187: Bok Choy and Radish Slaw

This is the slaw just after mixing- definitely good, but as the recipe said to refrigerate for a half hour I did so. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Fun knife skills practice was had slicing up bok choy, radishes, daikon, basil and mint. I did scallions in lieu of the onion the recipe called for (honestly because I got confused from looking at another recipe, but a fine substitution nonetheless). I had no fish sauce, so the dressing was just mustard, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, lime and peanut oil. I'm not sure how soy sauce + vinegar = fish sauce, but just accept that that's what happened.

Mixed, ate a bowl, refrigerated.

This is a smaller portion a half hour later. Liked it much more after the flavors had had time to marry. Unsurprisingly, the star for me was the mint. Or maybe not the star, but my favorite part. Overall though a very nice slaw to use up a bunch of share ingredients.

184: Leek and Bok Choy Saute

So, instead of any of those, a leek and bok choy saute!

Having your prep done is the most amazing thing. It may be the part of working in a restaurant that has spoiled me for regular cooking. The fact that I have to come home, cut everything up, and THEN cook? Psch. The past few nights I've been making a habit of having most of my prep done ahead of time (like the night before), so I can just chop an onion or something and get going, and it's just lovely.

I had a few recipes to choose from for these veggies- I ended up going for the simplest.

Ingredients:
- 1/2 head bok choy, stems and leaves separated, both sliced thinly
- 3 leeks, sliced (would've been nicer thinner, but was still fine)
- 1/2 onion, sliced thin
~ Tbs soy sauce
~ Tbs rice wine vinegar
~ tsp garlic chili paste
~ salt, pepper

You guys can figure this out from that list, right? Oh, I guess this is one of the rare recipes I have actually posted, so I should probably explain it.

I sauteed the onions and bok choy stems for a few minutes with a little salt then added the leeks (in a better world, I would've added the leeks sooner so they could caramelize a bit more, but it's ok). While those worked I mixed my sauce ingredients- honestly just poured a bit of each into a bowl, mixed with a fork and it tasted good so I went with it.

The ingredients in the pan had softened nicely, so I added the greens from the bok choy, let those wilt down, then added the sauce to coat.

Nicely spicy. Super easy. I realize it looks like a pale mass of wrigly things, maybe more greens would've been prettier? Or adding noodles? But it was tasty, so no complaints.

Delivery 19

Dill - 1 bunch

Beets - 2 pounds

Diakon Radish - 1
Cheriette Radishes - 1 bunch

Cauliflower - 1 head

Red Leaf Lettuce - 1 head (standard switch for more radishes)

Green Lettuce - 1 head

Napa Cabbage - 1 head

Bok Choy - 1 head

Leeks - 1 bunch

Broccoli Florets -1 bunch

Ancho Peppers - 4

Hot Peppers - take if you like

[no pic]

Cauliflower

Still love this roundup, though I'm tempted to try and fix my smothered cauliflower dish.

Napa Cabbage

With daikon I'm well on my way to more kimchi, but no. Loving this cabbage roundup from Bittman (picks: hot & sour, egg & tomato, caesar). Really feeling soup lately.

Leeks 

Still have my leeks from last week- I just went ahead and cleaned and chopped everything up without a definite plan in mind. Less excuses to dawdle. Here's a soup with cauliflower and cashews. Or that confit. Or fritters, again, though a different recipe.
 

Dill

There is some smoked salmon in my freezer that would be good with this- I'd go super simple though. Beyond that (as I still have tons of potatoes from the past few weeks): a potato salad with dill, roasted potatoes, or roasted radishes. Dill bread. Potato dill bread. And another.

Radishes

See other ingredients. Lazy this week. I'm not sure who doesn't like radishes, but for some reason they're always on the swap table. Not complaining, beats red lettuce any day.

Green Lettuce

A salad, natch. Not sure what kind, though could easily be a just greens with dressing kind of thing.

Beets

You have no idea how happy I am to see beets. I'd gladly take two pounds of these every week. Part of me was sad there were none on the swap table, but as it gets colder these will be more prevalent, so here's hoping. These guys are already roasted, earmarked for a repeat of sorts.

Daikon

This daikon is as big as my forearm. No kidding. Some will be pickled. Here are more recipes for that. I like this soup, even if it's more about the mushrooms than the daikon. Here's a simpler one.

Poblano Peppers

Not that I have a plan for it, but I'm tempted to make a sauce. Also maybe a pizza. Also also I picked up more hot peppers but forgot to add them to this pic.

Broccoli

Roasted with cauliflower and garlic. Spicy saute. These feel firmer than the last batch for whatever reason. Not a lot though.

Bok Choy

Cole slaw with radishes and daikon. Or a saute. I've gotten over my inherent meh-ness about this veggie, as I've made some fun things with it so far, but it's pretty hard to store in my greens-hatin' fridge.

176: Bok Choy Salad

I'm making a point of eating out now and then, as I've lived in the city for like a year and a half and barely knocked any restaurants off this epic google maps of places I want to eat. High on dish obsession list, especially now that it's cold, is Pho. Using this list as a base, I plan to hit up a bunch of pho joints in the next few months. We went so Sao Mai the other day. It was solid but not mindblowing.
Anyway, got home around nine and needed a quick lunch prep for the next day. I remembered this recipe from Martha. Two ingredients in the salad itself, like four in the dressing- not going to get much simpler than that. Easy tasty lunch.

Delivery 18

Leeks - 1 bunch

Potatoes - 2 pounds

Broccoli - 2 bunches

Acorn Winter Squash - 1

Lettuce - 1 head Exchanged for another bunch of radishes

Bok Choy - 1 head

Radish - 1 bunch

Rosemary - 1 bunch

Purple Globe Turnips with Greens - 1 bunch

Hot Habanero Peppers - take them if you like

Red Cabbage - 1 head

Peppers - 2

Cauliflower - 1

Broccoli

Once again these were kind of ...floppy. I found the last batch pretty bitter, but at least there's a decent amount this time so I didn't swap them out. A few decent contenders for recipes, too: Pizza (with potatoes and rosemary), cooked forever, roasted with mustard.

Bok Choy

I'm on a salad kick lately (week long detoxes to make up for the crazy indulgence of the weekend wherein I eat all the bread, eggs, caramel sauce and butter), so a simple raw salad may be in order. Or cooked with broccoli.

Cauliflower

Crazy/amazing roundup from the Guardian, some of which will get made, but maybe not this week as I've found cauliflower and eggs with tomato sauce! Or there's roasted with ginger and mint.

Turnips

I'm not sure I've ever cooked turnips before. No wait, I did once, just roasted as a "Hey! These are cheap, let's add them to the weekly veggie roast" a few years ago. Looking to do something a little more exciting with them now. Here are options: with orange and hazlenuts, soup with leeks, mashed with potatoes and leeks, pickles, and Moroccan! Loving the looks of those greens, too.

Radish

I have four of these guys earmarked, as for what to do with the rest: easy with turnips, a pizza (pizzas are the new biscuits. also a bit of a cop out, but cacio e pepe is a great flavor profile), Indian flatbread (!), and then this weird weird bread I don't think I'll ever make, but wanted to share.

Potatoes 

Fritters with turnips, doing a more traditional potato pancake. Getting a lot of potatoesed out. Maybe I'll make bread and bring it to work to get rid of it: here are a bunch of recipes (and a German one).

Leeks

Going back to the archives a bit, but leek confit perhaps. Though a ton of recipes I've already listed use them, so I doubt I'll have trouble.

Red Cabbage

There were a few that I mentioned last time I would like to get back to: peanut/lime salad or sweet and sour. Galette with onions and feta.

Acorn Squash

Soup with Turnips, there's always a plain ol' roast as well. Or risotto.

Rosemary

I'm having trouble using all my herbs again. Still have a bunch of thyme from last week. I may whip up another batch of herb butter, just so I don't feel so bad about the sheet volume that exists in the crisper. Would also work well with potatoes and squash.

Peppers

I keep picking up tons of hot peppers without a plan in mind- though I used some in my chili verde. There are still some roasted from last week in my fridge. Let's pretend I'll make hot sauce, shall we?

158: Bok Choy and Mushroom Soup

Soup! Made a mix between a few recipes, as I didn't have the meat in the one I linked to in the delivery post. 

Ingredients 

Mushroom broth (32 oz container)

3 portobello mushrooms, sliced

1 head Bok Choy, greens sliced into ribbons, stems chopped and kept separate

1 onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2" piece of fresh ginger, grated

1 Tbs Thai basil vinegar (or your preference)

1 Tbs soy sauce

~ oil

~ salt, pepper

1 bundle of noodles (still had some buckwheat / sweet potato, but again, your preference here)

~ sesame oil

1 scallion, sliced fine

~ sriracha 

Started a pot with about half a container of mushroom broth. Stemmed my portobellos and threw those in the pot (not really necessary but thought it couldn't hurt). Let that simmer while I worked on the rest. 

Brought a pot of water to boil, cooked my noodles per package instructions, then ran them under cold water and tossed with a little sesame oil to keep from sticking. It didn't really work, but added nice flavor to the dish so I'd still recommend it.

My thought with this soup was to make everything I could vaguely noodly. So I cut my mushrooms into strips and my bok choy greens into ribbons. 

I put some onions in a pan with oil and salt, and cooked off my mushrooms in batches til they got a little color on them, then added to the pot of stock. When all the mushroom was done, deglazed with some of the remaining stock and added that to the pot as well. 

Sautéed the rest of my onions with the chard stems until the stems were a little tender. Then added my garlic and ginger, stirring continuously so they didn't burn, and once those smelled fragrant, added my leaves. Mixed those until they wilted, then added those to the stock pot. Deglazed the pan with the remaining stock, added that to the pot as well. 

Then the tricky part, where I tried to make my soup well seasoned. Added approx a tablespoon each of my Thai basil vinegar and soy sauce. Salt and pepper as needed. Remove those mushroom stems. 

Put my noodles in a bowl and poured my soup over, then topped with the scallions and some parsley, which you can see in my pics but I wouldn't recommend. Maybe basil instead? I still felt like it was missing something. That something turned out to be sriracha.

I'd love to do a trial sometime where I start with the same soup base and try different vinegars and other additions to see what difference it makes to the final product. Project for another day!

Delivery 16

Lactino Kale - 1 bunch

Tomatillos - 10
French Breakfast/Cherriette Radishes - 1 bunch
Parsley - 1 bunch
Mustard Greens - 1 bunch
Bok Choy - 1 head
Broccoli - 3 These were feeling rather limp, so I hit up the swap table for more tomatillos!
Shallots - 4
Red Cabbage - 1
Peppers - 2

Hot Peppers - Serranos take if you like

Lactino Kale 

Why are people calling this Lactino Kale when it's also known as DINOSAUR kale. Seriously, so much more awesome and totally apt. Here's a raw salad, and some stuffed sweet potatoes.

Bok Choy

Hash, super easy saute, and I'm still feeling in need of soup.

Tomatillo

You could buy 10 lb bags of these from the farm that supplies the CSA. It was tempting, but I somehow refrained. I want to do something vastly different with these guys. Here's a tart, or some curd, a drink, or braised chicken. Ok and a guac, just in case I feel like dipping.

Radishes

I've had this salad on the list for ages, but now I actually have share radishes to make it with, so it will definitely happen soon. Greens are also nice! If I want to go simple here's a sandwich, or roasted. A few salads: detox and with mangos. And out of the blue a bit: curry!

Red Cabbage

No red cabbage on the swap table today. This is a little guy, so this won't hit as many recipes as the usual cabbage. Simple sweet and sour, a salad with white beans, a few slaws, cooked with apples, and a plain ol sear.

 

Mustard Greens 

There was a surprising amount of mustard greenage on the swap table, maybe people aren't as enamored of it as I am? I keep cooking them, this time I have to keep it raw. Here's a salad with anchovies and one with apples.

Peppers

So the long guys are probably cubanelles- I've just been eating them as easy snacks and will probably continue to do so. This looks really good, though anything with eggs is a winner for me. They're also often stuffed. I have a blacklog of hot peppers, maybe I'll finally get around to pickling them.

Shallots

I'll be posting something amazing with shallots soon, but, again, will mostly just try to use in place of onions/garlic in a few standard recipes.

Parsley

A few recipes mention parsley (at least one of the slaws has it), but here it is wilted on toast (with an egg- scroll down!)...and even further down the page there's a simple salad with lentils and a mustardy vinaigrette. Tabbouleh, a roulade (not gonna happen but cool), eggplant dip, potato cake.

146: Roasted Bok Choy

I got home yesterday, super tired, a little braindead, wanting something simple. Bok Choy was never really my favorite, so a dish without a lot of fuss is what I needed. I saw this recipe, and as I already had the oven going for something off-share, I tossed my bok choy with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, laid it out on a sheet pan and threw it in the oven.

It roasted for ~10 minutes each side. When I went to turn I realized I had no lemon juice, so I sprinkled a little thai basil vinegar I'd made weeks ago for a pepper jam that never happened. For the record: still on the fence about thai basil (boo anise), but totally loving that vinegar.

I cooked until the leaves started to char a bit. My vinegar application was rushed and uneven, the leaves at the end barely got hit, and I wasn't sold- too much of the Bok Choy bitterness coming through. The middle leaves were so delicious though, nicely roasted and sweet, the tang of the vinegar mellowing out the acerbic greens.

Minigoal: season more things with vinegar

Minigoal 2: make more flavored vinegars

Delivery 15

Bright Lights Swiss Chard - 1 bunch

Winter Squash - 2

Orient Express Eggplant - 2

Sage-1 bunch

Mustard Greens - 1 bunch

Bok Choy - 1 bunch

Shallots - 4

Cabbage - 1

Potatoes - 2 pounds

Peppers - 2

Hot Peppers - take if you like

Bok Choy

Not my favorite, but happy to have greens again. May give this away (I know one of my roommates is a fan) or will do something simple. Like a stir fry or roast. Here's a little roundup.

Chard

Have a dinner, so may remake that dip I forgot to take pics of. Also this comic is lovely and has a few ways of cooking the veg (and I'm starting to get a little obsessed with Dirt Candy). It'd also be a good mix with the squash and sage. Here it is creamed from smitten kitchen- a preparation I haven't tried yet.

Sage

Excited, as it means I get to buy chicken liver again. Liking the looks of this recipe, especially that it includes a recipe for shallot jam! I may have a little thyme in the fridge as well. Beyond that: a huuge roundup of recipe ideas. Also: biscuits.

Shallots

The aforementioned shallot jam, but otherwise using in everything, as shallots are so tasty.

Orient Express Eggplant

I'm considering something beyond Baynan Bharta. I think it's time for a longer break until I can taste the original. I have a cool recipe for jam from the Dirt Candy cookbook, or maybe babaganoush. Here's a stir fry, and a few from Macheesmo. More roasty from Bon Appetit.

Cabbage

Peanut Slaw from Cook's Illustrated (via Martha). I'm continuing to run low on ideas haha. Also the swap table was ENTIRELY cabbage, which was fairly hilarious. Here's a roundup (these are my favs, skimming). Also: fritters.

Potatoes

I have a ton of recipes from potato's earlier appearances in deliveries. Here's some bread (tired Kelly is a carb-craving Kelly)

Squash

Roasty toasty. These are most likely carnival squash. These would be good stuffed. Oh hey here's a pinterest board of recipes! Fav, skimmin: stuffed with spaghetti (sucker for an egg yolk!). Here's a preparation for acorn that I'd totally try out with this.

Peppers

Happy I remembered spicy peppers this time- not 100% sure what the big peppers are, but will probably just dice them and throw them into something.

Mustard Greens

Yay! So happy to see this guy again. I love this spicy green, may just do a raw salad. Here are a few from Martha. Here's an Indian dish! Salad with bulgur, another with garlic mayo, and another Indian preparation to round out the ideas.

Delivery 2

Delivery 2 was much like Delivery 1. I'm happy there's levels of consistency and variation so I can build on prior experience but not get too stagnant- but I do wish kale had carried over. So it goes.

Here's the haul:

Bok Choi - 1 head

Chinese Cabbage - 1 head

Red Sails Lettuce -1 head

Romaine Lettuce - 1 head

Buttercrunch Lettuce - 1 head

Mustard Greens - 1 bunch

Mizuna - 1 bunch 

Sorrel - 1 bunch

Sage with Flowers - 1 bunch

Garlic Scapes - 6 scapes
 

And the highlights:

Sorrel: I had no strong feelings about this guy when I saw it on the list, but then I ate a leaf...awesome! A really nice citrusy bite, especially the stems.

From Wikipedia: "The plant's sharp taste is due to oxalic acid, which is a poison. In small quantities sorrel is harmless; in large quantities it can be fatal." Neat!

Lots of stuff to do with this guy- there are drinks, pesto, or some kind of tart? I read the flavor mellows when it cooks, so I'm thinking the pesto.

Butter Crunch Lettuce: This is the cartoon lettuce shaped lettuce- does it come across in pics? The leaves feel nicely pliant so I may use it in a wrap situation. Like this.

Sage (with flowers): Don't get me wrong- this is very pretty- but doesn't the effort of growing flowers take some of the oomph out of the leaves? Apparently sage is good with chicken liver- which I know, gross, but I need to eat more iron and that's one of the best sources. Also- liver mousse? Nom. Here are a few choices for when I'm looking.

Garlic Scapes: The sign said take six out of the bin, so I did. Apparently they ran out of rhubarb last week- I have a feeling the shareholders showing up last minute may be scapeless. There are interesting looking dips (apparently suuuper strong, so it's in the lead), on a pizza, or in okonomiyaki or biscuits. So- basically- all the things.

And our good friend Mr Chinese Cabbage. Obviously not new, but I got a monster-sized head. It's already been cut up for a second, appropriately spiced, batch of kimchi.

Oh and I found a little slug on my kale. He was kind of cute (no pics, sorry), but yeah, guess we know it's organic!