My first week of fresh organic vegetables is at an end.
Here is what I did with it...
Thursday: chicken Orzo soup, with bok choy, carrot and radish tops.
Personally I could have lived without the radish tops but Walker thought they were good. He may have just been being polite. It was a nice way to use up quite a few vegetables, and Walker made a two nice foccacia loaves to eat with it.
I never can use up a bundle of mint very quickly so I tried two methods of preserving them. Above, I laid them out flat on a cookie sheet and froze them, then put them into a plastic bag in the freezer.
I also chopped some and put it in ice cube trays with a little water to freeze, for lemonade, iced tea and other minty drinks later this summer (when it finally gets hot!).
Friday I made a big green salad with two types of lettuce and some arugula. Then I finely chopped radishes, carrots, bok choy, and black olives, and added a splash of vinaigrette and topped the salads with that.
Saturday morning I made a green smoothie with spinach, other greens, a banana, and blueberries. Delicious! Then for dinner I made grilled meat with steamed carrots, and roasted potatoes with arugula pesto (that green blob above - it was very yummy and worth making again!)
Sunday we had another green salad with a flank steak and potatoes
Monday was a delicious pasta dish made with fresh spinach, walnuts and Parmesan. Walker declared "this is the best way to eat spinach!". So delicious I forgot to take a picture!
Tuesday I made a Spinach Cheese Bake, which I had high hopes for but ended up throwing in the garbage. It was a layered "delight" with cottage cheese and an egg and spinach and toasted crumbs on top. Sounds good, but it was VILE! never again.
Luckily Walker made the above yeast dinner rolls and saved our meal. They were wonderful.
I only have one thing left from the CSA box of last week -- two mini bunches of Bok Choy. I plan to grill them with olive oil and garlic tomorrow with whatever we have for dinner.
Here is what I learned this week:
1. Some things I never thought of are EDIBLE (radish tops).
2. You can't go wrong with Pasta, greens, nuts and Parmesan.
3. Throw recipes in the garbage that you don't like so you are never tempted to try it again.
4. It just takes a little focus and a list to use everything up.
5. My vegetable recipe book I made last year and have been adding to since is very helpful when looking for inspiration for some of the lesser known vegetables.
6. A fine loaf of bread makes any meal a feast.
