Been Busy

So, while I've been slacking on my blog I've been pretty busy. A family trip to Charleston, a whirlwind trip to Nashville, the Haus and Garden Show in Columbus, and a two day work week. I HAVE been doing some cooking too. Here you'll see strawberry mojitos, pesto pasta with grilled chicken, and sauteed veggies with peanut sauce and Japanese noodles.

Strawberry Mojitos

7 limes

a handful of fresh mint

club soda

sugar

white rum

handful of strawberries (blended into a liquid mixture)

Place 4-5 tall glasses in the freezer. Squeeze limes into a tall pitcher. Reserve lime half for garnish. Using a cup of sugar, muddle the sugar with the coarsely chopped mint. By muddle, I mean squish the mint leaves into the sugar. Add all sugar to the pitcher. Pour 1/4 cup of sugar on a shallow plate. Add two cups club soda, two cups crushed ice, one cup white rum, and strawberry mixture. Stir vigorously. Rub lime around the rim of chilled glasses, dip rims in sugar mixture. Pour pitcher mixture into the chilled glasses. Serve with lime quarter and fresh mint for garnish.

Grilled Chicken Pesto Pasta

Very Easy Peanut Sauce

1 cup peanut butter

3 tablespoons (or to taste) soy sauce

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

3 cloves garlic

1 tsp ground ginger

2 tbs hot water

1 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)

Actually...most of the ingredients here are optional except, of course, the peanut butter.

Add all ingredients to food processor. Mix until liquid or saucy. Add more ingredients to taste. Pour over sauteed veggies to warm. This would also be a great sauce garnished with cilantro for fresh veggies.

Some Mo Meals

So I've been a bit of a slacker blogger AND a slacker in the kitchen. School was busy as it wound down to the last few days. There were graduations, parties, cookouts, oh and projects to grade, exams to grade, a classroom to pack up. The list goes on and on. One of the hardest things of working at a school is that we end and say goodbye each year. I won't dwell on that...that gets me a little sad.

I have made at least two good meals with our Farm Fresh Produce lately. I made this stuffed cabbage. I told you I was addicted to Smitten Kitchen. I also made a great salad. I used spinach from the CSA, green apples, micro greens, gorganzola cheese, pine nuts, vinegar and oil. It was simple but so fresh and nice for a summer salad. I'm also including a picture of one of the stir frys I've made...I'm trying not to do that every week.

I'm growing my own tomatoes now but they won't be ready until later this summer. My neighbor came over and took one look at my cilantro and offered me her seeds from Equador.

That's all I got. I know that stuffed cabbage looks a little gross..it was good, I swear.

Better Than PF Changs

One of the most difficult parts of enjoying really good food is the damage it does to your wallet and/or savings. One of our most difficult bills to control is our food bill. We love to eat. So, when I stumble upon really good recipes that don't have 5 billion ingredients AND use some of the lovely vegetables from our CSA, I try them. This one is a real winner. I found it on this blog, Sidewalk Shoes. I think this blogger and I would be kindred spirits. She teaches middle school, hunts for good recipes, and it appears that she enjoys reading. Check and check. This recipe was fantastic. It's from Rachel Ray and the author made a few changes. I made a few of my own. I put my changes in bold print

Spicy Shrimp and Bok Choy Noodle Bowl

Serves 4

3 tablespoons vegetable oil, 3 turns of the pan

2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes

4 cloves garlic, chopped

2 inches ginger root, peeled and cut into very thin matchsticks or grated

1/2 pound shiitake mushroom caps, sliced, a couple of cups these are expensive, so I just

bought a little carton and chopped them up finely (2.50 for a carton)

1 medium bok choy, trimmed and cut into 3-inch pieces, then cut sticks lengthwise I had a lot of this stuff so I used two bok choy

Salt and pepper

1 quart chicken broth since I skipped the seafood stock, I used three cups of chicken broth and three table spoons of fish sauce

1 cup seafood stock, available on soup aisle or, 1 cup clam juice I skipped this

1 1/2 pounds medium peeled and deveined shrimp on sale!

1/2 pound vermicelli (thin spaghetti) I used Udon noodles (you can find them in the ethnic food aisle) They are salty and very tender

4 scallions, cut into 3 inch pieces, then shredded lengthwise into thin sticks also in my CSA from last week!

Heat a medium soup pot I used my skillet over medium-high heat. Add vegetable oil, 3 turns of the pan, crushed red pepper flakes, garlic, ginger, mushrooms, and bok choy, then season with salt and pepper. Add chicken broth and seafood stock or clam juice. Put a lid on the pot and bring soup to a boil.Add shrimp and noodles and cook 3 minutes. Add in scallions and cook 2 minutes, then turn off soup and let it sit 2 to 3 minutes more. Adjust salt and serve.

Week 2: CSA Veggies

So here is the line up for this week. It will be tough to eat all this spinach. So, we have spinach, bok choy, green beans, asaparagus, and another leafy vegetable that I'll need to identify.

Here goes week 2

Dinners Week 1

It's been tough, but we pretty much wiped out last week's CSA batch. We've had some pretty great meals including this great recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I made my own version with basil and roasted garlic instead of the tarragon. It was delightful. Oh, and as you can see, I used rigatoni.

We really enjoyed the asparagus and kale. The kale makes an interesting salad, but it's good for you. Here are two more meals. We ate the salads with sushi.

A Fresh Start

We ate lots of stir fry last summer, lots. So, one of my goals this summer is to get a bit more creative with the way I use our produce. Meal #1: stir fry It's actually a yummy, easy recipe for making just about any vegetable. Here goes:

Ingredients:

1 T chicken bouillon granules

1 C warm water

1 T garlic powder (I prefer fresh garlic but I didn't have any)

1 T ginger

1 handful baby carrots

1 handful snow peas

4-5 handfuls of mixed greens (I used radish greens, kale, and collared greens)

4-5 small radishes

1 handful basil chopped finely

1 handful flat leaf parsley chopped finely

1 handful cilantro chopped finely

1 thinly sliced green pepper

Directions: Dilute granules in warm water and bring to a boil in a wok. Add garlic and ginger. Add mixed greens and denser veggies (carrots and radishes in this case...in other cases potatoes or broccoli). Boil for several minutes allowing the water to evaporate before adding the seasonings. Continue to cook over medium heat until carrots and radishes are tender. Serve over pasta or rice.

The verdict. It was a great first try. I added the snow peas at the very end and we enjoyed them el dente. Nothing too exotic about this meal. LOVE this rice pilaf. I could tell there was a lot of salt in the bouillon. I might try to find one that was lower in sodium. Just because.

Week One: Hollar if you hear me, collared greens are all the rave!

Each Sunday, I'll drive to our designated pick up to retrieve our veggies from Farmer Mike. I'll post pictures of the veggies here. The reason for this is twofold: 1) These gorgeous locally and organically grown veggies deserve some time in the spot light. Anyone who is nervous about veggies should see the colors in these fresh beauties. 2) I want you to see them in all of their raw glory...I think random veggies can be intimidating if we don't know what to do with them.

My experience with fresh vegetables last year was mildly successful. We have a really amazing compost pile to show for some of the things I couldn't figure out how to cook. We did a good job cooking the things we were familiar with (corn, spinach, beans) and a not so good job with things that we were unfamiliar with.

So here is what we have this week.

(left to right)asparagus, green onion, collared greens, kale, snow peas, and radishes.

I also want to show your what I have to work with from my own backyard.

This will be my "team" for the summer. I'm hoping they will help me to spice things up in the kitchen. Let me introduce you to strawberry, chives, basil, cilantro, rosemary, flat leaf parsley, more basil, and mint.

Stay tuned for this week's recipes. Also, check out some recipe blogs on the side bar. Smitten Kitchen rocks my world.

Farm Fresh Challenge

I Stinky Pete do solemnly swear to cook with, munch on, or share the veggies from my CSA this year from Martin Hill Farm. If you don't know much about CSAs, check out the farm here. My pledge to you, my readers, and really to the Pete family is to be more efficient with the produce we bought this summer. That means lots of recipe posting, pictures of fresh produce, and griping about yet another meal of stir fry.

I really can't complain since the veggies are super fresh and local. It's just difficult to use up a whole head of fresh spinach before it goes bad. I'm looking forward to canning, freezing, and steaming a bunch of it too.

My challenge to you is to buy more local produce. I'll be featuring recipes and uses for a lot of produce that you can get at your local farmers' market. Hopefully watching me struggle through the produce will encourage you to shop for and cook your own fresh and local produce.

Here goes nothing...

PS: Our first share arrives this weekend.