Very jealous aschie30. My CSA is really struggling with the weather. So much so that yesterday's box included 2 bunches of lettuce, a bunch of beets, and a head of cabbage. Hopefully it stops raining every day or we'll get rickets this summer.

Wax beans are emerging in local markets, so I thought I'd share my favorite way to prepare them, especially the yellow ones.

Yellow Wax Beans w/ Crispy Pancetta
- enough wax beans to serve 4 people
- a couple of ounces of pancetta, diced small
- tablespoon or two of finely chopped shallots
- small glug of white wine

Blanch the wax beans and shock in an ice bath. Dry them thoroughly and cut them in half. Render the pancetta slowly, over low heat. If you do this right it should take an hour and there should be a nice fond at the bottom of the pan. Remove pancetta with a slotted spoon. Crank heat up to high and add fry shallots in rendered fat until they get brown and toasty. Add beans and sautee/ fry for a minute, then deglaze pan with the wine and cook it til it's pretty much all evaporated (30 seconds or so on very high heat). Add crisp pancetta back to the pan, then dump into a serving dish.

Nice recipe, Kenny, and might I add that this basic technique is very versatile. You can replace the vegetable and cured meat with almost any combination and get great results: cauliflower and Spanish chorizo, brussels sprout and bacon, and on and on. Finishing with a splash of good olive oil and/or a touch of some grated cheese never hurt either.

Thanks, Michael. Yes, versatile indeed and I like the sound of both combinations you mentioned (have had the brussels w/ bacon many times). I do think there is something special about the contrast between fresh wax beans and crisp pancetta. It's the clean, refreshing watery burst you get when you bite into a bean contrasting with the salty, crispy meat. A beautiful thing.

Probably not surprising to hear that the pancetta method works well with fennel too. Bad picture, good food...

For those who have contributed recipes, I've updated the recipe index.

Beet Risotto With Greens
adapted from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone

Lately, with flooded farms after two weeks of heavy rain, gorgeous beets (and beet greens) have been the steady stalwarts of my CSA box. But, man, beets are tough. First, one medium-sized roasted beet goes a long way in a salad. Second, their uses are limited.

Looking for a recipe to use a good amount, I came across Deborah Madison's Beet Risotto With Greens. It calls for 3 medium-sized beets, which you grate and later "melt" into risotto:


Grated Beets

The recipe also calls for a good amount of greens. I used chard, as I had some in my fridge from last week's box that needed to go but, obviously, beet greens would be natural in this dish. I used Deborah Madison's fantastically hearty, Quick Vegetable Stock (into which I tossed chard and beet green stems). After finishing the dish with grated lemon zest and lemon juice, it is a deeply-flavored dish, with each bite going from earthy to zippy. Oh, and you can hardly taste the beets.

As you would expect, the final product (with shredded parmaggiano-reggiano) is either beautifully jewel-toned or alarmingly bloody, depending upon how you view red food.


Finished beet risotto with greens

aschie, that is a gorgeous beet risotto!

Friday is my use-it-up day before the next CSA delivery on Saturday. I never know what to do with kohlrabi, but today I hit on a remoulade. Classically this uses celery root, which I find to be woody-- kohlrabi is actually much better in this recipe, because it has that lovely, crunchy, juicy texture:


I used the celery root remoulade from Fine Cooking:
http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/cele ... ulade.aspx
(warning possible paid content)
This dressing has parsley, an anchovy, cornichons, and lemon. I added some lovage to provide the missing celery flavor and used yogurt in place of the sour cream to lighten things up a bit. This is a great dressing-- bet it would be good on cucumbers too.

Finally I know what to do with the eternal kohlrabi.

Jen

Pie-love, that's a fine looking remoulade and I have a mess of cucumbers so I just might try it.

My recent favorite use for kohlrabi is as an addition to broccoli slaw. In my last batch, I really added too much kohlrabi which overwhelmed the broccoli and made everything a little sweet for my tastes. One of the great things about broccoli slaw (there are many great things) is how the sweetness of the stalks plays against the slight bitterness of the florets. But a little kohlrabi addition can add to the slaw, especially if the broccoli is just crowns and lacks stems. Kohlrabi is delicious raw. If it it needed comparison (which it doesn't) it's jicama's edgier, hipper cousin who grew up on the brassica's side of the tracks.

I also thought the asparagus season lasted unusually long this year. I enjoyed two adapted recipes from Thomas Keller's ad hoc cookbook (yes it's Keller, but I've already cooked 3 recipes out of it while the French Laundry cookbook has stayed wrapped in plastic for 2 years):

Asparagus Coins:

1.5 lbs pencil-thin asparagus
3 Tbsps chive oil* (I just cooked with oil and chives)
salt & pepper
1/4 cup parsley water** (I just used parsley and water)

Chive oil: this is chopped chives run under hot tap water, drained and dried, half gets blended, all goes into a jar, cover with canola oil, refrigerate, then drain of chives
Parsley water: This parsley sauteed with honey, ice bathed, then pureed and drained. I don't imagine I will ever make this.

- Keep asparagus rubber banded together and slice thin using mandoline or v-slicer (my Benriner blade needs sharpening so I just used my knife).
- Leave tips intact and saute with chives and oil for a couple of minutes. Center should still be raw.
- Add the thin 'coins' and saute a few more minutes. Center of these should still be raw.
- Add water and cook til tender.

I also finished with lemon juice


Asparagus and Tomato-Bacon Stew

3 oz applewood thick sliced bacon cut into 1" x 1/4" lardons
3 Tbsps chopped leeks
2 Tbsps chopped onion
1 tsp finely chopped garlic
Salt & pepper
1 14 ox can San Marzano tomatoes
2.5 lbs large asparagus trimmed and peeled as necessary
1/4 C + 2 Tbsp chicken stock

- Cook bacon on medium low heat with 2 Tbsps water for about 30 minutes until bacon colors and has rendered its fat but not become crisp. Remove bacon with slotted spoon to drain
- Pour off all but 1-2 Tbsps of fat
- Put pan over medium heat and add leeks, onion and garlic and saute until they are soft.
- Add tomatoes and juice and bring to a simmer for 45 minutes
- Puree half of the mixture, add back to the pan and simmer until thickened, another 15 or so minutes
- Stir in bacon and reduce heat to low

Cook asparagus in another pan in reserved bacon fat or oil with 3 Tbsps of stock. This will likely need to be done in 2 batches. Cook to desired doneness (I did tender-crisp. Season to taste and arrange on a plate. Top with the tomato sauce. Serve with olive oil.

The sauce is not really what I think of as a stew, although it was thick. It was smokey with some sweetness and acid from the tomatoes and went well with the simply cooked asparagus.

Does baking count? I loaded up on sour cherries (which I promptly froze), blueberries and peaches from the Green City Market (all of the above have been outstanding this year) and I've been busy baking pies:


cherry pie brushed with egg wash and waiting to go into the oven




finished cherry pie




cut blueberry pie




slice of blueberry pie

BR, pie most certainly counts, as you have made it with seasonal fruit. Gorgeous!

Jen

This summer, I have been partaking of grassfed pork, beef and naturally raised chickens and eggs from a young couple that sells at my local farmers market. This week, I marinated a pork shoulder roast, cochinita style, but served it sliced rather than shreeded. I made a roasted green chili sauce that I served with it along with some roasted tomatoes and wax beans as described above.

Wow. I mean, wow! I'm not sure how I am going to be able to go back to eating tasteless grocery store meats after my farmer's market closes down for the summer. Maybe I can talk them into a winter meat share for my freezer.

So, I have a really hard time with beets. I think they taste a little like dirt AND the I find the color of garden-variety purple beet really unappetizing. I have had trouble making use of my CSA beets. That being said, I did enjoy a recent salad made with roasted, then julienned Chioggia beets (I think I find the color less objectionable), scallions, julienned carrots and kohlrabi dressed with a Patricia Wells-inspired heavy cream-chive-lemon juice-black pepper dressing.

Beet, carrot, kohrabi salad (shown with 'Pasta with 10 herbs'--also seasonal from my herb garden)

Inspired by BR, I went blueberry picking and made a simple, plain, completely lovely blueberry pie tonight. I also had the tastiest plain steamed-sauteed (sautee in the water clinging to the greens after washing all that mud off) ruby chard. Sometimes I get so caught up in fancy, complicated preparations, that I forget how superb plain veg can be-- well, not plain but with butter and salt.

On the fancy side, I also made a great and unusual zucchini preparation, sauteed zucchini with crispy chickpeas and za'atar. You roll cooked chickpeas in cornstarch then cook them in oil until crispy. Set them aside, sautee zucchini moons until really brown (I didn't brown mine enough), then mix the whole shebang together and sprinkle with za'atar. I didn't have real za'atar, so I used a mix of thyme, fennel, sesame seeds, and ajowain. This was really good too. Here's the recipe link (paid content warning):
http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/saut ... kpeas.aspx

Jen

I love cucumbers, but I've been getting them too often in the CSA.

Solution? Cucumber soup.

3 cucumbers skinned, seeded and diced
2 6 oz container plain yogurt
1 minced garlic clove
1/4 cup minced red onion
1 ripe avocado
mint
parsley
lemon juice
water to reach a consistency you like
salt and pepper to taste

More or less combine all ingredients in a blender and let 'er rip.

This was delicious. Light, creamy, and satisfying. You could really taste the cucumbers but some tang from the yogurt, some body from the avocado, some added punch from the onion and garlic.

Feel free to garnish with diced fresh cucumber and more herbs.

This was perfect starter on some of those dog days we had last week.

gastro gnome wrote:I love cucumbers, but I've been getting them too often in the CSA.

Solution? Cucumber soup.

3 cucumbers skinned, seeded and diced
2 6 oz container plain yogurt
1 minced garlic clove
1/4 cup minced red onion
1 ripe avocado
mint
parsley
lemon juice
water to reach a consistency you like
salt and pepper to taste

More or less combine all ingredients in a blender and let 'er rip.

This was delicious. Light, creamy, and satisfying. You could really taste the cucumbers but some tang from the yogurt, some body from the avocado, some added punch from the onion and garlic.

Feel free to garnish with diced fresh cucumber and more herbs.

This was perfect starter on some of those dog days we had last week.

Strangely enough, I love the flavor of cucumbers but absolutely loathe everything else (the seeds, the pulp the texture, the skin, the sliminess, etc.) about them. This sounds perfect for me--I can't wait to try it! Thanks!

Pie-love wrote:Inspired by BR, I went blueberry picking and made a simple, plain, completely lovely blueberry pie tonight.

Happy to have inspired and thanks for the complement . . . where did you go picking? The blueberries have been so great this year that I cannot get enough of them.

Anyone else have a glut of zucchini? I feel like I've been eating it straight for a week, and I still have 2 baseball bat-sized versions in my fridge. One thing about zucchini -- it's incredibly versatile. You can eat it raw, like cucumber, or you can pickle it, grill it, shred it for fritters or zucchini bread. Or, if you let it cook for a while, it develops a luscious, creamy texture. Anyway, I made this delicious galette with it from a Smitten Kitchen recipe, using Graziano's amazingly creamy ricotta (I doubled the amount of ricotta that the recipe called for). I also added toasted pine nuts and dill.

Wow Aschie . . . beautiful. And it sounds great.

Thanks! From someone who makes fantastic pies, I appreciate the compliment!

gastro gnome wrote:I love cucumbers, but I've been getting them too often in the CSA.

Solution? Cucumber soup...

Great idea-- my biggest complaint about Angelic Organics is that the cucumbers they send are too developed-- the skins are tough, the seeds are hard, and the whole thing is huge. These are the kind of cukes my parents put on the compost pile, preferring to pick the smaller, tastier ones. Solution? Cucumber Soup. It's on the dinner menu for tomorrow. Thanks-- this thread is the best.

Jen

BR wrote:

Pie-love wrote:Inspired by BR, I went blueberry picking and made a simple, plain, completely lovely blueberry pie tonight.

Happy to have inspired and thanks for the complement . . . where did you go picking? The blueberries have been so great this year that I cannot get enough of them.

I went in Champaign-Urbana, but the season is almost over there-- it was slim pickings. I got enough for one pie, plus a little more. But what a pie!

Jen

I had a number of delicious purple (red) onions from my CSA box over the past couple weeks so I made french onion soup and a really pretty savory tarte tatin with the onions

Here is the recipe:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/redon ... atin_67091

It was a fair bit of work and required a few cooking steps but it turned out great. Here is mine,



-Lyle

Aschie30, I thought about your tart picture all week and had to make one myself.
I made a batch of pate brisee for the crust.
Filling included: a tapenade of sorts (anchovies, olives, capes, basil), parm, goat cheese, roasted eggplant and red peppers and some leftover carmelized onions.

I was very proud to harvest my first eggplant (ever--I'm trying to turn myself from a black thumb to a green thumb) which I sliced and roasted for the tart


Unbaked tart:


Tart with mizuno salad mix from my CSA

Thaiobsessed -- your tart looks awesome! (Savory tarts rule!)

Made a quick CSA cucumber pickle using Zuni Café's Zucchini Pickle recipe as a guide. To make them, I sliced cucumbers and one-half of a medium-large onion slightly thinner than 1/4" on a mandoline. (I probably sliced the onion closer to 1/8".) The only change I made to the recipe was to substitute 3 t. of Pickling Spice (I used the La Flor brand available at Stanley's) in lieu of the recommended spices, and I added about 2 more arbol chiles to the pickling mix. I also added fresh dill. Turmeric imparts a yellow hue. In the end, these taste like a riff on the traditional sweet-and-sour bread and butter pickles, although the more-varied-than-usual pickling spice (which included crushed bay, mustard seed, coriander, and other spices) gives more dimension, and the added arbols gives more heat than usual. Although they become more seasoned after a few days in the refrigerator, I find that they are ready after only an overnight nap in the pickling liquid.


Prior to pickling


After pickling

Chop, Dump, and Bake Ratatouille:


Take that, Julia Child!

Eggplants abound these days, and while I normally opt for the foolproof Asian varieties, this weekend's fate left me with an abundance of the PITA western variety. What to do? Cause myself more of a PITA by making a terrine.

I started with the PITA of all PITAs, the salting, rinsing and draining process. Well, actually first I peeled the suckers into wide strips which I blanched and shocked, later to become the outside mold of my terrine.

Outside mold:


That's a regular cheap loaf pan with plastic wrap and blanched strips of eggplant skin.


After I peeled ‘em, I sliced the eggplants into rounds which I salted on both sides and left to drain on racks over sheet pans for an hour. Then I rinsed them off and dried thoroughly, squeezing all the moisture out by placing the slices on towel-lined pans, topped with more towels and then weighted with more pans that had stacks of books placed on top of ‘em for weight. If all of this is sounding ridiculous, I can’t say I disagree.

Eggplant slices after salting, rinsing, and drying while compressed:



Several hours later, when all of the above was finally done, I sautéed the slices in batches – just for a couple of minutes to brown.

Sauteed eggplant slices:




Now 4 hours or so into the process of making a stupid eggplant terrine, I whipped up a custardy mix of cream, roasted garlic puree, Parmigiano Reggiano, egg and thyme. Then I began layering slices of eggplant, followed by drizzles of custardy mix, etc.

Layering eggplant with cream, roasted garlic, egg, cheese, thyme:



Wrapped up in the plastic, covered with foil and set into a water bath, the terrine baked for an hour. Then I removed it from the oven and made a make-shift weight out of 4 hard cover books wrapped in foil. These fit perfectly into the loaf pan, and I compressed the mold while it cooled to room temp, then kept the books on top as I let it cool in the fridge.

Weighting with foil-wrapped books:



Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I unmolded the damn thing and sliced it.

Eggplant terrine, unmolded and sliced:



Those purple Western bastards are damn lucky that this tasted really, really good. Complex layers of flavor and texture. Finished the whole damn thing in one sitting, with a bottle of tasty but cheap Soave. The acid from the wine helped what was a pretty rich dish with pleasantly bitter notes. In the future I might serve with a dollop of tomato sauce to provide some acid counterbalance, which would have been sorely missed without the wine.

Inspired by the roasted carrots with goat cheese and ras al hanout side on the menu at Mado (an item I actually haven't tried but sounds good) I've been playing around a lot with roast carrots. It's amazing how roasting develops their flavor. I love the way the purple carrots I picked up from the GCM look (thought they taste pretty much the same as the orange carrots I got there)





My two recent favorites:

Roast carrot salad with avocados, toasted cilantro and cumin.

Roast carrots with goat cheese and chopped pistachios topped with dukkah

Hardly cooking, but a fresh tomato, basil and arugula sandwich on lightly grilled sesame semolina bread from Labriola (easily my favorite of their breads), lightly dressed with olive oil, salt and pepper. Perhaps overfilled, but just the way I wanted it.

I made the corn and bacon chowder with zucchini and fennel from Epicurious



I thought it was very good (and it used lots of nice summer produce)