Vegetable Adventures, Week 4

You may have noticed that I haven't posted in over a month.  Oops!  Here's a second post that I had half written and then never loaded any images.  Between gym time and actual cooking and GCF stuff and so on, I hadn't found the time to upload images and post them until now.  This means that the week-by-week farmshare idea is dead, but I'll post some of the more interesting vegetables and/or recipes.  And maybe a few invented recipes too!

Swiss chard, cooked and ready to eat

Asparagus: see recipe below
Salad mix
Strawberries: Some eaten plain, the rest on my Cheerios
Swiss chard: Chopped and cooked with last week's oregano and a garlic scape according to a recipe about halfway down the page on this website.
Cilantro
Radishes: Added to home-made miso soup.  Note to self: red miso is salty, use less of it.
Sugar snap peas: tasty raw nom-noms
Garlic Scapes: used like garlic.  See an example below





Having spent the last three years taking huge amounts of time cooking for myself, it's about time that I start actively inventing recipes.  This week, wanting carbs and to use up my asparagus, the following quick dish came to life:


"Thai" Asparagus, Tofu, and Noodles (Serves 1)(413 calories)

1/2 C asparagus
2 oz rice noodles
1/4 C firm tofu, pressed and cut into 1" cubes
garlic scape, chopped (or use a clove of garlic)
2t olive oil
pinch salt
1T hoisin sauce
3C water

1.  Rinse the asparagus and cut into pieces approx 2" long.  Place in a small pan lined with foil and toss with 1 t olive oil.  Sprinkle some salt on, to taste.  Bake in a toaster oven at 350˚F for 15 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, boil water.  Place the rice noodles in a medium bowl.  When the water boils, pour it on the rice noodles, making sure the noodles end up submerged completely.  Let sit 10 minutes, or until the noodles are tender.

3. Pour 1 t olive oil into a small frying pan and heat on medium.  When the oil is hot, add garlic (scapes) and sautee for a minute.  Add tofu, and allow one side to cook for about 5 minutes.  Turn tofu over to cook other side for 3 minutes.  Remove from heat.

4. Place rice noodles in your serving bowl.  Add tofu and asparagus, top with hoisin sauce, mix it all together, and enjoy!

Vegetable Adventures, Week 3

In week 3, all my vegetables were a repeat of week 1 and 2 offerings, so I decided not to take a photo of my produce as given.  Fear not, however, I have been taking pictures of the results - that is, the cooked or otherwise prepared dishes - and I'll still be telling you what it is I actually made.

Asparagus - tofu stir fry
Salad mix - salad with radishes, topping for smoky miso tofu sandwiches (amazing recipe here)
Radishes - salad (pictured to the right)
Kale - half made into low-calorie chips (recipe here), half sauteed
Dry peas - half cooked and made into a yellow pea hummus, the other half waiting to become something.
Oregano - see week 4.

Vegetable Adventures, Week 2

Not pictured: radishes

Salad Greens: Some used on my "egg" salad sandwiches, the rest became a salad with carrots and onions and a soy/rice vinegar/sesame oil dressing.

Asparagus: Balsamic pasta again.  I was going to make something new, but that recipe is just so good!

Turnip Greens: Steamed for 5 minutes with garlic, added sesame seeds and hoisin sauce.  Om nom nom nom....

Kale: along with an avocado, made into pesto from this recipe.

Parsley: An accompaniment to my Grandma Carol's Zucchini Bars (recipe below)

Radishes: This batch was destined to become baked radish chips (recipe here).  However, I sliced them too thinly and they burned.  Oh well.




Zucchini Bars
These are an old family recipe - well, that means my grandma has been making these for as long as I can remember.  I think she once told me that they were an invention of hers, and I can believe it.  I aspire to someday attain kitchen skills like hers.

Ingredients:
3 C thinly sliced zucchini, cut into quarters
1 C flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
3/4 t salt
1/4 C finely chopped onion
1/2 C grated Parmesan
2 T snipped parsley
1/2 t seasoning salt
1/2 t dried oregano
dash of pepper
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/2 C vegetable oil
4 eggs, slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350˚F.  Grease a 9x13 pan.  Mix all ingredients and spread in pan.  Bake for 30 minutes, until golden brown.  Cut into 1" squares.  Serve while warm, or freeze for later.  Frozen bars can be reheated in a 350˚F oven for 6-7 minutes.

Vegetable Adventures, Week 1

In the interest of eating more produce, supporting local farms, and forcing myself to be even more creative in the summer, I signed up for a farmshare this summer.  Yesterday was the first pickup day, and because I like to post my culinary adventures, I've decided to share what I get and what I do with it.  So here goes:

This week's takings.  Labels start from top left and continue clockwise. Not pictured: asparagus

Mustard Greens: lightly sauteed with browned onion and garlic, seasoned with sesame oil and salt, following the instructions here.  So good.  But I'm a little afraid I was mostly tasting the onions and sesame.

Radishes: eaten raw with a little salt.  These being spring radishes, their flavor is a lot milder than the kind you find at the grocery store.

Lettuce: part of a couple (fake) egg salad sandwiches.

Mint: 1 spring eaten as-is (it was so tasty), 2 sprigs in a jar to hopefully take root (it does not look good), 2 sprigs used with other leftover mint to make raspberry mint lemonade (recipe here).

Swiss Chard: Chopped and steamed for about 10 minutes, following the instructions from this blog.  The result tastes a lot like steamed spinach.  The stems taste really good, though the leaves are a little bland when cooked...

Asparagus: Chopped, roasted in the oven for 10 minutes, and then added to spaghetti and a sweetened balsamic reduction following this amazing recipe (minus the parmesan).  Seriously, if you have asparagus, make this.  I have never tasted pasta so delicious.