Garden radishes!!

So, so excited about my own radishes, harvested this morning.

Lentil salad with my favorite vinaigrette

I have been using a fabulous combination of salad dressing ingredients for quite some time, now. But as part of my ongoing internal dialog about whether I can post a recipe from someone else verbatim, I have not shared it here.

But.

I have recently found variations on this dressing in more than one place, and I realized that I have indeed varied it enough myself that I can post it in good conscience.

So here it is, My Favorite Vinaigrette:

1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tablespoons red or white wine vinegar
1 tsp to 1 T minced allium-family item (shallot, onion, garlic, scallion, chive, garlic scapes)
1/4 tsp salt
freshly-ground black pepper
1-2 T fresh parsley, minced (other fresh herbs work well, too, but don't use too many at once)
about 1 T sour cream
about 1 T dijon mustard
about 1 T capers (optional)

Mix the vinegar, salt and minced allium and let stand for 10 minutes. Then add the rest of the ingredients and shake or stir vigorously.

This dressing is great on a green salad, or on julienned radishes or baby turnips (a personal favorite), or on legumes.

I threw together a version with lentils de puy when I realized last week at 5.30 that I had no protein item for our dinner.

Lentil salad

3/4 cup lentils, sorted and rinsed.
4 radishes, halved or quartered and thinly sliced
2 scallions, chopped fine

Cook lentils in 3 cups salted water till tender but not falling apart, about 40 minutes. Drain. (I used the cooking water to help braise some turnip and radish greens we ate with the lentil salad.)

Toss the lentils with the dressing while they're still hot. Allow to cool to room temperature before adding the radishes and scallions.

You might want extra salt or pepper.

Simple rhubarb

Yesterday I went to the Lexington Farmer's Market. What a great market, with tons of vendors and great local food energy. I had to restrain myself, as I have another CSA pickup today, but I did buy a few things, including a big bundle of rhubarb from Blue Heron Organic Farm in Lincoln.

Once home, I cleaned and chopped the rhubarb. It yielded maybe 3 or 4 cups? I put it in a baking dish, stirred in maybe a half cup of brown sugar and a half teaspoon of cinnamon and baked it at 350 for about 40 minutes, stirring often.

It's a lovely little compote, just a little sweet but with that inimitable rhubarb flavor shining through! I'm thinking I'll stir it into oatmeal . . . spread it on toast . . . mix it into yogurt and eat it with granola . . . I don't think it will last long!

Vegetables for breakfast

I'm trying to incorporate more vegetables into my life. One strategy I hit upon was to try to eat a vegetable with *every* meal -- even breakfast, even lunch -- even if it just means a few lettuce leaves, or a raw carrot. I don't claim that I am managing this all the time, but it's a goal to strive for. One strategy, of course, involves using leftovers.

I like a shot of protein in the morning, so I often eat an egg. I'm a big fan of the improvised fritatta -- with leftover greens, or pasta, or even quinoa. (One of these days I'll blog my quick quinoa dish -- fast fast and very versatile, and the leftovers make a great fritatta.)

Today I didn't have an egg, though: I had the classic radish sandwich, the makings of which are pictured above. (I made the bread yesterday.) A slice of pain de campaigne, lightly buttered and covered with thinly-sliced radish, topped with a sprinkle of kosher salt. Heavenly.

I also ate the other night's turnips and greens, also pictured above, reheated and spooned over another slice of bread, lightly toasted. (Side note: I generally prefer baby turnips raw, sliced thinly or julienned and dressed with my variation on Deborah Madison's mustard vinaigrette, but this time I sliced them, sauteed in olive oil with some garlic and their chopped greens. A delicious preparation, but I do think I prefer them raw. They're sharper raw, whereas cooked they're SO sweet and melting. They provide a nice foil for their greens, though, which retain their sharpness even when they're cooked.)

Finally (don't be grossed out), I ate leftover baked beans on toast. Didn't I say I need protein in the morning? I usually go for an egg, but beans can serve me well, too!

(A final note: I apologize for the lousy quality of the pictures. My camera is not doing that well. Maybe one of these days, I'll upgrade.)

Quick bok choi

Today was the first pickup at our summer CSA. (It also might be a year ago today that I started this blog -- can that really be?!) I participated, a little, in a new member orientation that was instituted this year, and Ellie, one of the growers, pitched this blog (Thanks, Ellie!) And then I had a conversation with a new member about what to do with bok choi -- I sort of rattled off a "recipe," but told her (hi, Debbie!) that I'd put one up here.

1 bunch bok choi (these bunches were huge -- maybe a pound?)
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 large-garlic-clove-size piece of fresh ginger, minced
2 T soy sauce
1 (scant) T rice vinegar
2 tsp sugar
1 heaping T corn starch
1 T canola oil mixed with 1 tsp Asian sesame oil

The biggest trouble I have with bok choi is how watery it can be. I think I came up with a solution. I chopped the leaves, but kept the stems separate, and cooked them first. Also, I used plenty of corn starch in the sauce.

Note: as you can see from the pictures, I wasn't super-careful about keeping the stems and leaves separate. It doesn't really matter; just be sure you get most of the stems separated.

Heat the canola and sesame oils in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the stems and cook, tossing or stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes, until they're tender (try a piece -- you don't want it soggy, but you want it to cook down a bit and let that excess water cook off.)

Add the green part of the leaves as well as the ginger and garlic. Continue tossing/stirring for another 3 or 4 minutes.

In a small bowl, combine soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and corn starch and stir well.

Give the sauce an extra stir right before adding it to the skillet of greens. Stir constantly to coat all the bok choi with sauce and let the sauce thicken (about 30 seconds?), then remove from heat and serve.

Edited to add: We get a *lot* of bok choi, so I reprised this a few days later. This time I used Loriva brand roasted peanut oil combined with canola to cook with, and drizzled on a couple of teaspoons of toasted sesame oil at the end. I also increased the amount of sauce I made to accommodate the cooked soba noodles I tossed in to make a meal out of it.

Next up, maybe, fried rice with bok choi.

"Asian" spinach

No picture of this one, sorry! I forgot to take one before we gobbled it up. I went to Wilson Farm last weekend for some seedlings, some black beans (Baer's, of course) and to check out what they had for local produce.

I came home with a giant bag of spinach and two bunches of asparagus. (Jon looked at the asparagus and said, "only two? are you serious?" Looks like I'll have to go back.) The first bunch of asparagus I just boiled gently till just tender in salted water and served with a combination of olive oil and butter. Heavenly. I have a plan for the second one, but that will have to wait for another post.

Spinach: that's what I'm writing about today.

1 lb spinach, give or take
1 T toasted sesame oil (or to taste)
1 T soy sauce (or to taste)
2 tsp sugar

Combine all dressing ingredients in a small bowl.

Wash and stem the spinach. Spin or blot it dry, but don't worry about getting it totally dry, as it will steam in the moisture left on the leaves. Get out a big pot -- I used a 6-quart stockpot and still couldn't fit it all at once. Fill the pot with spinach, put a lid on it, and put it over medium heat for a minute or two. As the spinach wilts down, put more into the pot, tossing it around with tongs or a wooden spoon. Once it's all wilted, drain it well, squeezing out the moisture so it doesn't make the dressing watery.

Chop the leaves coarsely, then toss with the dressing.

Serve hot or cold. Love that kind of versatility.

Variations:
I could also imagine throwing a splash of rice vinegar into the sauce, and some hot pepper flakes. Maybe some scallions or minced garlic? Really, the possibilities are endless.

"Wild thing" mini quiches

I was going to call these "weed quiche" but the attorney we had over for dinner advised against it. It's nettles, people!

I keep reading about the edible weeds that grow wild in our gardens . . . we've tried purslane, which I rather like. The burdock is crazy but you can't eat the leaves, only the root, and I haven't managed to dig one up. Their taproots are really hard to pull out and must go all the way to the core of the earth. Lamb's quarters? Haven't seen 'em. Dandelion, check; violets, check. But what about stinging nettles? Finally I found some growing in one of my flower beds. I even proved that it was indeed nettle by (wait for it) getting stung by it. Ouch. Seriously, ouch.

So, what to do? I went to my friend google and learned how to handle it, for one thing. I wore a rubber glove on one hand and wielded scissors in the other. I swished the nettles in a bowl of water to clean them off, and then put them into a small pot of boiling water for 1.5 minutes. Then I fished them out with tongs, blotted them with a towel, and let cool.

3 T melted butter

2 extra large eggs
1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup finely grated cheddar

4 oz mushrooms, diced fine
1 smallish onion, diced fine

salt and pepper

3 stalks spring nettles (could substitute spinach, chard, etc.), blanched (see instructions), stemmed, and chopped fine.

Preheat the oven to 350.

First, saute the onion with a few pinches of salt till softened, then add the mushrooms. Let them relealse their juices and get tender. (I used a little olive oil for the sauteeing.) Toss in the blanched, chopped nettles and remove from the heat.

Next, beat the eggs with another couple picnhes of salt and add the milk. Combine the flour and baking soda in a bowl, then grate in the cheese (that 1/4 cup is an approxiate measurement). Add the egg/milk mixture and then the onion, mushroom and nettles. Grind in some pepper, and mix gently but thoroughly. You don't want any clumps of flour! .

Brush the mini muffin pan (24-muffin size) generously with melted butter. Fill each muffin cup with 1 level tablespoon of the batter.

Bake for 15-20 minutes.