green bean and pesto pasta

I didn't have the presence of mind to grab my camera while making this, as it was a kinda last-minute thrown-together thing. Nothing too special or exciting: freshly-made pesto, green beans, red potatoes, sausage, sundried tomatoes, parmesan. Except totally special cause the pesto was really good and the CSA sausage is amazing.

In any case, it tastes much better than it looks. ;)

Summer Rolls

Summer Rolls are awesome: fresh veggies, cool noodles, nice cold shrimp, a bit of sriracha & hoisin for dipping. Yummy!

This was a good excuse to check out 99 Asian Market in the north end, to get some wraps. We last made spring rolls for a party a couple of years ago, and while the wrappers are nearly indestructible, we only had a small handful remaining. The store seems to have a pretty amazing selection, though not being familiar with the items or able to read most of the labels, I was at a bit of a loss. I was also disappointed that any lunch-time báhn mì preparation didn't seem to be happening that morning.

This was also a good excuse to try making shrimp, something I've never done before, ours not being much of a seafood-consuming house. Unfortunately the shrimp was not provided by Full-Moon Farm … nor the egg for the matter.

Stop in the name of the slaw!

Oh yeah. I went there.

So, that zucchini slaw I mentioned earlier. See, our zucchini went kind of soft in the fridge. And when I ribboned it up for the slaw I got really grossed out. So instead, I made up my own slaw:



Odd Slaw: 1/2 red cabbage (ribboned) + ribboned carrots (as far as the eye can see); toss with hot pepper oil and rice wine vinegar.

OMG. Best thing ever. Seriously. Make it on one of these super-hot days and stick it in the fridge for a couple hours. It's really the only thing you'll want to eat when it's that disgusting outside.

Puttin' the peek in pico de gallo

As promised, the journey from this:



to this:



as captured by my blurry little cameraphone. Except that's really the whole story. Take onions, tomatoes and cilantro, chop for like, an hour while listening to Car Talk on VPR, mix. Serve with enchilada pie if you're lucky enough to have either the chicken or +chicken meat share. So good. So so good.

Anyway: Pico de Gallo: chop tomatoes, onions, cilantro; mix and let stand in the fridge. Nom.

Oh, and:



Beware of Cilthulhu!

Hey look, more cucumbers

Open-faced wheat bap: cucumbers, cocktail sauce, wheat bap. ZOMG.

The coolness of the cucumbers and the bready bapness cut the horseradish nicely. New favorite sandwich.

Pickup, 7/20/10

Nom nom nom! This week:

--tons of chard, fresh onions, beets and cucumbers!
--the advent of tomatoes!
--more carrots! and three different kinds of cabbage!
--beans, beans they're good for your heart, the more you eat, the more you post recipes to this blog.

Speaking of which!

I am wicked excited about this recipe, culled from 500 Treasured Country Recipes*, "Slaw" section:

Zucchini Slaw
1 med zucchini, 1 medium carrot, 1/2 head cabbage (red or green) and some other things that, because they weren't in our farm share I'm going to ignore and substitute more carrot and some fresh onions.

Julienne the zucchini and the carrot; render the cabbage into shreds. Chop the onions.

Mix with 1/3 c olive oil (which sounds high to me), 2 tbsp lemon juice (which sounds low) 1 tsp Dijon mustard (Josh don't read that part), salt and pepper.

Nom.

It's true this is not exactly how the recipe reads in my book, but it's a good book, and I've had it for like, ten years, and it was $3 at Costco. It pulls its weight.

Now, the chard has already been spoken for by the house rabbit committee (via the world's eariest stampede) and I have a brilliant idea for tomatoes/cilantro/onions. (Hint: pico de gallo).

Also, there needs to be more raita, because oh yes please.

Dinner's what you make of it.

Next time: pico de gallo with picos of the gallo in action. Promise.

via @oddermonster

(which is me on twitter, in case that makes no sense, which you know, right there with ya): "Rang in 36th bday with cold new potatoes and Branston Pickle while waiting for dog to be sprayed by skunk. Passed out cold from excitement."

I'm cuckoo for cucumbers

I got ridiculously excited to see cucumbers on the table at the pickup this week, as I am completely comfortable confessing to the Internet that I am a mad cucumber fiend.

First thing I did was slice up two of them and put them in a tub in the fridge for random drive-by snacking. Nom nom nom.

Second, I sliced up some more to have with my ridiculously hot korma dinner (I like to have them in place of bread). Third, I made raita following this recipe and with mint* from the front yard. Oh yeah. Oh yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Fourth, I have one left, which I'm going to restock my snack-bag with (um yeah, I ate all the others, whoops) along with sliced radishes (yum yum yum) and dip in home-made hummus.

Homan Hummus (HEE)

Take 1 can garbanzo beans, 1/4 cup tahini, up to 7 cloves of garlic (depending on whether you expect company), and some lemon juice. Combine with a stick blender, and season with cajun seasoning. Feeds two hungry adults and does not freeze well. Suck it up and make a second batch.

I can't believe I ate all the cucumbers. Whoops. Total fail on resource management there. Ah well,

There's always next week.


*I understand that everyone and their dog sees mint as a weed, but I've been trying to get mine started for oh, ten years now, and it's thwarting me every step of the way. I'm trying not to have to actually bear the shame of buying mint plants by putting it off. Grah.