CSA Week 1 - Kristen's Dinner #2

Classic Pesto with Whole Grain Fussili


3 cups basil leaves - stemmed and chopped
3 cloves garlic - roughly chopped
1/2 cup pine nuts (you can toast them or just use plain... I used plain)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
some red pepper flakes, duh
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup fresh shredded Parmesan (or Romano) cheese

Put everything in food processor and purée until smooth. Toss with cooked pasta. Maybe add some bread or tomatoes. 

Enjoy - so much better than the fancy canned sauce or paste. Appreciate the silence and opportunity for seconds in Evan's absence.

CSA Week 1 - Kristen's Dinner #1

On Tuesday (yesterday) Lil' Evan and I got our first CSA box (2012 Mid Chatham Farmers Alliance CSA)! We got green beans, a head of garlic, red and golden beets, kohlrabi, basil, and braising greens. 


Tonight for dinner I made roasted beets, sauteed greens, and spicy Italian sausage. MMMMM!

Roasted Beets:

1. Beetroots, washed and quartered (or smaller if the beetroot is HUGE)
2. Olive oil
3. Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 deg. F. In glass baking dish, mix ingredients, and spread evenly. Cover with foil. Bake for 35 minutes (or until almost fork-tender), then uncover and bake for another 10 minutes (if you want them to be a little burnt/crunchy). 

Sauteed Greens:

1. Braising greens - this week we had a mixture of rainbow chard, kale, and beetroot greens. Wash, spin dry, and chop
2. Sesame oil
3. Sesame seeds
4. Soy sauce (~ 1 tablespoon)
5. Apple cider vinegar (~1  tablespoon)
6. 3 garlic cloves, minced
7. Fresh ginger - shredded (best to use a ceramic ginger grater), about a tablespoon (and use the juices too!)
8. Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Use a LARGE skillet. Put it on stove just under medium high - while you wait for it to heat, add the sesame seeds and stir continuously until slightly browned; remove seeds. Add 3 tablespoons sesame oil, get hot (but don't burn the oil!). Add garlic and ginger, stir constantly until just before the garlic browns. Add soy sauce and vinegar, stir, add the greens. Use tongs to toss and coat, add toasted sesame seeds, toss to coat, and cook until greens just begin to wilt (the beetroot will cook down, the chard will still be pretty green). Turn off heat, cover skillet, and let rest for about 5 minutes. 

Delicious! I separated half out in tupperware for lunch tomorrow.... and wanted more of the greens, which were under everything else, so I just ate the whole thing. Now I feel sick... and SATISFIED!

Ok, off to MCH trivia! 

nooooooodles thai style

Bonjourrrrrr (that's French for "Hellooooooo")

Ok, so this dish could've been way better had I added hot sauce.  This is stir-fried noodles with some crap in it.  Well, not literally crap, but crap as in "stuff," as in "food ingredients."  Although it was really bland without any hot sauce, it still had some nice Vietnamese flavours (namely, mint and basil...God I hope those are Vietnamese flavours!)

Here are some pictures!!

String beans, because the recipe called for them.

All the other ingredients.  We made it vegan by taking out chicken and replacing it with tofu.  And instead of regular mushrooms (whatever those are), we used enoki mushrooms (the skinny white ones). And instead of sugar, we used agave syrup, and instead of minced ginger, we used ginger juice that my mom happened to have.  Oh and vegetable broth instead of any other meat-type broth.  

So here's the first mistake I made... I should've fried the tofu separately first, so that it wouldn't break apart while I mixed it up with all the other ingredients.  Oh well... better luck next time.  It still tasted okay.

Magically, the dish is done!  How the hell did that happen??  

I have to go walk my dog now, so hopefully this blog post was sufficient to help you in making your own noodle-y dish.  I know... detail is my forte.

Byeeeeeeeee! :)

  

Stuff you should not eat

This is a list of things you should not eat, aka, things you can find in Pickering and Toronto.

Don't eat house centipedes, those ugly jerkfaces.  I hate them so much.  At least they're slightly smaller up here... but not by much.  They're pretty gigantic in NC.

Don't eat my dog Pado, looking like a lunatic.  This was after a 4.5 km jog.  For you Americans, 1 kilometer = 0.621371192 miles (according to Google).

Don't eat my dog Buddy, chillin' in my backyard.

Don't eat my dog Pado, who collapsed in the bathroom after the 4.5 km jog.

Don't eat my dog Pado, who is hiding in the bathtub, because he is afraid of life.

Don't eat my dog Buddy, peering into the bathroom, wondering why Pado is such a fool.

Don't eat the CN Tower and the Sky Dome.

Don't eat Pado, who is very bored.

pea sounds like pee

Hellooooooooo!

I really enjoy this pea and basil and shrimp recipe.  I've made it twice now because it's easy peas-y.  hahahaha i'm so damn funny!  ok, not really...  We added sun-dried tomatoes and the juice from the lemon, because I already zested it so why don't I squeeze its guts out too??

Here are the ingredients so elegantly displayed.

More ingredients.  Man, I should write for this Fine Cooking magazine because I'm so descriptive and good with my words!

Raw shrimp with basil, lemon zest, and olive oil.

Un-raw shrimp.

All of it put together! Woo! 

We put chilli flakes on the side for anyone who wanted to spice theirs up a bit, because I didn't follow the recipe exactly, which calls for some sort of spiciness.  Anyways... try it!  It's a good dish!  Five thumbs up and seven stars!

It's a steak salad!

Guys (and gals).... I'm excited.  A few weeks ago, I made the steak salad from the cover of the magazine!  It was soooooo... goooooood.... mmmm... the dressing was delish.  Ok, let's see if I can remember all the steps.  I could be wrong with stuff, so please consult the magazine.

Alrighty, here are some spices and stuff.  Ummm, corriander, fennel seed, salt, pepper.. I think...  I put them into a little spice grinder so I could grind it all up.

 Here are the spices, all ground up. It smelled delicious!

Here's my steak, all covered in the ground up spices.  (Gotta rub the steak with olive oil first, so all the spices stick).  Then i put it in the fridge for a bit.

Here's the dressing!  The magazine told me to use a blender to make the dressing.  When I read that, I was like, "Whaaat??!  Eff that!  I'm using a jar."  So here is the jar.  This dressing was really tasty.  It had like dijon mustard, hoisin sauce, garlic, olive oil, lots of other stuff... I think it needed white wine vinegar (if memory serves me well), but I used red wine vinegar instead.  It was still good.  SO good, if you ask me.  Instead of blending, I shook it like a polaroid picture (heeeyyyyy-yaaaa, heeyyy-yaaa). 

Here I go breakin' all the rules.  The recipe called for some relative of watercress, but our local Loblaws grocery store did not have the cress.  So I used arugula.  Just as good.  Potentially better; I wouldn't know, I don't have a counterfactual.  (Sorry, bad joke.)

Mangos.

Shallots.

Asparagus - to be grilled.

Booya!  Steak Salad!!

That was my plating attempt to make it look somewhat like the magazine cover.  Who cares how it looks, it all ends up in the same place, right?

I highly recommend this recipe!