Confusion (CSA vegetables week 23, 2011)

Even MORE strawberries this week! We have to thank that to a mix-up with our vegetables: at first only iceberg lettuce and dill were delivered to our CSA pick-up point… Now that won’t do, right? ;) When it was fixed later in the evening we got even more lettuce, dill — and two boxes of strawberries which we weren’t supposed to get at all since we had them last week. Lucky us!

• Bok Choy
• Strawberries
• Red beets
• Iceberg lettuce
• Chard
• Garlic flowers (scapes)
• Red bundle onions
• Dill

So there’s actually another head of lettuce and a hand of dill in the fridge; they didn’t feel like coming out for the picture. ;)

Menu plan June 9-11 2011

Dinner plans for the next couple of days:

• Salad with couscous, orange-basil tempeh and sweet miso dressing (Vegan Family Cookbook), Moroccan tajine (freezer stash) [Thursday]
• Japanese meal at a friends house. Our contribution: Ginger Miso Soup with Kombu Dashi (Vegan Family Cookbook) [Friday]
• Szechuan Noodles with Hot Spicy Peanut Sauce and Pak Choi (Vegan Family Cookbook) [Saturday]

I’ve already shown you our Mexican dinner (bento) and Summer Picnic Pie, so I’ll just leave you with a picture of the Hollandse pot (‘Dutch dish’) from last week’s menu plan: broad-leaved endive mash & bangers with mushroom gravy.

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Strawberrrrries! (CSA vegetables week 22, 2011)

• Radishes
• (Bundle) leek
• Red Batavian lettuce
• Tomatoes
• Endive frisée
• Bundle garlic (spring garlic)
• Strawberries

Yum, I’ve been anticipating those strawberries for a whole week! So much that I couldn’t resist buying some in the days in between ;) The very last one ended up in yesterday’s cold noodle bento. These strawberries in our CSA vegetable bag come from about 3 miles from our home! #greenliving ;) We immediately had them for dessert last night, so no need to come over to have a taste! ;)

I did manage to keep Ringo from devouring the endive (he haz a taste for it), so you may want to hop over one of the other nights?

Menu plan June 2-8 2011

• Asian fusion: tofu in tausi black bean sauce (leftover Chinese takeaway), nasi goreng (fried rice) and toemis spinach (Vegetarisch Indonesisch kookboek p.45) [Wednesday]
• Mexican night: bean burritos with steamed spinach [Thursday]
• Bihoen with faux ‘chicken’ (leftover Chinese takeaway) and Toemis endive (Vegetarisch Indonesisch kookboek p.46), pangek brown borlotti beans (Vegetarisch Indonesisch kookboek p.51), nasi koening (freezer stash) and salad with leftover miso dressing
• Endive-potato mash with mushroom gravy (La Dolce Vegan p.181), onion and vegan sausage, salad
• Tomato-garlic pie (Amelisbode wk.22), green salad
• Gnocchi with grilled zucchini and tomato salad

I’ll leave you with two more pictures of dishes from last week’s menu plan. The noodle salad was good, especially with emping for topping (chopped nuts will probably be great too), so I’ll definitely make that again. The leek soup recipe was a bit of a disappointment though — will need to look further!

Cold noodle salad

Leek soup, noodle salad and emping kurupuk

Bento #66 en route

I should have taken my 66th bento on my 13,5 km NS-hike with the Wandelgrrls: Bieslandse Bos, from Delft to Zoetermeer. Why? Because it makes me think of the famous song Route 66! And… MaaikeB brought her first bento ever for lunch! She’s got the most beautiful bento box, a gift all the way from Tokyo. Lucky grrl! :)

Anyway, we took off early (for a Sunday morning) so I didn’t have much time to plan a real lunchbox. That’s why bento #66 only traveled by train from Utrecht to Apeldoorn on Monday ;) And it contained the following…

Upper tier

• Salad of grilled zucchini and bell pepper, lettuce, tomato, spring onion, capers and basil leaves

Lower tier

• Dried cranberries and strawberries
• 1/4 mini quiche made of leftovers: chard, goats cheese (feta) with basil, pine nuts and egg
• Carrots
• Walnut
• Basil and parsley

Strawberries marinated in aceto balsamico

An easy and successful dessert is strawberries marinated in balsamic vinegar. There are several recipes varying slightly, but I like the easiest version ;)

Needed for two:

• about 150 grams of strawberries
• 2-3 tablespoons of aceto balsamico (balsamic vinegar), regular (red) or white
• pepper (optional)
• basil (optional), or mint
• sugar or honey (optional)

The least you’ve got to do is clean the strawberries, cut them in halves or fours depending on size, and mix with the balsamic vinegar. Put in the refrigirator to marinate for at least two hours. It’s a good idea to add some freshly ground pepper and basil.

For all sweet tooths out there I recommend adding a bit of sugar as well, or mixing the aceto balsmico with some honey before spooning the fruit with it. If you wish you can first heat the vinegar to dissolve the sugar, but I don’t find that necessary.

Like I said, I do it the easy way. That’s fruit, vinegar, pepper and (if available) fresh basil. Then I just sprinkle some sugar of my choice on top when I start eating my dessert (because Mr Gnoe prefers it without).

Enjoy!

Last-day-of-the-week-bento (#55)

Friday 19th’s bento (#55) was another good one :) I used a lot from our weekly bag of veggies from De Aardvlo, organic vegetable gardens nearby!

The upper tier contains a salad of corn kernels, tomato (*), red bell pepper (*), black olives, shallot, leek white (*), gherkin, lettuce (*), chickpea, basil (*), feta cheese and dressing from Oil & Vinegar fruschetta mix.

The lower tier contains:

• mix of cranberries, Mediterranean roasted almonds and walnuts
• iceberg salad
• strawberries (*) marinated in balsamic vinegar & basil

All ingredients with ‘*’ added came from our veggiebag! For the rest of the week (until Wednesday) we only have some more lettuce, broccoli, leek, basil and garlic onions left. That will not be a problem ;)

Good beginnings bento (#51)

Bento #51 was not only a good beginning of the next fifty (on the way to 100!), but also a great start of the week :)

I’ve been getting questions about preparation time. Well, this bento to me a relaxed 12 minutes in the morning! Could have been quicker if I had been in a hurry! :) Of course I’m only counting throwing in the quiche, not baking it LOL. I also had the steamed green beans ready to go and I cleaned my yellow tomatoes, radishes and a carrot the night before. Nothing I couldn’t have done in a sec this morning :)

Gnoe’s tip: did you know that steaming vegetables is so much quicker and healthier when you do it in the microwave? Do follow instructions though (LOL). It sounds obvious but I know a lot of people who don’t use the microwave for cooking veggies.

Well, I’ve already mentioned some of my bento’s content but here’s the complete list:

• yellow grape tomatoes
• strawberries
• red salad leaves
• spinach pie with blue cheese, leeks, pinenuts and black sesame seeds
• some cranberries
• walnut and hazelnuts
• carrot hiding under green beans
• garden cress
• radishes
• basil
• and… mini rhubarb-raspberry crumble!

As you can see I tried to do something creative with the radishes :-o I had hoped the carefully peeled skin would ‘flower’ after I had put the veggies in some ice water but… it failed ;) And yes, that experiment took place within the before mentioned 12 minutes! ;)