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- Basil
- Turnips (white & golden)
- Fennel
- Prunes
If you’re thinking we came off badly this week, rest assured: we didn’t. There’s just something missing from this picture… Since we changed pick-up points this CSA season, we have to bring our own bag and select the vegetables we’re in title to instead of just grabbing a pre-packaged selection. That’s fine with us because it’s greener that way! But you have to pay attention… and that doesn’t always go well. ;) So I had to make a second run this week. Collecting:
- Red Batavian lettuce
- Broad beans — yay!
Menu plan
The beans went into a potato salad right away. Tomorrow we’ll be having a dinner guest and I plan to make taco’s with Mexican frijoles, salsa picante, guacamole, tri-coloured veggie mix (corn, courgette & red paprika) and fennel-tomato salad. The turnips will go into salad (grated) and I want to try mamichan’s spicy crispy umami salad. It’ll be Wednesday again before we know it!
The first two weeks of summer brought some really nice greens to our dinner table. Introducing a new feature on Graasland as well! But you gotta read on a little for that. ;)
Organic CSA vegetables week 26, 2011
Here’s what we found in our CSA box the previous week.
- Leek
- Spinach
- Radicchio
- Gooseberries
- Celery
- Chinese cabbage (napa, michihli)
It may seem a bit meagre but there’s something missing from the picture! Half a head of Chinese cabbage and a whole head of red Batavian lettuce. We picked up the veggies on our way to my aunt’s and since our fridge was still rather full we decided to leave some of the loot with her.
Organic CSA vegetables week 27, 2011
Now more importantly: this weeks veggies…
- Broad beans!!! Love ‘em!
- Tomatoes
- Field peas
- Basil
- Iceberg lettuce
- Pak choi (bok choy)
- Savory (bonenkruid)
I hope I won’t bore you by sharing another menu plan?
Menu plan July 7-12 2011
Due to our schedule there’s a lot of ‘easy food’ on the menu this week.
- Vegan Spaghetti Bolognese [Wednesday]
- White bean & tomato soup (freezer stash), baguette, green salad with scapes, radicchio and pinenuts [Thursday]
- In between hike and going to the vets: Indian lentil soup (dahl, freezer stash), homemade pizza, cabbage & carrot salad (recipe below) [Friday]
- Broad bean soup, rosemary focaccia from Broodnodig, leftover mashed carrot salad, radicchio salad [Saturday]
- After a day of hiking: vegan ‘shoarma’ (Vivera roerbakreepjes) with pita bread, garlic sauce and leftover carrot-cabbage salad [Sunday]
- Field peas with veggies Provençale (adapting recipe for fresh peas), baguette, salad
- Stir-fry of pak choi, leek, mushrooms and tofu with rice
New feature!
Cabbage contours by Jacqueline Tinney
Many people don’t know what to do with cabbage. That’s a pity because it’s such a healthy vegetable; loaded with vitamins A & C, potassium, calcium, phosphor. It is also thought to be anti-carcinogenic! And if you’re a CSA participant like us you’ll often find it in your box. :)
So. I decided to share some cabbage recipes I like as a special feature on Graasland! Starting of with this week’s side dish of cabbage & carrot salad. Other recipes you can expect in the future are ‘Cabbage with Coconut’ and Indonesian ‘Sambal Goreng Cabbage’.
Easy cabbage-carrot salad
This is a veganised version of Eethuis Iris’ recipe from Zonnig zomers tafelen (p.20).
Cabbage-carrot salad & orange juice
Ingredients
Serves 4.
- 350 g pointed cabbage (I used a mix of pointed and Chinese cabbage; you could also take ordinary white)
- 100 g carrot, cleaned
- 3 tbs veganaise
- 0.5 dl fresh orange juice
- pinch of curry powder
- salt & pepper
- 2 tbs of roasted sunflower seeds
- chopped parsley (optional: it’s not in the original recipe but I added it for colour)
Preparation
- Clean cabbage and cut out the hard core.
- Shred the cabbage very finely.
- Grate the carrot — or pulse a few times in your kitchen machine.
- Make a sauce of veganaise, orange juice, curry, salt and pepper.
- Mix vegetables and dressing, top with sunflower seeds and parsley.
On the contrary of what you may expect, the cabbage in this recipe is not overwhelming. I will make this salad again, maybe tweaking it here and there looking for an even better version: like adding a dash of lemon juice and possible some sweetener like agave syrup or golden raisins.
Do you have any favourite cabbage recipes to share? I’d love to hear them!
Join Beth Fish’s Weekend Cooking with a food related post!
Recipe submitted to the July Whip Up Something New! Challenge hosted on Joyfully Retired
Organic CSA vegetables week 24, 2011
Our tomcat Ringo coming to check out the escarole among the organic vegetables again…
- Radishes
- Broad-leaved endive
- Romaine lettuce
- Chinese cabbage (napa, michihli)
- Red & green basil
- Broccoli
- Scapes (garlic flowers)
Organic CSA vegetables week 25, 2011
- Pointed green cabbage
- Rhubarb
- Red lettuce
- Rapini (turnip tops)
- Courgette (zucchini)
- Snow peas
- Parsley
It’s the last rhubarb of the season and I haven’t figured out yet what to do with it. Any ideas?
Here’s the rest of our menu plan!
Menu plan June 22-27 2011
- Pea soup from a can [Wednesday]
- Sambal goreng cabbage tahu (Vegetarisch Indonesisch kookboek p.93) [Thursday]
- Szechuan noodles (leftover sauce) and Chinese cabbage with coconut (Exotic & Traditional Vegetables p.2) [Friday]
- Simple dinner with guests before going to piano recital: Cream of tomato soup (La Dolce Vegan p.114), salad with snow peas, brownies [Saturday]
- Imam’s Eggplant, mashed carrot salad & tabbouleh (World Food Café p.37, 39 & 31)
- Tomato, cucumber and green pepper mezze (World Food Café p.37), Turkish lentil soup (Met machtig mooie menu’s de wereld rond p.36), leftovers
From the menu plan I previously posted I’ve already shown you the Couscous salad with Orange Basil-Tempeh and Sweet Miso Dressing. Here are the pictures of two other dinners I photographed.
Lentil loaf (from Food for Thought podcast) and Turkish takeaway leftovers
Szechuan noodles from Vegan Family Meals
Join Beth Fish’s Weekend Cooking with a food related post!
Lately it seems to be dark & rainy when I need to collect our bag of local organic produce on Wednesday afternoons. I don’t mind getting (a little!) wet that much — the Amelis’Hof vegetable garden needs its fair share of water for us to get a nice loot — but I hate how gloomy my pictures turn out!
Luckily the sun broke through shortly after I had returned — just in time to make a picture! Hey, if the weather gets better once I’ve stashed everything neatly away I’m not crazy enough to unpack the fridge again for a make-over ;)
- lettuce
- sweetheart cabbage
- red berries
- fennel
- zucchinis (at this small size they’re at their best!)
- basil
- Tokyo turnips (or navet)
I haven’t planned my menu yet, but a dish I do want to cook is polenta ‘pizza’ with homemade pesto and courgettes. And I’ll probably make some more kinpira of the turnips because it’s a nice and easy bento stash.
Root kinpira made of carrots, French turnips and fennel
Some good news from the Amelisbode, a leaflet accompanying the veggies: they’ve started a blog too! On preceding Mondays the contents of Wednesday’s packet will be ‘virtually’ unveiled. I admit it’ll be less fun checking out our ‘surprise package’, but it provides me with a more relaxing timespan for menu planning!
Has anyone been wondering what happened to my weekly (b)logging of CSA vegetables? I omitted 2 and missed 1 because we #failed to pick up our veggie bag when we were on a short holiday in week 26. Time to catch up!
Veggie loot week 27, 2010
- rocket
- radishes (French breakfast & icicle)
- romaine lettuce
- cucumber
- sweethearts cabbages
- field peas
Cukes are always met with a big ‘hooray’ because they taste so good — recalling cucumbers from past times. Strangely enough their organic siblings from the supermarket do not bring the same sensation. That probably has to do with the time and effort invested in the product.
Fresh field peas are great too; I only came to know of them last year thanks to our CSA veggies! (Weeks 30 and 31) They’re completely different from their tinned congeners; tasting a bit like fava beans — not ‘mealy’ like brown beans.
The radishes are the last of the season and the white ones have gotten a bit thickskinned, but nothing a potato peeler can’t take care of ;) They’re obviously related to daikon. We could have used them like that but mostly ate them as a snack or salad anyway.
Other dishes with the greens: pointed cabbage patties (YUM!) and spicy cabbage with foe yong hai (egg foo young) and nasi goreng (fried rice).
The field peas were stir-fried & stewed shortly with garlic, sundried tomatoes and served with fresh basil & ground pepper. Really nice as a side dish to ricotta cheese filled omelet with tomato and herbs!
This week’s vegetables (week 28, 2010)
- lettuce
- radicchio
- fava beans
- Chinese cabbage
- tomatoes
- basil
- rosemary
Menu planner for the week
- Broad beans with cheese sauce, served with oven-baked potato, veggie bratwurst and radicchio salad with bell pepper, cranberries & red dressing (mayo, mustard & ketchup). [Friday]
- Spicy stir-fried Chinese cabbage with cashews & cilantro, rice, emping and salad. [Saturday]
- Salad of Chinese cabbage with homegrown radish cress, spring onion and orange dressing, served with tomato rice and hazelnut ragout. [Sunday]
- Ratatouille with couscous and Parmesan cheese, salad. [Tuesday]
On Monday we’ll be eating out :) And on Wednesday… well, the next batch of veggies will arrive!
Do you plan your weekly menu as well?
– – – – –
Join Beth Fish’s weekend cooking with a food-related post!
I still have to wait a few months before it’s that time again.
Tomato season, I mean.
That’s hard, because I’m already craving some freshly made tomato soup!
So I guess it’s time for my all-time favourite recipe; tomato soup au natural, the way my mom used to make it. “But why post it now?” you ask — quite justly…Well, because I’ve had a request from one of the Kookgrrls, a Dutch mailinglist for women who like to cook.
Needed (serves 4)
- 1 shallot (skinned and chopped)
- 1 garlic clove (skinned)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 650 gr tomatoes (skinned, cores removed and chopped roughly; you may choose to remove the seeds with the core but I like the tanginess it adds to the soup)
- 500 ml vegetable stock (or boiled water and 1 cube of vegetable stock separately)
- small can of pureed tomato
- salt + pepper
- optional: sugar
- optional: fresh basil
Preparation
- Sauté onion and crushed garlic for about half a minute in heated olive oil.
- Add tomatoes, let cook for two more minutes.
- Add vegetable stock (or hot water and crumbled vegetable stock cube), bring to a boil (stir), cover and let simmer for approx. 20 minutes.
- Use food processor or blender to smoothen.
- Optional: use a sieve to sift the seeds out of the soup. I never do.
- Add tomato puree to taste.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- If you’re a sweet tooth you can add some sugar.
- Reheat.
I’ve assumed you know how to peel tomatoes. There are several ways to do it, but this howto on GoodFood explains the simple technique I use. I leave them for up to 1 minute in the water, no more. Mr Gnoe doesn’t skin the tomatoes beforehand btw… He takes out the green hearts, chops them roughly and cooks the whole lot. Then, instead of using a blender, he works the fruit mass manually through a sieve. Way too hard work for me, I’m lazy ;)
You can use some freshly cut basil as garnish. And here’s another one of Gnoe’s tips (I hope I haven’t told you before): do NOT cut your basil leaves with a knife or scissors but tear them apart with your hands. This way their essential flavours will come out best.
I like to make many batches of tomato soup at the same time and freeze ‘em :) Of course they’ve all long gone by now…
With this post I’m joining in the Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads.
Once I have finally made some fresh tomato soup again I’ll take a picture to pimp this post. Please let me know if you want me to add a Dutch translation as well?
Deze maand is vooral de koolhydratenbox geplunderd. Een eerste opluchting is dat de bruschetta’s en het roggebrood uit het kerstpakket komende december gelukkig niet hebben gehaald. Ik moet eens kijken of we nu dat hele kadopakket hebben weggewerkt — anders moeten de laatste spullen maar even hoogste prioriteit krijgen! ;)
Verder stonden er weer bonen op het menu. We hadden NIEUWE zakken kidneybonen en kikkererwten gekocht (tja, zo blijf je bezig! ;) dus die mag ik niet meetellen, maar de zwarte bonen zijn nu op. Ze gingen in gerechten die goed pasten bij de Zuid-Amerikaanse sfeer van het boek dat ik aan het lezen was, The Mapmaker’s Wife van Robert Whitaker (jullie hebben al een blogpostje daarover zien verschijnen): allereerst een Mexicaanse avocadosaus die we aten met taco’s, salade met sinaasappelmarmelade (ook uit de hamstervoorraad) en maïskolf. Maar we aten als vegetariërs (nota bene ;) ook ‘Moren en christenen‘ ;)
In sommige dorpen in Andalusië, in het grensgebied waar in de middeleeuwen Moren en Christenen met wisselend succes streden om de macht, zijn nog de symbolen van deze strijd te vinden. Kerken en al dan niet verwoeste Moorse wachttorens in een plaatsje.
Ook culinair is de strijd doorgedrongen in een recept dat Moros y Cristianos heet, Moren en Christenen. Het gaat om een berg zwarte bonen die omringd wordt door rijst met kruiden en boter. De witte rijst moet de christenen voorstellen, de zwarte bonen, jawel, de Moren.. Veel dorpen en steden in het zuiden van Spanje vieren de verjaging van de Moren nog met feesten.
Uit: de Volkskrant van 18 juni 2004.
Maar de ontdekking van de maand zijn toch wel onze basilicumblokjes! Deze kruidenblokjes zijn bedoeld als zoutvervanger en smaken geweldig. Een heuse toevoeging aan de zelfgemaakte tomatensoep en Napolitaanse witte bonen. Hoewel het een nieuw succesrecept is tel ik die witte bonen trouwens ook al niet mee… Dat zou valsspelen zijn omdat ik ze had afgestreept na het koken en invriezen ;)
Ander klein grut dat deze maand uit de hamstervoorraad werd opgediept: shoyu (voor gemarineerde limabonen), broccolicress, XL-cashewnoten, mungbonen voor taugé en – het wordt voorspelbaar – tuinkers. Geen idee hoeveel porties er nog uit dat zakje zaadjes gaan!
De foto spreekt voor zich, toch? Deze week smullen wij van bramen, tomaatjes, basilicum, sperziebonen, Romainesla, chinese kool… Maar wacht even: wat zit er dan in dat dichte zakje??? Je vindt het antwoord in de notitie op Flickr!
Als je zelf alleen maar een balkon hebt, is het natuurlijk slim om je op een zomerse dag voor de lunch te laten uitnodigen bij iemand met een Echte Tuin :) En zo genoot ik woensdag van een heerlijke middagmaaltijd bij Elsje. Ze had lekkere broodjes, kaasjes en… YUMMY: verse fruitsalade! Met een heel assortiment drankjes ook nog :)
Gelukkig had ik — om niet voor uitvreter te worden uitgemaakt — mijn favoriete salade meegenomen: Insalata Caprese.
Deze mediterrane salade is supersimpel, maarrr… hoe beter de ingrediënten, hoe lekkerder!
Wat heb je nodig?
- lekkere rijpe tomaten
- buffelmozzarella
- verse basilicum
- goede olijfolie (extra vierge)
- balsamicoazijn
- vers gemalen (zee-)zout en peper
- evt. honing
Snijd de tomaten en mozzarella in plakjes en arrangeer die op een mooie schaal of simpel bord met de verse basilicum. Let op: neem niet de grootste blaadjes maar een medium size (ca. 3 cm lang); die zijn frisser van smaak.
Maak een dressing van de aceto balsamico en olijfolie, met zout en peper uit de molen en eventueel een beetje honing. Biologische acaciahoning van De Traay vinden wij hier het lekkerst :) Goed kloppen (of schudden in een afgesloten potje), zodat een homogene massa ontstaat. Schenk de dressing over de salade en bestrooi met nog wat peper.
Olijfolie met Toscaanse kruiden van Oil & Vinegar is voor dit recept uitermate geschikt en de balsamicoazijn van deze winkel is ook stukken lekkerder dan die van de Appie. Nou ja, vinden wij dan (maar wie zijn wij? ;)
Bon appetit!
Thursday’s bento. Click on the picture and look at the notes on the Flickr page to find out what’s in it! Thankfully the little bunny didn’t eat it all.
Graasland 