Broccoli - Red Cabbage Slaw

Not sure if this is a slaw or salad...but regardless, with the temperature at about 137 degrees today, turning on the stove/oven was not an appealing option. So, this happened:

Pretty red (purple?) cabbage...

...a good amount of raw broccoli, with lots of broccoli stems (when I was a kid, I would only eat the stems and my sister would only eat the florets. I guess that worked!)...

...the rest of the red onion from this week and part of a red pepper (the broccoli stems, onion and pepper were sliced on the mandoline, which is more fun than it rightly should be), a handful of dried cranberries...

...made a dressing of about 1/4 cup each mayo & plain Greek yogurt, apple cider vinegar, dijon mustard, sugar, salt, pepper and "red & black" (thank you Susan!), and also added some chopped toasted walnuts. OK, I did turn the stove on to toast the walnuts...

My dilemma was what else I was going to have for dinner, but then Amy uttered those three little words: "I'm ordering Chinese." Bingo. So this goes with General Tso's chicken, right?

Raw Beet Salad

OK beets, you've failed me for the last time...

After the chewy beet chips, I had to redeem myself with this week's beet. It's the same candy-striped "Chioggia" variety. I thought I'd try something raw, and there are a fair amount of raw beet salad recipes online...including from Mark Bittman, who usually doesn't fail.

So I once again whipped out the mandoline and sliced the beet on the slightly thicker side (did peel it this time, which wasn't too hard--and the Chioggia beets really don't stain)...

Then cut the slices into julienne:

Then dressed with olive oil, cider vinegar, dijon mustard, maple syrup and some fresh mint. Oh, and added some thin slices of the red onion we got.

The beets were so sweet and crunchy...if you can find these gems, raw is recommended!

Week 5: Onions!

New stuff this week--two kinds of onions, and red cabbage:

We also got broccoli, a couple kinds of lettuce, ruby chard, and beets. Lots of red/purple things!

Roasted Broccoli, Pesto Bread, Sausage + Peppers & Onion

Tonight's dinner:

-Roasted broccoli (just tossed with olive oil, salt & pepper, roasted at 400 for about 15 mins)
-Basil pesto spread on bread & toasted
-Italian sausage, peppers & the onion we got this week

Pretty simple, but good. Had this with a glass of Syrah from Elk Run Vinyards in Mt. Airy, MD where my band played recently. Part of the pay was taking home a bottle. Works for me!

So here's to eating and drinking [mostly] local. But now I need a nap.

Beet Chips Experiment

Because we'd gotten the striped beets again, I thought beet chips would be fun to do to show off the pretty colors. I even found myself passing by a Williams Sonoma, so I picked up a mandoline for the thin slicin'. I didn't bother peeling the beets, as the peels seemed pretty thin (and mostly I just didn't want to bother). As predicted, they made really beautiful slices:

I tossed them with some olive oil, put them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and sprinkled with salt & pepper. I'd looked at several recipes online, and some said to bake at a very low temperature for an hour or more; some said to do about 20 minutes at a higher temperature. Almost all the recipes said to watch them closely as they could burn easily. So, I put them in at 325 for 20 minutes, and removed the ones that were getting really done. I probably baked them about 10 minutes more and it looked like they were getting pretty browned. Most of the recipes said they wouldn't be crisp out of the oven, but they'd crisp as they cool. So, I waited...

And they didn't get crisp. I put them in the oven a little longer, then waited again...but they remained pretty chewy. Even left them out overnight, but...nope. I'm guessing I used too much oil, but I'm not quite sure what happened (the slices were pretty thin with the mandoline). Also, I think I used too much salt & pepper for my taste...couldn't really taste any beet. But rob's been munching on them through the day, so they're edible...just not great. And yeah, they're not as pretty as the raw slices:

Slightly more successful was tonight's dinner. The basil was on its last leg, so I made pesto (with walnuts instead of pine nuts). Also made the kale salad for the 3rd time...but since we didn't get much kale, I used up all the swiss chard from last week and this week.

I think I like it better with all kale, but it was still pretty good. Used lemon juice instead of cider vinegar and it was a little too tart. Also didn't have any goat cheese so I used shaved parmesan. Like the goat cheese better. And didn't use any oniony things, which I missed. But still, it's ridiculous how good this salad is.

So all we've got left from this week is broccoli, an onion and a bit of lettuce...but the lettuce is looking a bit sad, so that may have to go to waste.

Pasta with Roasted Cauliflower

Found a delicious way to use this week's and last week's cauliflower. I've never roasted cauliflower before, but it sounded easy and a lot tastier than boiled/steamed cauliflower. Indeed it is!

I cut the cauliflower into fairly small florets, and tossed it with olive oil, some chopped rosemary from our garden, salt & pepper. Spread out on a baking sheet and roasted at 400 for about 20 minutes, stirring once through. Turned lightly crispy and brown in places.

Meanwhile, I sauteed a chopped onion and a couple big cloves of garlic in olive oil, with a healthy pinch of red pepper flakes. Added in the cauliflower and tossed this with "Conchiglioni" pasta (little conch shells).

Threw in a little bit of the pasta cooking water, grated parmesan, and some of the basil we got this week. Was going to add some lemon juice, but I forgot...that would have been a nice addition. It was still pretty tasty. Might also try roasting this week's broccoli. Too bad that requires use of the oven in this summer heat!

Week 4: Veggie Fatigue?

Wednesday night, rob and I were driving home after a long day of work, and the "whaddya want to do for dinner?" question was posed. I said, "Well, what do I have in the fridge?...cauliflower, mustard greens and Swiss chard." Both of us went "eh, none of that really sounds appealing." We went to Panera.

Still, none of that remaining stuff from last week has been eaten (got home at 1:30am last night), and the slaw I made quickly became soggy gloop. And now we have this week's box:

More beets, more cauliflower, more swiss chard, more kale, more lettuce, broccoli, onions, and a bunch of basil (the latter of which would be more exciting if it wasn't already starting to turn brown, and if we didn't already have 3 basil plants growing in the garden). I saw a post on One Straw's blog that they had some more things ready and their CSA folks would be getting more stuff besides greens, but...not quite this week!

So yeah, I think I've got a bit of the veggie fatigue. I'm sure it'll pass though. We're going out of town for a day and a half and then we're home for 2 days, so hopefully I'll get some inspiration.