horse radish-y way.

A cast iron pan full of greens!

6. Sugar snap peas. We’ve been eating these raw as a snack. They are so good! Might be my favorite thing out of this whole box.

Tomorrow, we’re going to try our hand at cooking fava beans for the first time with this recipe. Wish us luck! Oh, and I’ll probably make this recipe with the fennel on Monday or Tuesday. Of course I’ll report back and let you know how it goes.

p.s. Can’t get enough of CSA goodies? Check out this link party over at In Her Chucks!

Curry tuna salad with cranberries & walnuts

Open face tuna salad sandwiches

Despite its downsides, I’ve found Facebook to be pretty useful on occasion. For instance: when my friend PC from grad school raved about her tuna salad, I (and 2 of her other friends) begged for the recipe. She graciously sent it to us, and granted me permission to blog about it. Thanks PC!

So, I followed her recipe and realized a few things:

1. It makes A LOT of tuna salad. Her recipe calls for 3 cans, which would probably last you a whole week’s worth of tuna salad sandwiches. I modified it to 2 cans.
2. I couldn’t find sweet onions at my local market. Initially, I subbed with shallots and thought that they were too strong. I’ve since found that sweet relish is a really good addition.
3. I didn’t have canola oil mayonnaise on hand, so I went with regular mayonnaise. Then, upon realizing that both TC and I prefer Miracle Whip over mayo, I went for the M.W.

Below, you’ll find PC’s original recipe, followed by my modified one. It really is so delicious, and once you have all of the stuff, it’s super easy and quick to make.  Enjoy!

PC’s curry tuna salad with cranberries & walnuts (ORIGINAL)
(all approximations)
3 medium cans of tuna
curry powder (until mix turns yellowish)
half a sweet white onion small diced
1/4 – 1/2 cup dried sweet cranberries
1/4 cup walnut pieces
3 Tbsp canola mayo
salt (to taste)

PC’s curry tuna salad with cranberries & walnuts (MODIFIED)
2 cans of tuna in olive oil, drained
1/2 tsp curry powder
2 Tbsp sweet relish
1/4 cup dried sweet cranberries
1/4 cup walnut pieces (chopped)
1/4 cup mayo or Miracle Whip
salt & pepper (to taste)

Sunday Night Dinners: My First Roast Chicken

When I came across this roast chicken recipe on Chez Pim, I was overwhelmed by the desire to make it. No, I’ve never roasted a chicken, and yes, I was slightly intimidated. But really, how hard could it be? Armed with a meat thermometer and a free range chicken in tow, I set out to make my very first roast chicken.

Stuffed with garlic and lemon, rubbed with butter, and ready to go into the oven!

Since roasting a whole animal seemed like a very domestic thing to do, I decided to dress the part too. I donned a 1950′s style shirt dress that I got from my sister. (If only I had a petticoat to wear under the skirt!) My guests, A, the talented and fashionable blogger at fitforafemme, her wife M, and JA all obliged my request to dress 1950′s style. It was really fun!

To start, JA concocted a delicious cocktail: champagne (Prosecco, actually), gin, and cran-apple juice, garnished with a wedge of lime. Then we moved on to the persimmon, curly endive, and radicchio salad from the Chez Panisse Vegetables cookbook. Even though the salad was beautiful and the first few bites were quite good, it quickly gained a strange texture on my teeth and tongue. It was like something weird was growing on my teeth and I wanted to lick it off. So weird! I couldn’t tell if it was due to the different variety of persimmon I used — the recipe calls for fuyu persimmons, but Berkeley Bowl was only selling hachiya persimmons at the time. My other guess was the radicchio. In any case, I’m not tempted to try this experiment again.

So pretty yet so sad.

The roast chicken turned out quite good, though the winter veggies roasting underneath didn’t fare as well. Due to the low cooking temperature, the chicken was in the oven for a long time, resulting in singed vegetables. Luckily for us, a few veggies escaped scalding — the pieces right underneath the bird ended up caramelized and tasty. As for the recipe, I followed it mostly, except that I cut back on the amount of butter (about 1/4-1/2 stick). It resulted in super flavorful meat — great for sandwiches! But crispy skin? As noted on the recipe, not so much.

Chicken basting, action shot!

Out of the oven, almost done. Looking good!

The carved chicken, with a side of burnt veggies.

To end things on a sweet note, A&M brought over a box of sumptuous cookies from Anthony’s in SF. We had tea and coffee and laughed as A tried to tempt my scaredy cat Sasha from his hiding place under the couch. What a great evening!

What's in that box? Only the best cookies ever.