Back row: Hyssop (note: the official list said “anise hyssop” but I got that last year, and it looked and smelled nothing like this, so I’m pretty sure this is Hyssopus officinalis), Orange Carrots, Green Cabbage, Green Kale
Middle row: Banana Peppers, Green Zucchini (seven of them!), Blackberries, Yellow Wax Beans
Front row: Pickling Cucumbers, Yellow Peaches
This elk ragu with carrots and garlic scapes is inspired by this recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks in recent years, Six Seasons. With only about an hour total cook time, it comes together more quickly than many other similar recipes, with no loss of flavor.
I know I’ve posted about poke salad bowls on here before, but I thought this time was a bit more photogenic. Maybe? Not really? Oh well.
These are my favorite quinoa bowls with marinated kale. I changed the recipe a bit by using pan-fried tofu instead of chicken and using jarred roasted red peppers instead of the tomatoes for a sauce with a bit of kick.
Fish taco salad, inspired by a local salad chain restaurant. I think sliced the cabbage and combined it with lettuce to make the bed of greens. Topped with pan fried catfish, quick pickled onions, and cilantro-queso fresco dressing and it’s almost as good as the one from the store.
Our July 4 cookout lunch included roasted potatoes, smoked cider can chicken (for a gluten-free take on a beer can chicken) and these blistered green beans with miso.
This pasta with garlic scapes and fava beans was also a hit. In the future, I’d add red pepper flakes for a bit of spice (even though I used hot Italian sausage like the original recipe said).
On the sweet side of things, I also made a blueberry buckle. I just call it coffee cake and eat it for breakfast with no regrets! 💁🏼♀️
Chocolate chip zucchini bread is another of my favorite dessert-for-breakfast meals. I plan to wrap these loaves tight and freeze them for to enjoy once zucchini season has passed.
The tomato plants in our garden seem to grow a foot every night these days. I’m glad someone is enjoying this hot humid weather! Since weeknight dinners usually involve me rushing in from a sweltering walk from the train, I do most of my ambitious cooking on Sunday, when I can stay inside in the AC all day. Slow simmering ragu, cooking a big batch of quinoa that will be repurposed into multiple meals this week, baking something that will make the whole house smell delicious just as we’re saying goodbye to the weekend and facing down the workweek ahead – it’s a different form of meal prepping.
Here’s the planned lineup this week:
I’ll probably also make a blueberry buckle and maybe (hopefully) will find a way to use all those zucchini!
Clockwise from left: Spring Onions, Green Savoy Cabbage, Orange Carrots, Green Beans, Green Kale, Green Zucchini, Blueberries, Pickling Cucumbers, Yellow Peaches, Fava Beans
These week in reviews make me realize how often I make one-pot or bowl meals. Salads and stir fry were this week’s mainstays. (Still have a head of lettuce left over somehow, along with my cucumbers and a few scallions!) Here’s what I did use this week…
It doesn’t look so pretty, but I make this salad with beets very often. If you make the quinoa and roast the beets ahead of time, it comes together very quickly and stores great for leftovers.
This stir fry with brown sauce couldn’t be easier or more adaptable. Thinly slice the bok choy and stir fry the white parts in a wok until softened and slightly browned. (I also added in some frozen stir fry mix for more flavor.) Then stir in greens and cook until wilted. Stir in sauce and top with protein. (I used pan-fried tofu here.)
For as simple as this kale salad with farro is, it’s so flavorful! Besides the marinated kale and farro, we topped this with toasted pecans, Craisins, goat cheese, and scallions. It also kept very well for leftovers the next day!
I like the flavors of this beef and broccoli, but if I made it again, I would thicken the sauce in a separate skillet much like the bok choy recipe above. I would not choose to substitute elk again; I didn’t prefer that taste.
Even though there’s not nearly as much lettuce to eat this week, you’ll still notice a few salads in the mix this week.
Here’s what I have planned:
Since I’m posting this a bit later than usual, I can shared that we’ve already enjoyed a paella with the peas both from our basket and from our backyard garden! I made a few changes to the original recipe, including swapping fish fillets in for the clams and cooking the seafood a bit longer at the end (closer to 20 minutes for the fish) to make sure everything was fully cooked. This overcooked the shrimp, so for future recipes, I’d probably simmer the fish and peas in the middle step when the rice was cooking, and then just steam the shrimp at the end for 5 minutes as directed.
This enormous pan of paella (note that it almost stretches the full width of my stove) will keep us in leftovers for the week!
Paella enjoyed al fresco with a glass of white wine is a good way to chase away the Sunday Scaries.
Clockwise from left: Red Beets, Green Kale, Bok Choy, White Scallions (though they really look more like spring onions, right?), English Peas, Red Leaf Lettuce, Red Radishes, Broccoli, Dark Sweet Cherries, Slicing Cucumbers, Blueberries
Here are some photos from what I ended up making this week. I made everything from what I planned except the steak and mushroom tacos – we had way too many leftovers hanging around to justify cooking again! I plan to use the mushrooms in a meat sauce for pasta that I will slow simmer this weekend.
Here’s a quick photo round-up!
Here’s the pan-fried tofu with kale and ramen noodles (adapted from Olives for Dinner).
This is the poke salad, which has marinated tuna and brown rice over the red leaf lettuce. We also topped it with pickled radishes, sliced scallions, avocado, seaweed salad (bought ready-made at HMart), and homemade kale chips. I followed the basic recipe for kale chips from Refinery29, but used about a tablespoon of the marinade from the tofu recipe to season it.
Pictured on our new patio table (yay!), this is the chicken and spinach curry. With sauce made in the blender and cooked in the Instant Pot, I was really glad I tried this. The only change I made to the recipe was to quickly brown the chicken using the sauté button on the Instant Pot.
For those wondering, we did eat food on plates this week, too… but somehow didn’t grab any photos of them.
The only veggies I still need to use besides the mushrooms are the scallions (as predicted) and the green garlic, which will hopefully find its way into a quiche this weekend. Stay tuned for Week 4 coming soon!
Rather than post each recipe step by step this time around, I thought I would make a summary list of all the dishes I’m planning to make this week and which veggies they’ll use. It will help me think and shop ahead for meals for the week and will be much faster for me to write than the longer posts I used to make (hopefully helping me keep up with the blog, ahem). I’ll link to the recipes online, where possible, and will follow up with a full blog post if I love the recipe or make substantial changes – or if you send me your requests!
Here goes, roughly in order from Sunday to Friday:
Even though this sounds like a lot, I expect at the end of this week we will still have red scallions to use, even after I put them on the tofu and noodles and the poke bowl. We might have some lettuce left over and maybe even some kale since that bag was pretty stuffed. I know we will have green garlic still to use because I’ll be using what we got last week in the recipe this week! And to think, this is only the start of the season – I have my work cut out for me.
We’re very much in what I like to call “salad season these days. A sure way to know summer is fast approaching is that the garlic is looking less green and more like the adult bulb we typically know it as.
Clockwise from left: Green Garlic, Spinach, Green Kale (busting out of its plastic bag!), two heads of Red Leaf Lettuce, two bunches of Red Scallions, Cremini Mushrooms, Mixed Cherry Tomatoes, and Shunkyo Radishes (with greens still attached)
CSA in the Suburbs 