Turnip and Tomato Curry

If a beet, a radish, and a potato had a baby it would be a turnip. This root vegetable is sweet, spicy and starchy. It adds texture, flavor, and meatiness to any dish. Sadly, the turnip suffers from its association with Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit. We all picture Peter with that turnip in his mouth running from Farmer McGregor. Yuck! Well, I ask you dear reader to give this neglected vegetable a chance.

This curry is very simple and doesn't have a ton of ingredients which makes it good for a quick weeknight meal.

The garlic, ginger, onion and spices will make your kitchen smell delicious. The spices and aromatics combine nicely with the roasted tomatoes, turnips, and potatoes.

To finish, sprinkle a bit of cilantro on top and serve the curry on a bed of basmati rice. Delicious! I promise you this dish will make you reconsider the turnip.

Turnip and Tomato Curry

Ingredients

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 large onion, thinly sliced

1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger, finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon fresh green garlic, finely chopped (regular garlic is fine, also)

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 14 ounce can Muir Glen Fire Roasted Whole Tomatoes

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

2 teaspoons curry powder

2/3 cup water

1 1/2 cups fresh turnips, peeled and diced

1/2 cup of potatoes, peeled and diced

1/2 teaspoon brown sugar

salt to taste

1/2 cup cilantro leaves, roughly chopped

Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan over medium high heat. Add onions and cook until golden. Add ginger and green garlic and cook for about 30 seconds or until fragrant. Sprinkle the ground cumin, coriander, and curry powder over the onions and cook for 30 seconds. Pour in tomatoes, the turmeric and water. Stir to thoroughly combine. Add the turnips and potatoes. Bring to a boil, cover, and then bring down to a simmer. Cook until the turnips and potatoes are soft (about 30-40 minutes). Sprinkle with sugar and salt to taste. Stir in cilantro. Enjoy!

Green Garlicky Tofu and Spinach

I got this recipe from The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook by Jaden Hair (she also has a great website and blog also called The Steamy Kitchen). When I saw a large bunch of spinach in my CSA box last Thursday I knew I had to try it out.

The ingredients are fairly simple as is the technique. I used green garlic instead of the regular garlic that was in Jaden Hair's recipe; because, I had a bunch of green garlic from last week's CSA box and I wanted to see how it would taste in comparison to garlic. The flavor was garlicky but a more delicate garlicky flavor. It tasted a bit grassier -- like spring in garlic form.

Just before digging in, I added a little more soy sauce and some chilli garlic sauce to taste. I love the prepared chilli garlic sauce that you can buy in the Asian section of most grocery stores and in Asian markets. It is so good that I fear that one day I will skip making the food and just eat the chilli garlic sauce from the jar with a spoon.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this simple healthy dish.

Green Garlicky Tofu and Spinach

Ingredients:

1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce (plus more at the end to taste)

1 teaspoon cornstarch

2 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

1 dash of ground black pepper

1 dash of sugar

1 teaspoon high heat cooking oil

3 cloves green garlic

1/2 lb spinach

salt to taste

One 16 oz block of extra firm tofu, cut into 1 inch cubes

1 green onion, sliced

In a small bowl, mix together soy sauce, cornstarch, water, toasted sesame oil, pepper and sugar. In a wok or large frying pan, add the cooking oil and green garlic and turn heat to medium-high. Heat oil until garlic is fragrant. Add spinach to the pan and mix the garlicky oil all over it. Sprinkle salt over the spinach and cook for 30 seconds. Add tofu cubes and pour the soy sauce mixture over. Turn the heat to low and let cook for 1 minute. Add soy sauce and chilli garlic sauce to taste. Sprinkle green onion on top. Enjoy!

Week3

Here is my box for this week:

In this box are strawberries, purple top turnips, spinach, red leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, yellow spring onions, red russian kale, dill, and cilantro.

I also got these lovely eggs from Pie Ranch:

Tune in later this week to see what I make with these beautiful local ingredients. It looks like it is going to be a delicious week!

Rainbow Chard -- The Beauty Queen of the Greens

Many books on local vegetables feature a gorgeous color photo of rainbow chard on their cover. Who can blame them? Look at this beauty queen.

Rainbow chard is beautiful, easy to cook, and it goes well with other food. I like to quickly saute my greens. So, first, I separate the leaves from the stems.

I saute them in a pan with olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes. At the end, I like to sprinkle salt and lemon juice over them to taste. Check out that tasty pan of greens! Who wouldn't want to be looking at that at the end of a hard day?

Sauteed rainbow chard goes well with many other dishes. I like to serve these greens on a bed of polenta nuzzled next to a fried egg. They are also good tossed with a long pasta or as a side for a grilled steak. Or, you can just eat them out of the pan with a fork or your hands. I admit that this pan of greens was eaten out of the pan with a fork and some fingers.

Sauteed Rainbow Chard

Ingredients:

1 bunch of rainbow chard

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 clove of chopped garlic

1 dash of red pepper flakes

salt

1 slice of lemon

Separate the leaves from the stems. Heat the olive oil in a pan over high heat until the oil is shimmering and hot. Add the garlic, cook for a few seconds until fragrant. Then add the red pepper flakes. Add the rainbow chard leaves and coat them with the oil mixture. Put a lid on the pan and cook for 3 minutes. Take off lid and cook for 3 more minutes until the greens are wilted. Take pan off heat. Sprinkle salt on greens to taste. Squeeze the lemon over the greens. Taste to see if they need more salt or lemon. Enjoy!

Chilled Potato Leek Soup

You can also call this soup vichyssoise if you are having a fancy dinner party; or, you just want to make it sound more enticing then cold potato soup. According to Wikipedia there is a debate about the origins of this soup -- it sounds French but it probably isn't really French. French, American, vichyssoise, potato soup; whatever, it is just plain good and perfect for a summer night.

I have never made this so I consulted various recipes. Some recipes included garlic or heavy cream or half and half. I tried some soup with some Mexican crema; because, I didn't have any heavy cream in the house. I thought the crema made the soup too heavy. I decided not to use any cream or milk product and just let the creaminess of the potatoes give the soup a creamy consistency without the milky flavor. I used a clove of garlic; because, I think garlic makes everything better. But, if you don't like garlic you can drop it from the recipe and have a soup where you really taste the leeks.

So, here's what I did. First, I got together my ingredients:

For the soup:

4 leeks

1 clove of garlic

2 potatoes

1 tablespoon of butter

1 tablespoon of olive oil

salt and pepper

4 cups of chicken broth

For garnish:

1 scallion

high quality olive oil for drizzling

So, then I prepped my ingredients. The most important thing here is to properly prepare your leeks. You need to pull off all the dark green rough leaves. Then cut the leeks in half lengthwise and soak in water to get rid of dirt. They should look like this:

Then, chop the leeks. Peel and chop your potatoes to roughly the same size as the leeks. Mince the clove of garlic. Heat the butter and olive oil in a pot over medium high heat. Add the leeks and the garlic. Add salt and pepper. When the leeks have softened add the potatoes.

Then, add the broth. Turn up the heat until the broth starts to boil; then, put the heat down to a simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes. Check the potatoes to make sure they are soft and mushy. When the potatoes are ready take the pot off the burner. You can use a hand held blender or a regular blender to then puree the soup. You can leave it a bit lumpy if you like it that way or blend to smooth if you like. Then add salt and pepper to taste.

Put soup in serving dishes. At this point, you can add cream, yogurt, crema or some other dairy product if you want some extra creaminess. I simply drizzled some high quality olive oil on the soup and scattered some scallions on top. This soup was really good and super easy to make. I highly recommend giving it a try.

A note about olive oil. I used two different types of olive oil in this dish. I used an inexpensive olive oil to saute the leeks and garlic. Then, at the end, I used a higher quality olive oil to just drizzle on top. I like to have both kinds of olive oil in my kitchen - one for cooking and another for drizzling or making salad dressings.

E-mail me! Please let me know what you have been making with the veggies in your CSA box. I look forward to hearing about all the delicious meals you've made with your local veggies. My e-mail address is csagirlcal@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading my blog. I'll be back soon!

Week 2

I just picked up my box for Week 2. Here it is:

In this week's box there are: strawberries, rainbow chard, cherry bell radishes, scallions, dill, green garlic, green leaf lettuce, butter lettuce, leeks, and beets. Strawberries! Sorry, I won't have any more photos of Blue House Farm's beautiful strawberries because they were swiftly devoured. However, I promise to come back later in the week and show you what I did with some of these other beautiful veggies. See you soon!

In Praise of the Green Salad

The green salad was once a dinner standby -- a must for any complete meal. But, this former grande dame of dinner table has been shoved aside by her flashier sisters -- the caesar salad, mesclan with a round of goat cheese, the composed salad.

There are also the issues of time and energy. I admit that on many a night I would notice the salad greens in the refrigerator and think to myself -- my god, I don't have the energy to make a salad. But, that was before I discovered the dressing-in-a-bowl simple salad recipe in a wonderful book called The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper. I discovered that to make a green salad you need one bowl, 5 ingredients, and about 5 minutes.

First of all, you need olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. It is good to splurge on olive oil and vinegar for this recipe. But, you can also use inexpensive super market products and still have a good salad. Also, I like to use kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.

And, of course you need salad greens. CSA girl recommends fresh greens from a local farmer that you received in your CSA box. To make the salad just wash and tear the greens into the size you like. Then, sprinkle the greens with salt and pepper. Finally, drizzle the greens with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon vinegar. That's it!

A green salad makes every meal just a little bit better. Simple meals like a frittata, a sandwich, and even homemade macaroni and cheese will be transformed from kiddie fare to something you would expect on the menu at Chez Panisse Cafe. Trust me. Just try making this salad for one week and you will notice that simple family meals are just a little more special.

That's all for now. I'll be back later this week when I get my next box from the farmers at Blue House Farm.