Green.

Everything will be vibrantly green this week. I already kicked it off with last week's garlic scapes, by canning some garlic scape pesto (7 garlic scapes, handful of walnuts, 2 oz. of CSA cheese, about 1 cup of EVOO, salt and pepper). Shrimp, garlic scape pesto, and whole wheat pasta is pretty addictive—which is the reason why my lunch today was sans shrimp. Can't wait to defrost some more shrimp and start dipping.   PLG CSA Week 5  Lettuce Heads Salad Greens Peas Scallions Kale Swiss Chard Basil Turnips  My plan for this week's share: kale chips, roasted turnips (with honey like my mama does), basil + pea pesto (not sure about this, maybe mint would be better), lots o' salad—hmm, maybe roasted turnips with salad greens, and pasta/cous cous/quinoa with swiss chard! Sounds like a plan.  Photos of last week's meals to come later . . . been a little lazy about posting photos and recipes. My laptop is too old to be running more than one program at a time, which really puts a damper on uploading photos while watching Hulu—it's just not possible.

Baked.

 

Baked kale chips . . . yum. These were so simple to make, I was literally bouncing around in my kitchen after I noticed how little there was to clean up. I also started my happy dance, after my first bite.

Then I proceeded to eat both batches that I made (all 15 oz. worth) . . . after I'd already consumed dinner.

Anywho, I used Smitten Kitchen's Baked Kale Chips recipe. Totally simple. 

Here is my adaptation of Smitten Kitchen's recipe:

15 oz. of Kale (my CSA's farm has yet to divulge what type of kale)
1 tablespoon olive oil
 Kosher salt, to taste

Preheat oven to 300°F.

Rinse kale and shake off excess water—it probably would've been better to pat dry (but I don't have paper towels, and I didn't have the patience to let it air dry—anyway the water was going to evaporate in the oven). After the first few minutes of slicing off stems and dicing leaves I gave up and used my own hands-on technique. Basically ripping the leaves off of the stem (who cares about presentation, it's just me . . . and my camera), coating the leaves with olive oil, spreading out a single layer of the kale in a 9 x 13 in. cake pan (my one cookie sheet is too big for my oven), sprinkling on some kosher salt and putting the pan in the oven. Twenty minutes later, a very addictive snack . . . maybe a few minutes more because of the aforementioned wet leaves.

Enjoy!

Inspiration.

Looking for a little culinary inspiration this week.

PLG CSA Week 2:

Lettuce
Salad greens
Kale
Parsley
Baby Bok Choy

And this time I found my half share of cheese!

Tonight's dinner is sautéed sesame ginger bok choy with quinoa. I've never had quinoa before but it smells nutty . . . so I'm excited to try it. Think I'll pack tomorrow's lunch before I eat, so I won't have to worry about leaving enough leftovers.

With 2 heads of lettuce, salad greens, kale, and parsley--it's looking like the rest of the week is going to be taco salad, kale salad, and . . . . Hmm I don't know what to do with the salad greens. I sautéed them with couscous last week, not knowing what to do with them then, either. Maybe I'll sautée them again, but this time with shrimp.

Anyone have any culinary ideas?