Going Strong

Well we made it through week 2 and we are going strong. I am actually really enjoying being challenged to cook with ingredients I would have never purchased. Ben and I are discovering we really do like a lot of vegetables we didn't think we would. This week I was especially dreading eating collard greens, more on that later. Let's start at the beginning.

On Sunday Ben and I spent the majority of our day working on our basement tearing up the remnants of vinyl/linoleum flooring that was glued to the cement floor. Terrible project and I am very glad to be finished with it. Ben did 2/3 of the work, and I would work shifts. At one point I begged to go to the grocery store (my least favorite place on a Sunday), in order to take a break. Luckily Ben loves food just as much as I do, so I was granted a free pass to run to the grocery store.

Sunday night as a reward for our hard work, I whipped up a locally grown meal (for the most part). I picked fresh basil from my overgrown pot of basil on the patio and made Grilled Chicken with Basil Dressing. I actually followed the recipe for the most part, I omitted the fennel, and used boneless chicken breasts but other than that I followed the instructions. Last week we were just dipping our toes into the world of Kale and Kohlrabi, so this week I decided we need to try them more natural. I made Sauteed Kale with Kohlrabi. The only change I made was replacing the salted pistachios with unsalted roasted sunflower seeds. I have to say this is one dish I would absolutely make again, in fact I could eat a bowl of it right now (and is 5:50 in the morning). I definitely do need a mandoline slicer to slice the kohlrabi. I used a box grater that had slicing blades on the side. While the Kohlrabi came out fine, it took my thumb about 3 days to recover from being sliced open then covered in lime juice when I juiced the limes. As with everything else, I am not a graceful cook. We rounded out our plate with grilled garlic scapes. I didn't use a recipe for this, just brushed them with olive oil and grilled them in our veggie basket on the grill. They have a very mild garlic flavor and were fine...I wouldn't purchase them, but if we get them in our CSA box again I wouldn't be upset. We also split a bottle of wine (locally grown at Trader Joes) to celebrate finishing the basement....yum! 

Yes, my chicken is half gone...I forgot to take a picture earlier :) 

Ratings:
Basil Chicken: Ali-8, Ben-7
Sauteed Kale with Kohlrabi: Ali-10 (Lets take a moment and appreciate this, I started out 2 weeks ago claiming to HATE Kale). Ben- 8
Grilled Garlic Scapes: Ali-5  Ben-6

On Monday, the food I was dreading was up for cooking. We made burgers on the grill (locally grown at Costco- ha!), with Sweet and Tangy Sauteed Collard Greens, and the left over Sweet Potato Turnip Swirl I made on Friday. I had a heck of a time finding a recipe for collard greens that seemed even a tiny bit healthy, every recipe contained bacon (which here is a confesssion, I don't really like bacon) or a ton of cream cheese. Don't get me wrong I love unhealthy food, love it, dream about it, eat it pretty frequently but the point of getting the CSA box was not to figure out how to eat vegetables covered in bacon mixed with a brick of cream cheese. So I searched for recipes with collard greens without bacon and stumbled upon the recipe linked above. In this recipe I used Olive oil instead of vegetable oil, and replaced the 5 tablespoons of melted butter with olive oil. This recipe was pretty good but I would decrease the amount of dressing by 50%. Our collard greens were dripping in dressing. I do realize this is my fault for just dumping the whole thing of dressing I made on the greens, but then I poured a ton of it off the greens and it was still dripping in dressing. The balsamic vinegar gives the greens a nice kick, and Ben and I were both pleasantly surprised not to hate Collard Greens. 

Oh yes, there was cheese on top of the potatoes and collard greens. Ben is from Wisconsin, we LOVE cheese. :) 

Ratings: 
Sweet & Tangy Collard Greens: Ali- 6  Ben- 6


Lets review how we did this week, here is what I have left from the box: 
Broccoli, Cucumbers and Cilantro that are going to the cabin with us
Green Onion that will hopefully still be good
A little of the speckled romaine lettuce (we used this in salads, on sandwiches but not main dishes)
Green Onions
Beets from week one

So far I have not let any vegetables go into the garbage.....so I am considering it a success. The box for this week that we pick up today is loaded with goodies, nothing I am scared to cook. 

Here is the list: 

Curly kale

Red romaine lettuce

Parsley

Beets

Carrots

Cucumbers

Zucchini 

Peas

Scallions

Okay I lied, there are more beets this week. Help me out people, what do you do with beets? 

Happy 4th of July!!! 

Cheers, 

Ali