Kohlrabi Chicken Salad

Favorite use of kohlrabi so far! When raw, it has a celery-like crunch and taste, so I thought it would be good in chicken salad:

Recipe(ish):
- 3-4 chicken breasts, cooked & diced (I poached mine)
- half a kolhrabi bulb, peeled & diced small
- couple of green onions, chopped (I used our red spring onions)
- handful of grapes, halved
- handful of chopped pecans
Dressing:
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup sour cream (or plain yogurt)
- 1 Tbl. dijon mustard
- splash of lime/lemon juice
- salt & pepper

I also added some chopped lemon verbena from our garden; any kind of fresh herbs would be great.

Chicken, Zucchini & Broccoli Stir Fry

I took a rare Thursday off this week and actually got to go to our CSA pickup site! I've never gotten to do that before. OK, it wasn't terribly exciting...the veggies are set out in crates in front of this house; you go check off your name and pick out your stuff:

This week we got red cabbage, kale, peas, zucchini, broccoli, kohlrabi, cauliflower, red spring onions & lettuce.

I've saved up the kale & collards from last week and will combine them with this week's kale for the famous kale salad, to take to a wedding potluck. Tonight I made a simple stir fry with the broccoli & zucchini:

I stir-fried those with some sliced onion, removed them from the pan, added a couple of garlic cloves and some cubed chicken breast. When that cooked through I added the veggies back in and splashed in some soy sauce, honey, lime juice & hot pepper flakes, then added some basil & lemon verbena from our garden. Could've been more "saucy," but it was good.

Arugula-Spinach Pesto

I came home late Thursday night after a gig to this alarming refrigerator situation:

Phew! This is most of the full share, because Sharif & Joanna hadn't picked up their half yet. Then, they lost power in the epic storms, so it looks like our fridge will be hosting stuff for awhile! This week we got arugula, broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens (I think...they're huge), baby turnips, spinach, chard and lettuce.

I thought pesto would be a good way to deal with the arugula & spinach, and I didn't have many other ingredients on hand (didn't feel like leaving the house in 100 degree weather, plus we didn't even know what businesses in the area have power). I made arugula pesto last year and it was yummy.

So, in a blender I whirred the arugula & spinach leaves, some toasted walnuts, two garlic cloves, some olive oil, and a handful of herbs from our garden (basil & lemon verbena), plus salt & pepper and a splash of lime juice. Took awhile to all get pureed in the blender, but eventually I got some nice bright green goo:

(Nice thing about non-basil pesto is it stays green!)

I cooked some pasta and threw some broccoli florets in the water for the last minute. Then tossed it with about half of the pesto, some parmesan and some shredded mozzarella:

Nice side dish with some parmesan-crusted fish (frozen from Safeway, that ol' standby). Arugula pesto has a good peppery bite and it just tastes very "green."

Greens with Chorizo & Potatoes

This was my breakfast treat after making a 5:30am airport run this morning.

Safeway had tubes of fresh chorizo on sale for $1 last time I was there, so I decided to pick one up. Have never used it before, but thought it would go well with greens. Here's a tip - don't read the ingredients label. While I guess I'm all for truth in nutritional labeling, let's just say "pork" and be done with it. It's sausage, we really don't need to get that specific. Anyway -

First I sauteed a large diced potato until somewhat browned & crispy. While that was cooking, I washed & chopped our bunches of kale and swiss chard. Then I put the potatoes aside and in the same pan, browned half of the tube of chorizo. I was thinking it would cook into separate chunks like fresh Italian sausage does, but it became very "loose." Next I added half a green pepper (chopped) that I had hanging around.

Then I added the chopped greens, and cooked for just a few minutes until they wilted down. Added the browned potatoes, and then fried two eggs over easy to top it with.

The verdict? Yummy. But the chorizo was kind of an odd texture and turned a bit pinkish after adding the greens. I was expecting a nice deep red. Perhaps next time I want to use chorizo I'll look for a more "gourmet" iteration of it. Still, it imparted a nice spicy flavor to the whole dish.

I'm making good progress through our onslaught of greens! Have a fair amount of the greens-potato mixture left, but maybe it'll be good for breakfast tomorrow.

Kohlrabi-Apple Slaw, Pasta with Spinach & Peppers

And the onslaught begins! Finally back from tour and picked up this week's veggies on Thursday - which also included some stuff from last week that lasted OK. In total, I think we got: yellow squash, broccoli, red leaf lettuce, green leaf lettuce, swiss chard, dinosaur kale, half a head of cabbage, purple kohlrabi, spinach and arugula. Four big bags squashed in the fridge.

I don't think I'm going to take photos of each week's take, as I did plenty of that last year. Maybe just the unusual stuff - like purple kohlrabi!

I made a slaw out of this - wasn't too crazy about the kohlrabi stir fry from last year. I peeled & sliced this on a mandoline, then cut the slices into julienne. Did the same with a Granny Smith apple & the stem from the broccoli, and shredded the cabbage. Dressing is mayo, a tiny bit of sour cream, apple cider vinegar, a dab of dijon mustard, maple syrup, salt & pepper. Also threw in some chopped mint leaves from the mint forest that is our garden. This was finally a slaw that I liked!

Next I decided to tackle the spinach. We had two huge bunches of fairly young spinach. It cooked way down when I sauteed it with some bell peppers, garlic, smoked paprika and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Tossed this with some pasta and shredded mozzarella-provolone:

Gotta get back into the swing of things in terms of planning & cooking. It's going to be a busy summer, so...we'll see how this goes. But it's good to eat well again!

Panko-Crusted Salmon with Fresh Corn Saute

Oh hi there, blog. It's been awhile. Been a busy few months, and a fair amount of mac 'n cheese, fried egg sandwiches, Panda Express and other gourmet meals keeping me going. Not having a weekly supply of awesome fresh vegetables has definitely influenced my eating patterns. Safeway's produce just doesn't cut it...I'll pick up a few things every week, but having the CSA veggies provides way more variety, better quality and all that.

But occasionally there's time for a decent meal:

The salmon I've made twice now - it's super-easy and really good (also doesn't taste too "fishy," if you're not a big fish person). It's Ina Garten's recipe: basically, you spread Dijon mustard on the salmon, top it with panko bread crumbs mixed with lemon zest, sear the bottom in a cast iron pan for about 3 minutes, and then put it in the oven for a few minutes. These filets were really thin so the total cooking time was only about 5 minutes. I also broil it for the last minute to brown the crumbs.

The corn saute was the result of 20-cent ears of corn at Safeway:

Plus using up a bunch of other veggies I had in the fridge: asparagus, rainbow chard stems (from the Takoma farmer's market), red onion & halved grape tomatoes.

Went like this: saute the onion in some olive oil til translucent, then add asparagus & chard stems for a few minutes. I added a chopped garlic clove too, and then the corn. After a few minutes, I turned off the heat & added the tomatoes, plus a couple chopped green onions. A couple splashes of cream (doesn't really need it, but it was in the fridge), salt & pepper, a little tabasco, lime juice, and some basil & cilantro from the garden. Yum.

Our CSA starts in a couple weeks, but I'm going to miss the first two weeks of it...booo.

Poached Eggs

A first for me: making poached eggs!

I'm somewhat of an egg fiend - I've gotta have them for breakfast on a day off or it just doesn't feel right. And I will happily eat breakfast for dinner frequently. Fried or scrambled are no problem; I can do hard-boiled too. But I've never attempted poached; it just seemed too tricky (especially to attempt soon after waking up). I really like poached eggs though - I'll frequently order Eggs Benedict when I see it on a menu so I can have them.

Last week when we were visiting our friend Susan, she made poached eggs for us one morning, so I got to see the process in action. It didn't look too intimidating, so I was inspired to give it a try.

I used a huge nonstick saucepan, 'cause I was afraid of the eggs sticking to the bottom. Brought water to a boil in it and then lowered the heat so it was barely bubbling. I added a splash of vinegar to the water, though Susan said she doesn't bother. Cracked an egg in a custard cup, created a whirlpool with a spoon and slipped the egg in. The first one looked OK, so I put a second one in. That one blobbed into the first--uh oh. Then I tried to separate them and they started to look really messy. I was hesitant to add any more to the pan, but there was some more space--so I went for two more. Those seemed to stay in their own space.

While cooking, they really look like a mess in the pan, so I wasn't sure how they would turn out. A couple of them were resting on the bottom of the pan too, but especially with the nonstick I was able to nudge them off. Cooking time's supposed to be 3-4 minutes--these were jumbo eggs, so I did them for about 5. When I spooned each out of the water with a slotted spoon and drained them over a paper towel, they looked pretty decent. So, onto the toast!

Success! Topped with our fancy pink Himalayan salt & Penzey's Black & Red. I guess the lesson is, don't worry about how they look in the water...they'll probably turn out fine!

I'll probably still continue to do fried eggs more often (it's definitely easier), but I can see a future of more poached egg dishes. Thanks for the inspiration, Susan!