What’s in the Box for June 18-21, 2013

In the box this week are:

• rapini OR rainbow chard
• Farao cabbage
• leeks
• summer squash
• wild arugula
• salad reds and greens
•  red ace beets with tops
• herbs: lemon thyme and lemon verbena

–Posted by Steven

What’s in the Box for June 11-14, 2013

In the box this week are:

• rapini
• Farao cabbage
• bunching onions
• summer squash
• wild arugula
• turnips
• rainbow chard
• herbs: oregano & lovage

–Posted by Steven

Cabbage Salad Recipes

Want to know what to do with that cabbage?  Well, here are two ideas.  Click through on the first one to gets lots of ideas about an old standby, coleslaw. The other entry is a recipe for a really clean and bright salad with cabbage, apples, and walnuts.  I hope you try them.

Ode to Coleslaw

From culinate.com.  Click on picture for the original article..

Coleslaw is a medieval food with roots in imperial Rome. Apicius, the famous Roman cookbook author, describes a dish of shredded cabbage dressed with eggs, vinegar, and spices. The name itself is Dutch; koolsla simply means cabbage salad. The early Dutch settlers of New Netherland — modern-day New York — grew copious quantities of cabbage up and down the Hudson River. Coleslaw quickly became a favorite in the colonies, and though its popularity flourished and withered among highbrow gourmands, its roots in blue-collar cuisine dug deep.

photo credit: Culinate

---

Cabbage, apple and walnut salad

From SmittenKitchen.com.  Adapted from Chez Panisse Fruit, via Cookstr.  Click on picture for original posting.

Today might have started off as Pie for Breakfast Day but I think we all know that the day after Thanksgiving is all about detox. Away with the heavy cream! Begone, you cheesy gratins! Skedaddle, you deep, gooey casseroles, sticky-sweet yams topped with charred marshmallows and green beans with fried onions. Please, don’t make me eat that butter and drippings-laden gravy again… at least until tomorrow.

Detox Day deserves its own dish, and though it is a tad late to get this one in for dinner tonight, I would like to offer up this cabbage, apple and walnut salad as the antidote to a meal that sent us back to the store for more butter and heavy cream not once but three times. (Gasp! My arteries!) This salad is perfect–it has all of the flavors of the season, but also a crunchy healthfulness so missing from the week’s main event, oh and also that slice of pie we know you’re having for dessert anyway.

 

photo credit: smitten kitchen

Ingredients

• 1 small savoy cabbage
• 1/3 cup walnuts
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• Salt and pepper
• ½ cup olive oil
• 2 tablespoons creme fraiche or heavy cream (we used sour cream)
• 2 apples (any crisp, tasty eating variety, such as Sierra Beauty, Granny Smith, or Fuji)
• 1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese (optional)

Procedure

• Preheat the oven to 375°F.
• Tear off and discard the tough outer leaves of the cabbage. Cut it in half and cut out its core. Slice the halves crosswise into a fine chiffonade.
• Toast the walnuts in the oven for 8 minutes. While they are still warm, first rub them in a clean dishtowel to remove some of the skins, then chop or coarsely crumble them.
• To prepare the dressing, mix the vinegar with the lemon juice, some salt, and a generous amount of pepper.
• Whisk in the olive oil and then the creme fraiche or cream. Taste and adjust the acid and salt as desired.
• Quarter, peel, and core the apples. Slice the quarters lengthwise fairly thin and cut these slices lengthwise into a julienne. Toss the cabbage, apples, and walnuts (and blue cheese, if you’re using it) with the dressing and an extra pinch of salt. Let the salad sit for 5 minutes, taste again, adjust the seasoning as needed, and serve.

Notes

• This salad is great as it is, but I am already itching to hack the recipe. I’d imagine that some snipped chives or perhaps a pinch of fresh dill would be great, or maybe some diced celery or maybe even a tablespoon of creamy horseradish swapped for the creme fraiche. This recipe is infinitely tweakable.
• Serves 6

---

–posted by Steven

What’s in the Box for June 4-7, 2013

In the box this week are:

• Stella OR bing cherries
• Farao cabbage
• red torpedo onions
• summer squash
• wild arugula
• beets with tops
• rainbow chard
• herbs: chives

–Posted by Steven

Cauliflower and Kale Pasta Recipe

This may seem like an unlikely recipe for some of you this week, since there’s no cauliflower in the CSA box, but broccoli Romanesco will work just fine.  For those of you who got rainbow chard instead of Lacinato kale – that will work jut fine as well.    Really.  Live dangerously .

Cauliflower and Kale Pasta

This recipe is from The Bite House.   Click on picture for original posting.

Cauliflower is one of the most versatile and yet overlooked of all vegetables– it can be sautéed, puréed, roasted, braised, fried, grilled or even served raw. I’ve paired cauliflower with kale and a Gruyère-oregano white sauce. The result is a creamy, hearty, herby pasta dish. You could also use the sauce for chicken or a killer mac ‘n cheese.

Gruyère and Oregano White Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 1/2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup grated Gruyère
• 2 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
• sea salt + ground black pepper

Procedure

• In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the onions. Cook them for 5 minutes on medium-high heat, until lightly browned.
• Add the garlic and flour and stir for a minute.
• Lower the heat, add the milk, and stir until the milk thickens.
• Set aside, add the Gruyère and oregano, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Cauliflower and Kale Pasta

Ingredients

• 300g [11 oz] pasta, cooked
• 500g [1.1 lb] cauliflower, the florets sliced
• small bunch kale, leaves torn in 2 or 3 pieces
• 4 tablespoons olive or grapeseed oil
• sea salt + ground black pepper

Procedure

• In a large skillet or wok, heat 3 tablespoons of oil until very hot.
• Add the cauliflower and sautée for 5 minutes, until nicely coloured.
• Add the extra tablespoon of oil and kale. Cook for a few minutes.
• Add the pasta and Gruyère-Oregano Sauce, and stir until well combined and heated through.
• Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• Serve with a few leaves of oregano.

Serves 4.

–posted by Steven

Wild Arugula Pesto Recipe

We have a good crop of wild arugula, so what could be nicer than making a great pesto.

Wild Arugula Pesto

This recipe is from theKitchn.com.  Click on picture for original posting.

My mystery box included a nice bag of wild arugula last week, much to my pleasure. For the past year or so, I’ve been enjoying this pungent, more peppery version of arugula in salads, on top of pizzas, as a pesto. But for some reason, I’ve never stopped to ask what’s the difference between arugula and wild arugula? Now that I’m starting to see it everywhere (even prewashed and bagged up at my local Trader Joe’s) I’ve stopped believing that it is truly a wild plant, found growing in obscure, secret fields and harvested under the cloak of darkness.

So what is it, then? Read on for the answer and a recipe for Wild Arugula Pesto!

“Arugula and wild arugula are different but related plants,” says Julia Wiley of Mariquita Farms. “Our ‘wild’ arugula is planted and cultivated.” Julia references Elizabeth Schneider’s Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini, a book she and her husband, farmer Andy Griffin, use a lot. Apparently, wild arugula used to mean a foraged variety of arugula but now refers to a garden species called diplotaxis erucoides, which “has a slimmer, sharper form and a fiercer flavor.”

More information: Very high in calcium, arugula is full of phytochemicals, beta-carotene and higher than any other salad green in vitamin C. It is a wonderful garden herb that can be sowed and harvested from spring into fall, although it can tend to bolt in the hottest summer months. Purchase seeds from Nature Hills Nursery, where they refer to it as eruca vesicaaria sativa.

Wild arugula is wonderful on its own, tossed with a simple vinaigrette (light on the vinegar) or as a part of a salad mix. One of my favorite things to do is to toss it with a bit of olive oil and salt and use it to top a pizza after it has been removed from the oven and cut into pieces. It can also be made into a delicious pesto:

Ingredients

• 1 plump clove of garlic
• 1/4 cup nice extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup toasted pinenuts (can substitute almonds)
• 2 cups, packed, wild arugula, washed and dried
• scant 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan

Procedure

• Pulse the garlic and olive oil in a food processor until the garlic is chopped fine. 
• Add the pine nuts, arugula and salt and pulse again into a rough paste. 
• Add cheese and pulse once or twice to blend. 
• Makes about 1 cup.

Notes:

• Uses: toss with pasta, dab on pizza, serve as a dip, spread on bruschetta, swirl into a vegetable soup, spoon over eggs. If storing, cover with plastic wrap so that it touches the top of the pesto and forms a seal.
• Refrigerate up to one week.

---

–posted by Steven

What’s in the Box for May. 28-31, 2013

In the box this week are:

• salad R&G
• wild arugula for pesto
• leeks
• summer squash
• Farao cabbage or broccoli Romanesco
• bing cherries
• rainbow chard OR Lacinato kale
• herbs: chamomile & oregano

–Posted by Steven