What’s on the Menu? (week 26, 2012)

The week is almost over but I didn’t have an opportunity to share my CSA vegetables and menu plan before today! I bet you could hardly wait.. ;P

• tomatoes
• leek
• turnip tops
• lollo rosso lettuce
• escarole
• 3 varieties of radish

In addition on Friday I got some local organic broad beans, marrowfat peas, cilantro and (curled) parsley.

Other ingredients in my fridge that need to be used up:

• 3 stalks of rhubarb
• scapes (garic shoots)
• snow peas
• spring onions
• avocado
• carrots
• mint
• basil
• cranberries…
• open jar of cooked brown lentils
• soygurt
• soy cream
• La Bute Island’s “blue cheese style” Sheese
• firm tofu
• silken tofu
• creamy basil dressing
• rhubarb chutney & syrup
• cranberry compote

So here’s this week’s menu!

Menu plan June 27th – July 3rd

• [Wednesday] Turkish takeaway from Ana’s Kuzin for Mr Gnoe’s B-day!
  Starters: prosecco wine with mixed nuts, Lebanese & pide bread, houmous, baba ganoush, antep ezmesi (chilli peppers, tomato, garlic & herbs) and non-vegan eggplant-yoghurt spread (ali nazik).
  Entrée:  Imam Bayildi (stuffed eggplant), börülce (beans in spicy tomato sauce), kisir (summer salad), rice with chickpeas and bulgur with peas.
  Dessert: fresh mint tea with homemade (!) baklava, limoncello ice from Roberto’s and cherry, followed by ice wine.

  

• [Thursday] Turkish leftovers (including dessert! :)) and mixed salad with pide croutons.
• [Friday] Chloe Coscarelli’s avocado-pesto pasta with steamed snow peas and spicy sautéed turnip tops with mustard & pecans (great recipe that I will share someday).
• [Saturday] Mr Gnoe: probably something cheesy ;) / Gnoe herself: lunch & veggie BBQ  @ Viva Las Vegas Food fest > leftovers at home because I was too tired to stay for the party.
  
  
• [Sunday] Lunch: Happy Herbivore’s fat-free tofu scramble with mushrooms using black salt for the 1st time!
  Dinner: escarole mash with ‘blue cheese style’ Sheese, oven-roasted cashews and mushroom gravy, sided with cool cucumber salad (La Dolce Vegan! p.83) and more baklava for dessert.
  
  
  
• [Monday] Leek & potato soup with cilantro (La Dolce Vegan! p.109), mini crustless tofu quiches and broad bean salad (Mediterraan koken p.48).
  
  
  
• [Tuesday] Rice with Teresa’s garlic shoot stir fry (La Dolce Vegan! p.138) OR another scape recipe via PPK forum (to be decided) with eggplant.

Optionals: Wolffie’s Black Bean & Lentil Salad (La Dolce Vegan! p.72),  puy lentil-carrot salad.

What’s on YOUR menu this week?

Last greens of spring (CSA vegetables week 24 and 25, 2011)

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

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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

Rhubarb-Coconut Tarts for Dessert (CSA vegetables week 20, 2011)

I always know when CSA season starts: one of the first bags is going to hold rhubarb. Now for some of you that may be a feast, but rhubarb and me? We’ve got a strange relationship. I HATED it as a child while my mom loved it…

• Rhubarb
• Spinach
• Oak leaf lettuce
• Turnip tops (rapini)
• Radish
• Plum tomatoes

Now as an adult I’ve eaten rhubarb several times and it really isn’t that bad. Still, my brain refuses to catch up! So each time I’m confronted with these reddish-pink stalks I go “uh-oh” and my mind goes blank.

Creamy Coconut Almond Tarts with Rhubarb

It was a relief to have family coming over for dinner on Sunday so I could use this veggie for dessert. I decided on the lovely Rhubarb-Coconut Tarts from Vegalicious because they look pretty and I had all the ingredients at hand except coconut flavouring. Of course I usually try out recipes before I serve them to guests… But I trust the Vegalicious website: earlier this year I made the vegan Spicy Applesauce Cake with Lemon Frosting for my birthday and it was a success.

Was I right to dare preparing these tartlets without practising first?

You’ve got to remember that I’m not my usual self right now. Actually, I’m a real scatterbrain these days: I can read a recipe ten times and still not pick up everything. That’s exactly what happened… AND — I’ve hit myself several times for this already — I forgot to make a photo of the end result!!! AAAAARGH! So here’s the only picture I took.

The base: oat-almond crusts. Looking good though, aren’t they? :)

What went ‘wrong’?

• The sharp-eyed reader may notice that something went wrong here right away. I was supposed to make the tarts in ramekins! I only discovered that when the crusts were good & ready to get ‘filled’ with coconut cream…
  But you know what? I liked it this way! It’s like having a huge cookie on a plate with toppings. :)) So this will be a fixed alternation of the recipe from now on. ;)
• I was sure I had some wholemeal flour… but I didn’t. Just took regular flour and it was fine. But I do think wholemeal will be good!
• When I was supposed to be making sugar water to ‘cook’ the rhubarb in, I threw in the lemon juice with the sugar from the start… It turned out fine; rhubarb always has a bit of a tart taste, doesn’t it? ;)

My version of this dessert may not have been as pretty as the picture on Vegalicious. I peeled the rhubarb (I hate those stalk threads, don’t you?) and it lost its beautiful pink colour because of it. But you’ll have to trust my word on this — it looked delish! I put on a fresh mint leaf for garnish (as suggested) and threw over a pinch of cinnamon as the personal finishing touch. It tasted g-r-e-a-t: crunchy bottom, creamy and (not too) sweet middle layer and slightly sour rhubarb on top. Yum! We were unanimous in our verdict, including our omnivore guests.

So yes, next time I might plunge in at the deep end again and serve a new dish without trial! And this rhubarb recipe goes on the pile ‘For Keeps’.

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New recipe(s) tried for the Whip Up Something New! Challenge!

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Whatever happened to my weekly vegetables?

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?

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The Telepathic CSA Supervisor

I sometimes believe there’s a telepathic csa supervisor somewhere, tuning in to (very) special requests. This afternoon I scouted several stores in search of celery but couldn’t find any. I desperately wish to turn some leftover corn into perkedèl djagoeng (corn fritters) for my next bento you see, and it won’t work without that specific herb! :(

When I went to get our weekly vegetable bag it briefly crossed my mind… but nah, that would be really improbable and too much to hope for. Well. YIPPEE!

Just like that time when I was craving eggplant!

I was also pretty happy to see some more of those scarlet globes, french breakfast and icicle radishes among the veggies for this week.
(Thanks for teaching me their names Judy!) Haven’t they grown since last week? :-o

• celery
• bunch of 3 radish varieties
• eggplant
• endive (frisée)
• red chili pepper
• leek
• lettuce

ETA: The celery was used for corn fritters (dôh), bami goreng (twice), Russian salad and several other dishes. Half of the curled endive went into a potato stew with gorgonzola and almonds (which should have been cashews but we were out of those), the rest became toemis andijvie with bami. The leek was also used for perkedèl djagoeng and bami; the chili pepper dito and stir-fried with last week’s bok choi.

Rate-Da-Radish

Last Thursday I told you about the comparative test we were supposed to do with the 3 different csa radishes we found in our veggie bag. Well, here’s the result you’ve all been waiting for! ;)

— Drumroll —

3: the ‘ordinary’ round radish
2: the long red one

Number 1: the WHITE radish!!!

The root vegetables were tested by wlfr, Mr Gnoe and myself. Mr Gnoe and I ate them with, and without (sea) salt.

Wlfr did the test by himself (probably salted) and sent us his verdict by e-mail:

Cool, right? As always, his and my verdict were completely opposite… Actually, we all had different tastes concerning the three types!

The plain round one was my favourite; the white came first for Mr Gnoe. So he would have won the (con-)test… if it had been a bet ;)

My number 1 was juicy, sweet and spicy at the same time. The white winner started out with a subtle taste and turned into a sharp lingering taste. “Multiple consecutive sensations,” as Mr Gnoe put it. [sic.] The long red one was well… just pretty pungent and a bit too tough to my taste — although Mr Gnoe disagreed.

Anyway, it was a fun thing to do! :) Hope you’ve enjoyed our experiment a little as well? ;)

Do the Veggie Test (week 22, 2010)

This week’s vegetable packet contains 3 kinds of radish and a request for feedback on which we like best. The bundle shown in the picture was actually a little bigger but we gave one piece each to wlfr who loves a test like that.

Yes, that is the same wlfr who made me do the Pepsi test when we were kids, and had me taste Nibbit Cocktail Chips blindfolded to see whether I really liked the red ones best. Anyway, it seemed only fair since I had devoured half his stash of radishes on our hike.

I’ll present our verdict on the radishes later this week!

• pak choi (Chinese cabbage)
• spinach
• red lettuce
• 3 kinds of radish
• spring onion
• red bell pepper

ETA — the spinach turned into an Indonesian meal: toemis bajem & djagoeng (spinach & corn) with telor boemboe Bali and nasi goreng which contained some of last week’s bundle garlic. The bok choi, bell pepper and scallions were stir-fried (added the chili pepper from week 23) in sesame oil, soy sauce and ginger syrup and served with bami goreng, using part of the celery. The radishes became sandwich toppings, healthy snacks and they were indeed submitted to a veggie test. Lettuce & spring onion in salad.

Bento-sixty-four

Last Friday’s bento (#64):
Licorice (sugarfree), crushed walnuts for the salad, farm cheese, red berries, radishes, parsley and a rice salad (rice, dried apricots, tomato, sundried tomato, parsley, cucumber, gherkin, capers, peas) with a dressing of honey, wine vinegar, raspberry vinegar, oregano, salt ’n pepper.

Bento #60

I present to you: Thursday 9th of July’s bento (#60).

Upper tier:

• quiche wedge (rocket salad*, potato*, pine nuts, cheese, egg*)
• basil*
• seedless grapes
• red & black currants*
• homegrown bean sprouts*
• radish
• emmental La vache qui rit cheese
• homegrown garden cress*

Lower tier

• beet* salad on romaine leaves* (go to bento #59 for ingredients)
• gherkin
• radish
• dill*

All ingredients marked with ‘*’ were organic. We got some new garden beet in our veggie bag this week. What shall we prepare with them this time? Their leaves, which are almost the same as (Swiss) chard and can be processed like spinach, we already ate in a Italian pasta sauce.

Veggiebag week 28-2009
I decided I would like to be able to look up what came in our weekly Aardvlo bag of organic vegetables. At the end of each year there’s a questionnaire about what you would love to get more often — or what you didn’t like so much. A question that’s easier to answer when you can remember what you got! :-o

So, week 28 of 2009 brought us: a whole bag of basil (we made some fresh pesto sauce and used that on bruschettas, in a salad dressing and for a pasta salad), a head of lettuce, leeks (we had some oven steamed with cheese; there’s one stalk left which we will probable eat with nasi goreng), tomatoes, red beet with leaves, red and black berries.

Are you all really jealous now? ;)