Pineapple Rice (on a Bed of Mizuna Greens)

In the interest of full disclosure, let me clarify that pineapples do not grow in the Mid-Atlantic (unfortunately, because how cool would that be?) and the one that this recipe centers around was purchased at the grocery store. The CSA-item that was the star of the meal was the mizuna. All of what we had was used to form the bed of greens for this Hawaiian rice dish.

Mizuna was a completely new green to Steve & I. It's known for having a mild peppery taste, which reminded Steve of horseradish. I'm not sure how it would be on its own; I find the flavor to be pretty strong. But tossed in this pineapple dressing and paired with the rice concoction, it really rounded out the set of flavors and made for a great complete meal. Brown rice is not something I normally get excited about, so I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this dish.

Pineapple Rice Recipe on 101 Cookbooks

Used From Our CSA
purple mizuna
scallions

Thoughts on the Recipe
- We didn't plate up the greens and rice on a big serving platter as the recipe suggests. Since we planned to have leftovers, we kept them separate until serving up an individual portion.
- We skipped the seitan, but agreed this could be good with some chicken in the mix, too!
- We ate the rice hot (vs. at room temperature)

Even though this dinner didn't feature as many CSA vegetables as I might have liked (especially for as many as we have this week!), I think I have to count it a win when we make a meal with a completely new vegetable that we had never even heard of before, and enjoy it this much. If nothing else, it's a starting point. Mizuna and I are no longer strangers.

Simple Green Smoothie

Today I actually have a recipe of my own to share - if you can even call it a recipe when you throw a bunch of ingredients into a blender and turn it on.

I'm pretty new to the green smoothie game (born in January out of that lovely post-holiday feeling of: i-am-going-to-punch-myself-if-i-don't-eat-something-that-is-not-a-baked-good-or-piece-of-candy-real-quick) and have only tried a few different recipes. Nothing too fancy yet. Part of the problem is that our "blender" (read: cheap novelty smoothie maker) is really not the best and every time I use it I worry that the little machine is about to take on its last frozen banana. Poor thing even struggles with the ice cubes. Maybe someday we'll front the money for something more legit, but until then I'll probably keep things pretty simple in the smoothie department.

Makes a great on-the-go snack!

Used From Our CSA
dinosaur kale

I really like the chocolatey-peanut taste of this smoothie. It's something a little different, and is a nice go-to if you don't have a ton of other fruit immediately on hand. I find this to be a good snack-size portion for me, but it could easily be doubled to be shared or serve as more of a meal replacement. It's also been a great way this week to work through our CSA kale, which we didn't make any other specific plans for meal-wise.

Ingredients
- 2-3 pieces of kale, stemmed (or 2-3 handfuls of fresh spinach for a milder flavor)
- 1/2 frozen banana
- 1 T natural peanut butter
- 1 T cocoa powder
- 1/2 c. almond milk
- 4 ice cubes

Blend all ingredients together and add more almond milk as needed, to get your desired consistency.

My advice is to cut and peel the banana first and throw it in a plastic container or bag in the freezer. Your future self will thank you when you are not trying to peel a rock hard, ice cold banana. See the above picture and learn from my mistakes, because half the time I forget to do this and it is never pretty.

Do you have a favorite green smoothie recipe? Feel free to share in the comments.

Roasted Rhubarb Jam

I had a revelation this weekend. I feel like there are so many plant foods in the world that are botanically a fruit, but nutritionally, we think of as a vegetable (tomato, cucumber, avocado, squash, etc). On the other hand, I can only come up with one botanical vegetable that we tend to classify, cook, and eat as if it were a fruit: the lowly rhubarb.

So since fruit wont be part of our CSA deliveries for another week yet, I was pretty jazzed that Steve could swap for this fruit-ish vegetable last week. As a great lover of dessert I wanted to spend some time in the kitchen cooking up something sweet! We got roughly a pound of rhubarb, and I found two intriguing recipes that each called for that amount. So I made the obvious choice and decided to make a half-recipe of each of them (totally obvious and not overkill, right?).

Rhubarb recipe #1, this roasted jam, was executed on Saturday. And it was good. Make you wish you didn't half the recipe good. I can happily affirm that this is awesome on vanilla ice cream, and it's awesome on toast (I took a cue from last week's tartines and spread some ricotta first - perfect).

Roasted Rhubarb Jam on Simply Scratch

Used From Our CSA
rhubarb

Thoughts on the Recipe
- This one was pretty straightforward. I didn't have the vanilla sugar (and have actually never made/used it before), so I followed her suggestion and just added in some vanilla bean paste with the sugar.
- After it cooled I put it in our mini food processor to get the sauce consistency.

This is a recipe I would definitely return to (and make a bigger batch of) in a future where I have more rhubarb on hand. I am saving my other half-pound for now because this weekend I have plans to attempt a half-size galette. Wish me luck...

What's your favorite thing to make with rhubarb? My mom sent me a rhubarb sangria recipe yesterday that looked pretty fun! Do you know of any other vegetables that we actually tend to think of as being more fruit-like?

Chopped Kale Salad

The first recipe I made using some of our Week 1 ingredients was a total hit. We have actually already made it twice for two different dinner gatherings with friends. It seems to have been a hit with them, too! I will definitely return to this recipe in the future.

Chopped Kale Salad on What's Cooking Good Looking

Kale is not something we cook with regularly at all. But when I spotted this recipe online a few months ago, I thought it looked so delicious that I pinned it right away, knowing we would probably get some kale in our CSA. I mean, just look at the photos on her site - they make this dish look a heck of a lot more appetizing than mine do. The sweet in the chickpeas, mixed with the crunch of the almonds, creaminess of the avocado, and the awesome dressing (I loved the taste of ginger in there) all came together to make this a fast favorite. And the kale makes a perfect backdrop to the flavor/texture party that's going on here.

Used From Our CSA
kale (used half the bunch each time, so it's all been used now: wahoo!)
Egyptian walking onion/red scallions (used in place of green onion the first and second times respectively; both were fine substitutions)

Thoughts on the Recipe
- I think you can easily get away with 1/4 c. or less of sesame seeds. But I always feel like recipes call for more sesame seeds than are really needed. They are not cheap! We have had luck in the past getting a bigger, less-expensive bottle of them found with the Asian food, rather than the tiny bottles that are shelved with the other spices.
- I know it's not a CSA item, but avocado is never an "optional" ingredient in my book. It elevates everything!
- I loved that ginger flavor in the dressing so much, and will probably add more next time I make this. Why not?
- This was the perfect dish to make and take. We tossed the dressing in right before leaving home and it held up great.
- Leftovers are really important in our home, so I also think it's worth mentioning that this was still great on day two. I probably wouldn't hang on to it much beyond that.

Still great on day two!

I now have one kale recipe in my pocket that I feel confident about. What's your favorite thing to make with fresh kale?