Zucchini Couscous Salad

I was told to bring a salad to my friends Sunny and Peter's for dinner. Looking at the vegetables that I had left in the box it was either something with chili peppers, a pumpkin (which I didn't have time to roast), and zucchini. Zucchini it was.  I scoured Food52 for a salad recipe with zucchini and found a Squash couscous with mint, pistachios, and golden raisins. This was a wonderful recipe that I think next time I would probably double the ingredients, for more generous servings per person. There is minimal cooking, sauteing the zucchini and shallots for a couple of minutes at the most, and boiling vegetable broth for the couscous. I can see why this salad would be so appealing to make in the summer because it can be thrown together so easily. There are lots of different flavors going on a little bit of sweetness, freshness from the mint, and lemony goodness from the dressing. This salad also travels well too, which is always nice when bringing food to someones home. It was gobbled up along with the delicious pork stew and smashed potatoes.

These photos were taken with my phone because I apparently  like to leave my camera on  and let the battery drain. 

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Here is the newest box, I realized that I haven't been showing them lately. I'm so excited about the pumpkin, I'm already making a mental list of things I can make. At the bottom of everything there is a small pile of chile's more than enough to take me through the new year. And I am at a loss of what to do with them.

You know what has never disappeared from the boxes this whole year? Kale. I have become so used to it that I stopped writing about it because I felt like it's ubiquitous presence was taking away from the other vegetables in the box. Then I saw a roasted kale salad in Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day: Well-loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen which is fast becoming one of my favorite books. This salad could not be more easier. It's tasty, it's filling, makes a great leftover lunch, and it's vegan.  Who knew that toasted coconut and kale would work so well together. I put it over farrow but I'm sure any type of hearty grain would would work well.

The second time I made this salad I decided to roast these three little deseeded Santa Fe chili peppers along with the kale and coconut. The peppers were an interesting addition it was good with the toasted coconut but it was a little to much heat. Not overly spicy but just assertive enough to make it's presence known. Chili peppers and Kale maybe not the best pairing, but it was worth a try.


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Burnt Okra

Look how cool this okra is. I didn't even know okra could be purple, but aesthetically appealing as okra is, I am at a loss of what to do with it. I know it's used in lots of different types of cuisine and one of the most popular ways to prepare it is fried. I knew I wanted to prepare the okra but I also knew frying was not one of them.

Then in my Google reader an okra recipe appeared. Burnt okra sounded intriguing enough and is a really easy, not very involved cooking process.
 This is kind of like an okra hash, the potatoes and okra work well together with a nice garlicky presence. I really liked the texture of the okra as well, with a name like burnt okra it can be a little alarming, but mixed with the texture of the crisp potato it was good. The recipe calls for basil at the end but I opted to not use it. We put our burnt okra in tortillas and made tacos. It was really filling and I am on the watch for more okra to arrive so I can make it again.




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 Eggplant seems to be one of those foods that you either love or hate. I happen to think that it's great. I can't believe I have never blogged about this recipe. This is a cheap, easy recipe that takes little to no time to assemble, depending on how well you can chop an onion, and peel an eggplant. It's nice and filling, and makes for a  great leftover lunch.  I have made it multiple times and enjoy it with a side of naan. This is also a great way to use spinach during the winter or maybe substituting the eggplant with a squash of some sort. Hmm.. the wheels are turning, but here is the link so you can try the recipe out for yourself.

Eggplant curry with a side of  naan. Please ignore the conspicuous placement of the can opener. 

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Laborless Watermelon Treats

 This is a blog post long overdue. A summer has once again come and gone super fast, and with the passing of Labor Day and the crispness of fall around the corner, I thought a post about sweet, cold, watermelon would be appropriate. This past week has been hot, the kind of stifling hot, that makes it hard to do anything. The latest box delivery was so heavy because of the watermelon. Labor Day being a day of no work I decided an easy watermelon salad for dessert would be cooling and satisfying treat.

The watermelon while not very large was so heavy with juice, that I could already  tell it was going to be good. Upon cutting into the melon, it made a satisfying popping sound. It was so sweet and perfectly ripe, not mealy at all and not even a lot of seeds. The salad I made is a combination of various recipes but mostly adapted from Super Natural Every Day: 
Taking one half of the melon I rubbed ginger all over it. Then I cut the melon into bite size pieces periodically rubbing the ginger on the smaller slices. Once the melon was cut up I added 4 pitted and sliced Medjool dates, a handful of roasted pistachio meats, some mint, and the juice of one lime. Together this makes the easiest dessert you can make and eat. There is nothing like eating a cold piece of melon on a hot day. The ginger and the lime add a nice tang to the sweetness of the watermelon. And the crunch of the pistachios, mixed with the date slivers gave a nice variety of textures. A salad that is refreshing and easy is always a great way to end a meal.

The other half of the melon was used to make a watermelon granita. This is even easier to make you just need to be patient because you need to allow time to allow it to freeze. Pureeing the melon with a little sugar and lime, we poured it into a 9x9 pan. While making space for the granita we decided to add a package of mango puree in as well. After a few hours, we scraped the shavings into a bowl. This was so good and much needed on a sweltering hot day. The mango puree didn't really add anything except a yellow orange tint. This is the best natural snow cone you can make, and tastes fresh at the same time. I think next time some basil or mint might be added in as well.

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Cucumber Mango Salsa

One of my favorite tomato less salsas is from The Moosewood Restaurant New Classics cookbook. With the abundance of cucumbers I decided to make a salsa adapted from  the Black Bean Mango Salsa recipe.

Cucumber Mango Salsa

2 cucumbers 

1 mango

1 can of black beans

about a 1/4 of cup of chopped cilantro

Juice of 1 lime

1 large jalapeno

salt and pepper

Dice the mango and cucumbers. Chop up the jalapeno including as many seeds as you want for as spicy as you want. Add a drained and rinsed can of black beans, along with the cilantro and lime juice. Season with salt and pepper.

Enjoy.

This is a great summer side We ate it with tortilla chips, and it's also quite delightful on top of fish. It's amazing how a little cucumber goes a long way. The cucumber gives a nice cooling fresh crunch that will relieve any warm day. I wish I had had more mango because the cucumber was more abundant but that didn't stop us from diving in with a tortilla chip in hand. 

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Pickled Chard

Chard with leaves. 

If you eat a lot of leafy greens a majority of the time the stem gets tossed into the trash. I found a recipe that uses the stem in a great innovative way and there is no cooking involved, just an exercise in patience. In the last issue of Bon Appetit  I found a little blurb about fridge pickles, using the stems of chard. I love just about anything pickled and I liked that this used an item that is not used very often. I doubled the recipe because I had about 3 cups of chard stems.
I did however add 1 less cup of sugar, mainly because I thought it was too much.
Here is the doubled recipe:

Swiss chard Stems

2 cups of white vinegar

3 cups of sugar

1 thinly sliced onion

6 Tablespoons of Sriracha

1 teaspoon of celery seed

Mix the vinegar, sugar, onion, Sriracha, and celery seed. Pour it over the chopped chard stems. Let hang out in fridge for a few days and then eat. 

Pickled chard

These are really good sweet and slightly spicy because of the Sriracha. We've just been snacking on them periodically but I think they would be really great in a sandwich. This is a great item to have on hand now that summer is in full swing, something that is easy to make, eat, and is great for the summer get together, beach party and lazy evenings ahead.

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Delightful Beets To Share

A few years ago my friend Megan made this sweet red onion migrogreen relish. It was delish. I decided to amend her relish used some store bought already cooked and peeled beets. From that day on  I have made it numerous times for parties, family gatherings, and even for a wedding. With the inclusion of beets in the box lately, I have been making my salad/relish for birthdays and late night hang outs. I don't really know what to call my beet combination, I called it a compote for a while, and then a salad, or a relish. Whatever the name the taste is always great. When serving it in a group there is usually someone who expresses their distaste for beets, and upon trying a little beet mixture I usually have converted them. So here is how to make it.
 Just a note I don't really know how much I put in of each ingredient I usually just eyeball it, so that everything is equally represented.

Beet Relish/Salad/Compote Deliciousness 

4 midsized beets

About a quarter to a half of a red onion chopped

Organic Microgreens 

1 Tablespoon of Balsamic Vinegar

1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

1. Wash your beets to get all the dirt off of them. Then wrap them in foil and place in a 350 degree oven for about an hour. You want them roasted to the point where they can be poked easily with a fork. When done let them rest and cool, their skins should peel off easily.
2.  When the beets are completely cool chop them up and put in a bowl. Dice up your red onion and throw in a handful of microgreens. You can buy microgreens at Trader Joe's. 
3. Add balsamic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I normally don't measure the vinegar or olive oil so a Tablespoon is a good place to start and then go from there. If you feel like you need more of any of the ingredients, add it.

When everything is together it will have a nice purple hue.  Now you can either let it sit for a little bit and let the flavors marinate or serve right away. This is so easy to make, the most time consuming thing is roasting the beets.  It's crunchy and sweet, and while each ingredient has a distinct taste, together they work wonderful. It's great on the side as a salad. If your going to a party bring some sliced bread along or make crostini and serve as an appetizer. If you really want to steal the show at the party take along some goat cheese and be prepared to receive praise.

A little crostini dressed up with beets.

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A Kale and Cilantro Birthday Party

I just celebrated my birthday, and had a little impromptu cocktail hour. What goes better with fancy drinks than some vegetable treats.

Bouquet of Cilantro

I've been getting large bunches of cilantro in the box for a while and usually make salsa. This time when I saw the cilantro, I had thoughts of turning it into some sort of a birthday cocktail. I found this cocktail that I used as inspiration. When I found the recipe I didn't realize that one drink requires one cup of cilantro, which consequently I ran out. Instead of tequila we used Bacardi Limon but mixed with simple syrup, lime, strawberries, and cilantro, while tasty, was really syrupy. We than opted for a champagne (sparkling wine) cocktail mixed with everything (except the rum) and it was delightful.

The muddled cilantro, strawberries, and lime.

The drink came out a pretty light pink color and the cilantro gave a nice surprise amongst the sweetness of strawberry and sugar. I would make this again during the summer and forgo the alcohol and use sparkling water or make a strawberry cilantro lemonade. That sounds delicious right now. I did realize that in this new year I will not become a mixologist, I am going to leave that to the pros, but it was fun to experiment.

I also made some kale chips, which I have made plenty of times before but somehow have never put them on the blog. They are easy to make, crunchy and delicious. All you do is take your destemmed kale and coat in a little bit of olive oil. Put on two baking sheets in a single layer at 250 degrees and let them crisp for about a half hour. One of the sheets got a little more brown then the other because we were sharing oven space. They are not as pretty as the others but they still taste just as good.

Kale chips in their crispy glory.

This is the latest box. It if full of lots of dark greens and purples. If you read this and live in Long Beach consider joining the CSA. There has been low turnout of late and it would be disappointing to have the Long Beach drop off stop. If interested please go to South Central Farms.

The box of pretty purples and green.

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These are the radishes, for some reason I cut one of them out

Our friends Brian and Vennice invited us to dinner and asked us to bring a salad. I had in mind this salad from the start, one because it uses radishes, in which I used chinese rose radishes. The second reason was  because it just looked so pretty. I love how this salad while having lots of ingredients, they all worked together, giving a new flavor combination with each bite.

 I was also intrigued by this salad because it used different grains, and I am a sucker for all those bulk bins at the market, there are just so many possibilities.
For the salad I used wheat berries and pearl barley, both of which are really hearty filling grains. The recipe calls for 1/2 a pound of pecans, which is a lot of pecans. I decided to just put a half cup of pecans, which seemed to be efficient.
The dressing uses a  combination of olive oil, walnut oil, and sherry vinegar.  I discovered that the sherry vinegar we had was expired and tasted like nothing, I instead used some pomegranate balsamic vinegar but regular balsamic would work too.
The nice thing about this salad is that there are so many different variations you could do. I loved the crunch from the radish and pecans. The mint, parsley, and arugula, gave such a nice fresh taste. And it's another way to use radishes.

Finished Product

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Black Kale

Sometimes I have days where I will be at home and I become engrossed in whatever I am doing, and I realize that I haven't eaten. As much as I would like to believe that coffee is a nutritional balanced meal, I don't find it filling. A quick meal of braised Black Kale helps fill the void. I blanched the kale in a pot of boiling water, for about 4 minutes. Then warming up some olive oil and garlic sauteed the kale with salt and pepper.  I served it over polenta, but it's also good just plain. An easy late lunch.

 

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Delicious Black Bean Chili

This is the latest box as of November 7th

I found this recipe a couple of weeks ago and knew as soon as a new box came I would be making it. As the temperature has slowly dropped  I have been wanting to make chili.

The kale and butternut cut up.

I loved that this one included butternut squash and greens which I would not normally think of  putting with chili. I used kale instead of chard and I substituted one of the cans of black beans with a can of Cuban Style Black Beans from Trader Joe's. As I started to cook I realized I didn't have chili powder, so I put in a tablespoon of cayenne and a tablespoon of paprika. So there might have been a little bit more of a back end heat than there should have been. I loved that the kale added a good crunch and it still held up reheated in leftovers the next day. It was so good that we each went back for seconds. And it's completely vegan  or enjoy with a square of cornbread and a little onion and shredded cheese on top.

Black Bean Chili in all its glory. Even the colors look like fall.

Labor Day Stew

Labor day brings around the symbolic close of summer. While in southern California we may continue to have warm weather for a while but as an early celebration of the fall equinox I made a Chilean Bean Stew courtesy of

Moosewood Restaurant New Classics.   Which is one of my favorite cook books. The reason why I picked stew is because of this early fall visitor, the butternut squash.

 

 Still using the summer produce available such as fresh corn and using the very autumnal butternut squash, this a perfect in between seasons recipe. The recipe calls for 4 cups of butternut cubed but I think there was more than that, or I just need to work on my cubing skills.

The stew was full of flavor with sweetness from the squash and corn, had a little spice from the cayenne, and  a good amount of protein and fiber. I am a huge fan of colorful food and it evokes the colors of fall and summer. It has a good amount of crunch and is completely vegan. My only problem is that in using fresh corn I cut a little too close to the cob and got the weird root kernel part of the corn in the stew. Aside from that I am definitely going to make this again because it was delish.

Confetti slaw

On Thursday we went to a vegetarian potluck, the theme being Latin America. Being resourceful and trying to use vegetables from the produce box I made a Mexican inspired slaw. Carrots and a large golden beet were part of my inspiration.

  

Confetti Slaw

A head of purple cabbage 

Carrots peeled and julienned 

Golden beet peeled and julienned

Jicama Cut and julienned

Cilantro

Two deseeded and finely chopped jalapenos

Lime juice from two limes.

Using a mandolin I sliced the jicama, beet, and carrots. Then I added the cabbage, I don't have an exact amount of how much I used of any of the ingredients, I just eyeballed it until I felt that every thing was proportionate. I added the two jalapenos, and lime juice. Then I added cilantro, I didn't even chop it up just adding leaves whole until I felt that there was enough. The dressing I made up an olive oil balsamic dressing adding a little bit of lime.  I think a creamy dressing would work as well, perhaps one with chipotle or cilantro.  

I was really pleased with the way it turned out. I am a big fan of colorful food and the golden beet in this definitely popped. It had a great crunch and tasted fresh, perfect for a late spring evening and went along well with the other foods at the potluck. The leftovers are good rolled up inside of a taco or served on the side with fish.