This box brings a real mix of spring and summer veggies to start our Spring/Summer CSA season
Clockwise from left: rhubarb, green kale, green cabbage, red beets, red radishes, greenhouse tomatoes, green garlic, little gem romaine lettuce
Rhubarb
What I Got – Winter Week 15/15
It’s the last week of winter! Well at least according to the CSA, there are plenty of cool, wet days ahead for us, I think.
What I Made – Week 5
I turned these quinoa bowls into a salad, topped with pan fried tofu, cilantro, orange bell pepper, red scallions, and marinated kale with this delicious Thai peanut chili sauce. The marinated kale was also good on tacos for lunch later in the week.
Not to be forgotten – some bonus baked good content!
My favorite chocolate orange zucchini cake. Even though it looks like a ton of glaze, I only made half of what it called for. I also swapped in chocolate chips instead of the pecans and use orange juice instead of milk in the glaze!
Strawberry rhubarb scones with 1/2 cup strawberries and 1/2 cup rhubarb instead of using all rhubarb. I find these are plenty sweet enough without the glaze.
Lots of leftovers this week that I still need to use: one more zucchini, some strawberries, the whole head of green leaf lettuce (and some romaine from two weeks ago!), radishes, cucumbers, and a little more of the kale. We’ll eat the kohlrabi tonight, but I have a weekend full of meal planning ahead!
What I’ve Planned – Week 5
I’m planning to go out to eat more than normal this week (where normal means practically never!) so the meal list might seem a bit shorter than usual. You can assume every meal I’m eating at home that’s not on this list is some form of salad, in order to use up the head of lettuce leftover from last week and the enormous head we received this week!
- Salad with blackberries, blue cheese, and sausage
- Thai Sweet Chili Tofu Quinoa Bowls with kale (with tofu in place of the chicken)
- Garlic Scape Risotto with Sausage (inspired by this recipe, but following my own technique for Instant Pot risotto – I’ll post the full recipe this week!)
- Sesame Kohlrabi Peanut Noodles (from the Inspiralized cookbook and similar to this recipe, substituting kohlrabi for zucchini and peanut butter for almond butter) with peanut tempeh
- Orange Chocolate Zucchini Cake aka one of my few reasons to look forward to an abundance of zucchini
I’m also thinking about making something with strawberry and rhubarb – maybe these scones?
Will we actually finish everything from the basket this week? Can we possibly eat enough salads to keep up with all the lettuce? Stay tuned to find out.
What I Made: Skillet Chicken with Rhubarb Sauce
Happy July 4! I hope you’re enjoying the holiday with some good eats.
This recipe showed up the same day I got my rhubarb so I figured it was meant to be! Not that there was anything wrong with the scones or crisp I had made with the rhubarb before, but I was intrigued by the use of rhubarb in a savory dish.
And… well, it’s hard to beat a scone. Let me take you through the recipe below
Rhubarb has got to be one of the prettiest veggies! I started by cutting it into a rough dice while the chicken was browning. 
Take out the chicken, deglaze with some white wine, then cook down the rhubarb.
The chicken goes back in to simmer in the sauce for about 20-30 minutes.
The final product is below. 
An important note: the rhubarb sauce is not the most attractive thing you’ve ever seen. It resembles something along the lines of slop for hogs or homemade baby food (or lots of more disgusting comparisons I will not post on the same page as picture of food). Honestly, I thought I had done something terribly wrong until I went back and checked the video that accompanied the original recipe. Lo and behold, it showed the same pinkish goo as my sauce, just served under the chicken, not on top.
Skillet Chicken With Rhubarb, via Melissa Clark/The New York Times
- 1 (5 1/2-pound) whole chicken, cut into eight pieces
- 1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, more as needed
- 1 teaspoon black pepper, more as needed
- 5 sprigs thyme, preferably lemon thyme
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 bunch spring onions or scallions, white and light green stalks thinly sliced (slice and reserve greens for garnish)
- 2 stalks green garlic, thinly sliced, or 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 3/4 pound fresh rhubarb, cut into 1/2-inch dice (3 cups)
- 1 tablespoon honey, or to taste
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 1. Pat chicken dry and season with 1 tablespoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Place in a bowl with the thyme sprigs and cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate at least 1 hour or overnight.
- 2. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Remove thyme from bowl with chicken, reserving thyme. Add chicken pieces to skillet and sear, turning occasionally, until golden brown all over, about 10 minutes. Transfer pieces to a platter.
- 3. Reduce heat to medium. Stir in onion (white and light green parts) and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and reserved thyme; cook 1 minute more. Stir in wine and bring to a simmer, scraping up any browned bits in the bottom of pan. Add rhubarb, honey, 1/2 teaspoon salt and a few grinds of pepper.
- 4. Return chicken pieces to pot in a single layer. Cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer until chicken is cooked through, 15 to 20 minutes for breasts and 20 to 25 minutes for legs and thighs, transferring chicken pieces to a platter as they finish cooking.
- 5. Whisk butter into rhubarb sauce. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Spoon sauce over chicken and garnish with sliced onion greens.
Final verdict? The chicken is moist, the sauce is really flavorful, with a tangy bite that’s unlike anything I’ve ever tried. I would have rinsed the chicken to cut down on some of the salt. And ultimately, I cannot get over the nasty look of that sauce. It is so unappetizing looking, I could not imagine serving it to company!
What I Got: Week 4
From top left: escarole, Napa cabbage, Romaine lettuce, French breakfast radishes, chioggia beets, strawberries, cilantro, yellow straight neck squash, rhubarb, English peas.
What I Made: Rhubarb and Strawberries
Another photo-less post. I made good use of my rhubarb and strawberries this week by making scones, using this Yankee Kitchen Ninja recipe. The scones were definitely sticky and even after baking, mine turned out soggy. I should have added more flour to compensate for the moisture in the strawberries and rhubarb.
I also made a rhubarb crisp, from The New Inglenook Cookbook (note: Amazon affiliate link, you can also find it on this website). I didn’t have enough rhubarb left for a full recipe, so I had to scale clumsily. It tasted great, but it wasn’t the most glamorous presentation, so I’m not sorry I don’t have any photos. The full recipe is below:
Note: This got soggy as leftovers sat, so eat as much of it straight out of the oven as you can *wink wink*.
What I Got: Week 1
From top: rhubarb, red scallions, green leaf lettuce, asparagus, strawberries, and collard greens.
CSA in the Suburbs 