Pea tendrils (or pea shoots) are the leaves from a snow pea plant. They have a bit of a spinach-pea taste, delicate and very tasty. Before receiving them in my CSA share, I just thought they were used in a stir fry or as a topping. But these little guys are really delicious in a simple saute.
Ingredients:
Pea tendrils
1 teaspoon olive oil
3 garlic cloves, smashed and cut in half
Salt, to taste
Heat the olive oil in a saute pan over medium-low heat. Add the garlic cloves and cook for 2 minutes, until sizzling but not browned.
You can either remove the garlic, or keep it in there to add more garlicky flavor. Add the pea tendrils and salt to taste.
Saute for 1-2 minutes until slightly wilted but still maintaining its shape. That’s it! So simple, so yummy.
I was so excited to receive red potatoes in my CSA share this week. I love roasted red potatoes with fresh herbs, but I had a little bit of white truffle oil left that I wanted to use. I found this recipe for Truffled Roasted Potatoes from Cooking Light which sounded delicious.
Ingredients:
1 small container of red potatoes, washed and quartered
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic scapes, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon white truffle oil
1 teaspoon each of chopped fresh thyme leaves, sage leaves, and rosemary
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Wash your red potatoes thoroughly, but gently. (The skin of red potatoes is fragile). I used a little brush to lightly buff off the dirt under warm running water.
before
after
Cut the potatoes into wedges: quarters for the larger potatoes, and halves for the smaller potatoes, and arrange on a cookie sheet.
Drizzle olive oil over the potatoes and sprinkle with garlic scapes, salt and pepper.
Bake at 450 degrees for 30 minutes or until the potatoes are brown and slightly wrinkled.
While the potatoes are cooking, chop your thyme, sage, and rosemary. Combine.
Remove the potatoes from the oven, drizzle with truffle oil, and sprinkle with the herb mixture.
This was fantastic. I honestly couldn’t stop eating the potatoes. Truffle oil is such a great ingredient, although it is a bit of a splurge. Truffle oil is usually added at the end of a dish, the oil is too delicate to be subjected to high heat. A little bit of truffle oil goes a long way though so do not overpour! When I make this recipe in the future, I plan on using normal minced garlic (2-3 cloves), the garlic scapes were quite burnt from the oven so I didn’t get any of the garlic taste from them. Boo.
I’m not going to lie. Broccoli is not my favorite vegetable. I have a tendency to pass over it for more favored choices. But I received broccoli in my CSA half share this week, so I decided to give it another try. I used this recipe from Oxmoor House as a starting point, and adapted the recipe for my tastes.
My CSA share came with Swiss chard this week. I wasn’t in the mood to do another leafy green side, so I looked for a recipe that incorporated the Swiss Chard within the main dish. I found this recipe in the Health section of the New York Times and thought it was worth a try.
Ingredients:
1 bunch of Swiss chard, stemmed and washed
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 red bell peppers, finely diced
Pinch of red pepper flakes
2 garlic scapes, thinly sliced
Salt
1 teaspoon chopped fresh marjoram
1 box of orecchiette
4 ounces goat cheese, crumbled
To begin, boil a pot of water over high heat. While the water is coming to a boil, prepare your Swiss chard. Add ice water to a bowl. When the water boils, add salt and the Swiss chard.
Boil for 2 minutes and remove using a slotted spoon and transfer to the ice water.
Reduce the heat of the leftover boiling water to a simmer. Drain the chard and squeeze the excess water out. Chop the Swiss chard and reserve.
In a saute pan, heat the olive oil and add the finely chopped peppers and a pinch of crushed red pepper. Cook for 8 minutes, stirring often.
Bring the pot of water to a boil again. Add the pasta, cooking until al dente as directed on the box. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water. Drain the pasta and set aside.
In the saute pan, add the garlic scapes and salt, stirring to combine.
When combined, add the chopped Swiss chard and marjoram.
Stir and lower the heat to warm. Add the 1/2 cup of pasta water and stir in the goat cheese.
Add the orecchiette to the mixture and serve.
This was a nice alternative to the normal pasta with tomato sauce. The orecchiette helped catch some of the Swiss chard, peppers, and goat cheese so definitely use this type of pasta or another kind that can catch the ingredients. This made so much pasta, it will also be my lunch tomorrow. I have a feeling this will be better the next time around!
Tonight, I get a night off from cooking! Sort of. My boyfriend and his roommates are firing up the grill and doing the hard part, so all I have to do is make various marinades for the food. We had some asparagus lying around so I decided to just make a simple marinade to make this Grilled Marinated Asparagus.
Ingredients:
1 bunch of asparagus
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic (about 2 large garlic cloves)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon chopped onion flakes
Salt and pepper, to taste
Combine all the ingredients not including the asparagus. Mix well.
Prepare the asparagus. Remove the rough bottoms of the stems. Asparagus tends to snap where the tougher part ends, or you can just cut the asparagus where you think it needs to be trimmed.
asparagus ends
Place the asparagus on a large piece of tin foil. You will make a little packet out of the tin foil.
Fold up each side of the tin foil, twisting the ends so that they stay together.
Pour the marinade over the asparagus.
Close the foil and marinate for at least one hour. You can either remove the asparagus from the foil and place the asparagus right on the grill, cooking for 6-8 minutes, turning carefully half way through, or you can put the asparagus on the grill in the foil, cooking for about 10 minutes. Either way, grill until the asparagus is tender but still has a crunch to it.
there it is. in the tin foil
This turned out really well. The balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce add a bit of tangy-ness to the asparagus without overpowering the delicious natural flavor of asparagus. Many thanks to the grill masters:
Tim
Kevin
for not letting my asparagus get soggy. It was great to only have to do the prep work on a dish… a girl could get used to this!
1 tablespoon minced garlic (about 2 large garlic cloves)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon chopped onion flakes
Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
Combine all the ingredients not including the asparagus. Mix well.
Prepare the asparagus. Remove the rough bottoms of the stems. Asparagus tends to snap where the tougher part ends, or you can just cut the asparagus where you think it needs to be trimmed.
Place the asparagus on a large piece of tin foil. You will make a little packet out of the tin foil.
Fold up each side of the tin foil, twisting the ends so that they stay together.
Pour the marinade over the asparagus.
Close the foil and marinate for at least one hour. You can either remove the asparagus from the foil and place the asparagus right on the grill, cooking for 6-8 minutes, turning carefully half way through, or you can put the asparagus on the grill in the foil, cooking for about 10 minutes. Either way, grill until the asparagus is tender but still has a crunch to it.
The warm days in Philadelphia keep on coming, so I think it’s time to attempt making the summer favorite: gazpacho. I wanted to do an heirloom gazpacho, but I am presently cooking out of Wilmington and the local store does not carry any. Sigh. I used this recipe from Cooking Light and just changed some of the ingredients to fit what I could find in the store.
To begin, prepare all of your ingredients. Peel and seed 2 cucumbers. To learn how to seed a cucumber, check out my post here. Roughly chop the onion and red bell pepper. To peel a tomato, prepare a bowl with ice water and bring another pot of water to a boil.
On the bottom side of the tomatoes, cut an X into the skin.
When the water is boiling, place 2 tomatoes at a time into the water.
Keep in the water for 15 to 20 seconds, remove, and place in the ice water.
Once cooled, use a knife to peel away the skin from the X.
Repeat with remaining tomatoes.
To seed the tomato, cut the tomato in half and use a spoon to scoop out the seeds. Discard the seeds and roughly chop the tomatoes.
Prepped Veggies
To make the gazpacho, combine first 9 ingredients (up to the garlic).
Add 1/3 of the mixture to a food processor and blend until smooth. Pour into a large bowl and repeat with the remaining 2/3 vegetable mixture. Cover and chill.
When ready to serve, spoon gazpacho into bowls. Finely chop your yellow and orange peppers and tomatillo. Combine the peppers and tomatillo.
Add 2 tablespoons of the mixture to each bowl. If you’d like, you can also add a piece of garlic bread (or just a crusty piece of day old bread), 1 tablespoon goat cheese, or a teaspoon of sour cream.
This would also be a nice appetizer. Pour the gazpacho into shooter glasses and top with a teaspoon of the pepper tomatillo mixture.
You can also use the gazpacho as a pureed salsa. Prepare garlic bread. Put on a plate with a bowl of gazpacho in the center with a spoon. Guests can spoon gazpacho on top of the bread, or use the bread to dip into the gazpacho.
I’m sure you read this post title and was wondering why I’m making Garlic Scape Pesto.
This week, I received garlic scapes with my CSA half share. What the heck is a garlic scape you may ask?
When garlic is growing, the scape is the green shoot that pops out of the earth. Farmers need to trim these so that the garlic can continue to grow. But the actual green shoot also packs in a bunch of garlicky goodness, although more mild and with a touch of grass smell.
The scapes are kind of scary looking but I was willing to try using them, who knows when I’ll come across these again! Because they are a more delicate version of garlic, scapes are best used raw.
I came across a recipe for Garlic Scape Pesto on the blog In the Kitchen and on the Road with Dorie which seemed like a good way to use a bunch of the scapes. I substituted walnuts for the almonds, mainly because my poor boyfriend is allergic and I didn’t want to mistakenly serve him something with almonds in it, and I added in some basil to help cut some of the scape flavor. I also cut the recipe in half to test it out, I can always make more later!
I have been really panicking about using all of my CSA ingredients this week. I am headed to the beach next week and can’t stand the idea of these ingredients going to waste! Thankfully, Cooking Light had a recipe that incorporated a lot of the ingredients I received this week.
Ingredients:
4 flour tortillas
Cooking spray
2 portobello caps, chopped
2 tablespoons balsamic vinaigrette (recipe below)
1 cup black beans, rinsed and drained
1 teaspoon minced green chilis
1 cup preshredded 4-cheese Mexican blend cheese
1/4 cup chopped red onions Fresh Salsa
Sour Cream, optional
Ingredients for the balsamic vinaigrette:
(you’ll have some leftover for a salad later)
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced (I used 1 garlic scape… came with my CSA share)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup olive oil
To make the vinaigrette, add the vinegar, garlic, salt, and pepper to a bowl and whisk until the salt dissolves. Add the oil in a slow steady stream, whisking constantly. You can also just add the ingredients to a jar and shake to combine.
Place your tortillas on a plate and cover with a damp paper towel. Microwave for 1 minute and leave in the microwave while preparing the rest of the dish.
Cook your mushrooms in a saute pan coated with cooking spray. If you don’t have cooking spray, use a bit of olive oil, maybe a teaspoon. Saute the mushrooms for 2 minutes, or until tender.
Add the vinaigrette, black beans, onions and green chile. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until the liquid evaporates. Mash the mixture slightly. If you have a potato masher, Cooking Light suggests using that. I don’t, so a fork will have to do!
Spoon 1/4 of the mixture onto each tortilla.
Divide the cheese equally among the tortillas.
Fold the tortillas in half.
I have a panini grill/griddle, so I used that to cook the quesadillas. If you do not have one, just use the same saute pan you used to make the black bean mixture, just wipe it down well before! Coat with cooking spray and place two quesadillas on the griddle/pan. Cook 2 to 3 minutes on each side or until the cheese is melted. If using a griddle, I cooked them for about 5 minutes. Repeat with remaining quesadillas.
Cut each quesadilla into three wedges. Serve with salsa and sour cream.
I was afraid this wouldn’t have much flavor, but the vinaigrette and slight spice from the green chilies added just enough interest without going over the top. I couldn’t get enough of this dish! The salsa was a perfect complement as well. I am definitely adding this to my list of repeat meals.
I wanted to make quesadillas, and it called for salsa. I realized I had all of the ingredients needed to make my own on hand, so I decided to try coming up with my own salsa.
Ingredients:
3 chopped and seeded tomatoes
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 garlic scape, finely chopped (or 2 garlic cloves)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup corn kernels (I just used frozen)
I have no clue why I put olive oil in the pic, sorry
To make the salsa, first rinse the chopped onions under very cold water. This will help remove some of the bite associated with raw onions.
To seed the tomatoes, cut off one end of the tomato and use a spoon to scoop out the seeds.
Dice the tomato.
Chop the scape as finely as possible
Cut the cilantro.
Combine the onions, garlic, chopped tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice, corn, and salt. Allow to refrigerate for a few hours to get the best flavor, or overnight.
The corn will defrost in the fridge
There is nothing like fresh salsa. This recipe can be adapted to what makes you happy as well; feel free to add some jalapenos or another hot pepper to add some spice. As I’ve said before, a lot of color in a dish makes me so happy. The red, green and yellow brighten up the whole meal. There is enough flavor in this salsa to serve at a party with some tortilla chips, but I can’t wait to try it with my quesadilla!
To make the salsa, first rinse the chopped onions under very cold water. This will help remove some of the bite associated with raw onions.
To seed the tomatoes, cut off one end of the tomato and use a spoon to scoop out the seeds.
Dice the tomato.
Chop the scape as finely as possible
Cut the cilantro.
Combine the onions, garlic, chopped tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice, corn, and salt. Allow to refrigerate for a few hours to get the best flavor, or overnight.
My poor leafy greens from this week’s CSA are beginning to wilt on me. I wanted to use them before they were no longer salvageable, so another salad! I’m stunned with how many different vinaigrette recipes exist out there. This one has a slight twist to it, using a roasted shallot instead of a raw one. The original recipe can be found here, another recipe from my trusty Cooking Light.
Ingredients:
1 medium shallot, peeled
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
A few leaves of Romaine and red leafy lettuce, washed and torn (enough for 3 plates)
1/2 cup grape tomatoes, halved (optional)
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese (optional)
To make the vinaigrette, first preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Wrap the shallot in tin foil and cook at 400 degrees for 35 minutes.
This smells so good when it’s cooking
Cool for 10 minutes and mince.
While the shallot is cooking and cooling, prepare your lettuce. Wash and tear the lettuce and allow to dry in a colander. Halve your tomatoes. Add the lettuce, tomatoes and feta cheese to a large bowl. You can throw in whatever you happen to have around: peppers, artichoke hearts.. whatever makes you happy.
Combine the minced shallot and all ingredients up to pepper in a bowl, whisking to combine. (I just added them all to a jar, closed the jar tightly, and shook to combine.)
Add to salad and toss well to coat.
This is a great vinaigrette for those that find normal vinaigrettes too acidic. The roasted shallot (and the teaspoon sugar) add some sweetness to the dressing which cuts some of the acidity in the vinegar, without making it overly sweet.
This week, I received collard greens as part of my CSA. Although traditionally made with smoked meats and such, I wanted to ease my way into this new veggie. (I’ll try a somewhat more traditional version later this week)
Ingredients:
1 bunch of collard greens, stems removed and roughly chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 spring garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Lemon, optional
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add a teaspoon of salt. Prepare your collard greens while waiting for the water to boil.
remove large stem in center of leaf
roughly chop
When the water is boiling, add the collard greens and cook for ten minutes.
when initially added
ten minutes in
Drain the collard greens in a colander and rinse under cold water. Squeeze against the colander to remove excess water.
Chop the spring garlic.
Heat the olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for one minute.
Add the collard greens and season with salt and pepper.
Cook until wilted, about three to four minutes.
Collard greens have a slight bitterness to them that works well with the subtle garlic taste of spring garlic (versus normal garlic). I added a squeeze of lemon which helped brighten the dish a bit. It’s a nice alternative to spinach, my default leafy green. As with most darker green vegetables, collard greens are high in Vitamins A, C, and K and are high in fiber, so the more leafy greens in my diet, the better.
I am still on a Wilted Spinach with Garlic Vinaigrette kick, but my CSA gave me a bag of spinach about the size of my torso, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to branch out and try other spinach side recipes. I had all of these ingredients on hand, so this recipe from Cooking Light (August 2006) seemed like a good choice.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup boiling water
1/3 cup golden raisins
4 cups spinach
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 large garlic cloves, minced
Salt and pepper, to taste
4 teaspoons pine nuts, toasted
First place golden raisins in a bowl. Add 1/2 cup boiling water and let stand for 15 minutes or until raisins expand. Drain and set aside.
Place the pine nuts in a saute pan over medium heat. Shake the pan frequently to keep them from burning. When fragrant and browned, remove from heat.
Heat a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the spinach and 2 tablespoons water.
Cook for 3 minutes or until the spinach wilts.
Remove from pot and wipe the pot dry. Add 1 teaspoon olive oil to the pan and add garlic. Cook for 30 seconds, stirring frequently. Add the spinach and raisins. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Cook for 1 minute or until heated. Stir in pine nuts and serve.
I would have never thought to put something sweet like raisins with spinach, but they really worked well together. The pine nuts added a bit of crunch, as well as some flavor from toasting the pine nuts. Although I’m not willing to shelve my go-to spinach recipe, this one will definitely be added to my recipe arsenal!
When I usually make salads, I tend to just throw in there whatever I happen to have in my fridge. I received romaine lettuce and radishes as part of my CSA this week, so I thought it was time to explore new salad recipes. I found one on myrecipes.com, originally from the May 2008 Cooking Light magazine. This one caught my eye immediately; look at those colors!
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons honey
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons olive oil
4 cups shredded romaine lettuce
1 container grape tomatoes, halved
1 sliced peeled cucumber
1 chopped orange bell pepper
2-3 larger, thinly sliced radishes
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
1 small yellow squash, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
1 avocado, mashed
Combine the first five ingredients (lime juice through black pepper) in a bowl. Gradually add the oil, mixing with a whisk.
Prepare all your veggies.
Combine the lettuce and the next 6 ingredients (all but the avocado) in a large bowl. Drizzle dressing over the mixture and toss to coat. Top with avocado.
I somewhat unjustifiably feel like I’m eating healthier when there are a bunch of colors in my food, so this dish made me super happy. The key to this salad is to use the freshest ingredients possible. The dressing was very flavorful and the Dijon mustard gave a good amount of acidity to the salad so no vinegar is really needed in the dressing. The original recipe called for chopped avocado, but I failed miserably in my attempt so I mashed it up to save it. Feel free to use chopped avocado instead; it probably looks more aesthetically pleasing. The recipe also called for yellow pear tomatoes, but I wanted a pop of red in the dish so I substituted in grape tomatoes.
Hummus is really easy to make and can be customized to whatever suits your tastes. I am still working through my parsley, so I decided to try a parsley hummus on Epicurious with a few adjustments.
Ingredients:
1 bunch of parsley leaves
1/4 cup of olive oil
1 can of chickpeas, rinsed
the juice and zest of 1 lemon
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons tahini
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
pita bread
cooking spray
salt, to taste
Preheat the over to 450 degrees. Cut the pita into triangles and arrange on a cookie sheet coated with cooking spray.
Cook for 4-5 minutes and set aside. Place the chickpeas in a colander and rinse with water.
Roughly chop the garlic.
Put the parsley and the garlic in a food processor and process until thoroughly mixed, about 1 minute.
Add the chickpeas and process for another minute.
Add in the lemon juice, lemon zest, tahini, olive oil, cumin, cayenne pepper, and salt (to taste). Process until smooth.
Place the pine nuts in a saute pan over medium heat. Shake the pan frequently to keep them from burning. When fragrant and browned, remove from heat.
Take 3/4 of the pine nuts and finely chop.
Add the chopped pine nuts to the hummus and mix in with a spoon. Top the hummus with the remaining whole pine nuts.
The spices add great flavor but there isn’t enough in it to give heat. The pine nuts give the hummus some crunch. And for some reason, it makes me super happy that this hummus is such a pretty green color. If you’re not in the mood for toasted pita, tomatoes or sliced cucumber would be quite tasty with this.
I love asparagus. I love risotto. So I thought combining the two would be easy and delicious. I used a recipe from Bon Appétit, just to make sure I knew what I was doing. Well, my poor “asparagus risotto” ended up looking more like asparagus soup with rice. Sigh. It still tasted good though…
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds asparagus
5 cups (about) canned low-salt chicken broth
1 cup water
1 tablespoon butter
1 large onion, chopped
2 cups arborio rice or medium-grain white rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup whipping cream
Fresh rosemary sprigs (optional)
Begin by prepping your asparagus. Trim off the tough ends from the asparagus and discard. Cut off the asparagus tips and place in a bowl. Cut the stalks into ¾ inch pieces and place in another bowl.
Place 2/3 of stalk pieces, 1 cup broth and 1 cup water in blender (note: I would only use 1 cup broth, no water).
Puree until smooth and set aside. Chop your onion. I used large pieces, but I think the smaller the pieces, the better. Melt the butter in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until tender, about 8 minutes.
Add rice and stir for 1 minute.
Add the wine and cook until absorbed, stirring often, about 2 minutes. Add ½ cup broth and the chopped rosemary. Simmer until liquid is absorbed.
Continue to cook for an additional 15 minutes, adding more broth by the ½ cupfuls and allowing liquid to fully absorb before adding more. Stir often.
Add remaining asparagus stalk pieces and reserved asparagus tips and continue cooking rice until it’s tender and creamy, about 10 more minutes. Add extra broth if needed.
Add reserved asparagus puree until absorbed, about 3 minutes. (Note: 3 minutes? Ha. After 12 minutes I just gave up.)
Asparagus soup?
Stir in Parmesan and cream. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish with rosemary sprigs if desired.
So, I’m guessing that cutting out the water in the puree may help a bit. I also think it might work to slowly add the puree by the ½ cupfuls versus dumping the whole thing in at once. Despite how ugly it is, it did taste good. If anyone tries this out and manages to make it look aesthetically pleasing, please let me in on your secret!
