Week #2 Recap

Week #2 of the CSA allowed us to make mostly familiar dishes. Lettuce, broccoli, and strawberries are all pretty much staples (even though we hardly ever buy fresh broccoli!) so it was not too difficult to come up with meals with those items.

Strawberries

Churn, baby, churn!

Three words: strawberry. ice. cream. Nothing says summer like homemade ice cream made from fresh strawberries. If anyone would like to argue this, I urge you to take a spoonful from our freezer. Hurry up, though, because this frozen bite of heaven won't be around for ever. There's nothing wrong with eating ice cream for breakfast, right? It counts as a serving of fruit...maybe? The recipe for this came from The Joy of Cooking, 8th Edition. This cookbook never fails to provide delicious meals. Go out and grab a copy!

Broccoli

Speaking of The Joy of Cooking, the next recipe we made with our CSA produce was Cream of Broccoli soup, served alongside unremarkable beer bread (I'm blaming the bland taste on beer that was 6 months old). The soup was amazing and very easy to make - celery, onions, broccoli, vegetable broth, a little bit of flour, and some whole milk. This recipe requires a blender or food processor - I prefer mine a little chunky, so we did not fully blend the soup. The beer bread tasted great with the soup, but it was not very flavorful. The Cream of Broccoli soup is definitely a keeper...there were no leftovers from this meal! Beer bread deserves a second chance, but next time I'll use a more recently bottled beer.

Radishes

Spring Radishes Braised with Shallots and Vinegar - served with baked chicken

Radishes...what to say about the radishes? The radish leaf pesto (see previous post) was really good - there were no leftovers from that meal, either! It was easy to make and tasted great. After scouring the Internet for a cooked radish recipe, we found this one: Spring Radishes Braised with Shallots and Vinegar. The next day, we made braised radishes with shallots and balsamic vinegar. Braising is a cooking technique where the main ingredient is first seared, then liquid is added to the pan along with a cover, and the ingredient finishes cooking in the liquid. Usually this is done with meat. The braised radishes were alright- the balsamic reduction was very tasty, but anything topped with this sauce would be delicious.

Final thoughts on radishes: probably would never go out of my way to buy them, but now we have some radish recipes if we are ever gifted a bunch. I'll probably stick to eating radishes raw in salads.

Lettuce

So much for being adventurous with lettuce! As always, this just got used up in salads and on sandwiches. One day, lettuce will be made into something more daring!

Radish Leaf Pesto Pasta

During the fall of my junior year of college, I had the amazing opportunity to study abroad in one of the most beautiful cities in the world - Florence, Italy. This was one of the best times in my life, and I have been dying to go back! Being surrounded by my best friends, delicious food and wine, and gorgeous art and architecture made it close to impossible to leave at the end of the semester. One of the best parts of the study abroad program was all of the extra-curricular activities that they arranged for students: day trips to other cities, tickets to soccer games, wine tastings, volunteering in the community, and cooking classes (side note: the other highlights include a 3-week orientation in Lido di Camaiore, a beach resort town, and the most delicious meal plan).

Firenze...la città più bella del mondo

The cooking classes were always the fastest to fill up - no surprise there! I learned some of the most delicious recipes in those classes, including a recipe for one of the best Italian soups, papa al pomodoro (recipe will be in a later post - maybe when tomatoes come in the CSA!). One of my favorite classes that I took was a pesto class, where we made a traditional basil pesto and a Sicilian pesto with tomatoes and sardines, different yet delicious. Pesto itself just means "to grind with a mortar and pestle", so any type of sauce made via this method is considered pesto. In an attempt not to waste anything from our CSA, we used the leaves from our radishes to make...

Radish Leaf Pesto

Ingredients:

• leaves from one bunch of radishes, rinsed with stems removed
• 2 garlic cloves
• 3 Tbl olive oil, more to taste
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, more to taste
• salt and pepper
• optional: 1 can tuna (not shown)

Directions:

1. Place garlic cloves and olive oil in food processor. Process until garlic is finely chopped.

2. Add radish leaves, process until mixture begins to form a paste.

3. Add cheese, salt and peper to taste, and additional olive oil, if needed.

4. Pour over pasta and add tuna. Enjoy!

The pesto was surprisingly really good! On its own, it tasted a little more bitter than traditional basil pesto, but on pasta it tasted great. To be honest, I had to google if radish leaves were poisonous before we ate dinner - good news, they're not! So far, this has been the most creative dish we've made from the produce from our CSA...it's only week 2, so who knows what we'll be making by Thanksgiving!