Farmers' Market Potato Salad

This colorful blend of seasonal vegetables is a perfect side dish to bring to a BBQ or potluck. Joe was on board immediately after I told him the dressing contained two full tablespoons of Dijon and a little Tabasco, which I hardly ever use.

It's also easy to bump it up to a main dish by adding kidney beans and serving it on a bed of leafy greens, like we did. I wasn't intending to photograph it on the plate, but I loved how it looked so I snatched it out of Joe's hands and took a few shots :-)

Here is my review of our CSA box, week 4:

We got: 1 head oak leaf lettuce, 1 pound Oregon Spring tomatoes, 1 cucumber, 1 red onion, 2 pounds fava beans, 2 pounds French fingerling potatoes, 1 basket cherries, 1 basket strawberries. (Note that it was a heaping basket of cherries, but we couldn't stop eating them even while I took the picture). 

We started out the week by using some of the red onion and finishing up the cabbage leftover from week 3. I found a Rachael Ray recipe for Fiery Roast Turkey Sandwiches that sounded good, so I made a version of that. It's basically just a turkey sandwich but you add a few special touches to make it really flavorful, like pickled red onions that you cook quickly on the stove with sugar and red wine vinegar, a spicy chipotle cream cheese spread, and topped with a pile of shredded cabbage and radishes. I decided to make it a wrap instead of a sandwich, and I prepared a smaller amount of the chipotle cream spread using just a few wedges of laughing cow cheese. It was good! I loved the pickled red onions. They would be yummy addition to hamburgers or veggie burgers too.

We used some of the fava beans in this lovely spring frittata with morels and Parmesan cheese by Cooking Light. It was a good meal, though honestly, the morels could have been shiitakes -or almost any other mushroom- and I wouldn't have known the difference.

The rest of the favas were used in a lemony yogurt-based salad from the CSA newsletter. It was a variation of a recipe in Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, adapted to use the ingredients in our box that week. Anyone else have this cookbook? What do you think of it? It seems like one I would like, because this salad was really good. Also, go here if you want to see my breakdown of how to prep fava beans.

Let's see...if I remember correctly...the cucumber was sliced and eaten with hummus, the strawberries were eaten with yogurt, and the cherries were chopped and added to bowls of vanilla ice cream. We still have a couple of potatoes left for next week.

The tomatoes, most of the red onion, and most of the potatoes (some from this week, some from last week) were used for the potato salad, recipe follows.

Farmers' Market Potato Salad
adapted from Cooking Light - June 2010
serves 6 as a side dish

Notes: Stir in a can of red kidney beans (rinsed and drained) at the end to make it more of a main dish, if desired.

1 cup fresh corn kernels (or frozen, if the corn is not yet ready where you live)
2 pounds fingerling potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon, basil, or a combination
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons whole-grain Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (such as Tabasco)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Cooking spray
3/4 cup vertically sliced red onion
3/4 cup diced zucchini
1 cup cherry or other tomatoes, halved or chopped if large

Preheat the oven to 425 F.

Place the corn and potatoes on a jelly-roll pan and toss with 1 tablespoon of the oil. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. The corn should be nice and roasted, but not burned. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the tarragon/basil, vinegar, mustard, hot sauce, salt, and pepper. Gradually add the remaining oil while whisking constantly to create an emulsion. Put the contents of the jelly-roll pan into a large bowl, and drizzle the dressing over the top. Toss to coat.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat and coat with cooking spray (or add a little more olive oil if you don't use cooking spray). Add onion and zucchini, cook 4 minutes or until lightly browned. Add this mixture, along with the tomatoes, to a large bowl and toss gently to combine. Taste and season with more salt and pepper if needed.

This dish can be served immediately, or you can make it ahead and refrigerate until ready to serve. It's just as good cold.

Cabbage Rolls with Whole-Grain Bread Stuffing

We got a huge head of green cabbage in our CSA this week, so I decided to use some of it to make cabbage rolls. Usually, the filling for stuffed cabbage consists of seasoned ground meat with some grains mixed in, often served with a sauce of some kind. I chose to go a different route this time, and make a vegetarian version I found in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. The cabbage leaves are filled with a stuffing made of whole-grain bread, dates, and dried figs. It reminded me of a stuffing you might see as part of a Thanksgiving spread. It sounded a little weird at first, but I figured, if Mark Bittman recommended it, it had to be good (he called it a bread salad, but to me it looked like a stuffing, so that's what I'll call it).

We actually really liked it! This stuffing would be great on its own too, for Thanksgiving, or just a regular old Thursday in general, for that matter. The dried fruits, sage, and toasted hazelnuts made me ache for fall. We used a really nice aged balsamic vinegar (so thick it looks like syrup as it drizzles out of the bottle) which added a ton of great flavor.

Here is our CSA box for week 3:

One bunch basil, one pound zucchini, 1 giant head cabbage, 2 pounds Nicola potatoes, 1 bunch white turnips, 1 head garlic, one sweet onion, one pint strawberries, one head red leaf lettuce.

I used some of the basil, garlic, and all of the zucchini to make my favorite stuffed zucchini recipe by Rachael Ray. It was so good, especially because I used Prosecco instead of dry white wine.

The next night, we finished off the bottle of Prosecco by braising the turnips and turnip greens. With small turnips like these they would have been fine to just be sliced raw into salads, but I prefer them cooked.

We were able to use the cabbage for so many meals, I'm still amazed just thinking about it. We started out by pulling off the largest leaves for the stuffed cabbage recipe below. Next, we made Inside-Out Spring Rolls, a favorite go-to meal for us. The next night, we sliced some of the remaining cabbage into large wedges, drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted it in the oven. We also chopped the sweet onion and some of the potatoes into small wedges, added some sliced chicken apple gouda sausage, tossed in oil, salt and pepper, and roasted that as well. It made for a delicious meal.

After all that, we still have a hunk of cabbage left in the fridge for next week.

We also have a couple of potatoes leftover that as of writing this we haven't used yet. This particular variety of potato is very low on the glycemic index, which means it won't make your blood sugar spike like regular potatoes do, so that's nice if you have to watch your blood sugar.

And as usual, the lettuce went into simple salads, the strawberries onto yogurt and breakfast cereal.

Cabbage Rolls with Whole-Grain Bread Stuffing 
adapted from Mark Bittman - How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
makes 8-12 rolls, about 4 servings

Note: Technically, the recipe for the bread stuffing contains 8 ounces of kale that has been cooked, squeezed dry, and chopped. I omitted it because 1) I didn't have any, 2) I didn't want to buy any, and 3) I was already wrapping the stuffing in cabbage so I figured I was all set for green vegetables. But go ahead and add it if you want.

For the stuffing:
8 ounces whole grain bread (stale is fine), preferably thickly sliced (I used Dave's Killer Bread, because that's what I had)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup chopped dried figs (10-12, depending on the type)
1/4 cup chopped pitted dates (about 4)
1 shallot, minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh sage, or 1 teaspoon dried
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup chopped toasted hazelnuts

1 medium head white or Savoy cabbage

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Lay the slices of bread on a baking sheet and toast in the oven, turning a couple of times, until the bread is dried out and golden brown, about 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the bread. Remove from oven and let cool.

Meanwhile, combine the oil, vinegar, figs, dates, shallot, and sage in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper.

Fill a large bowl with water. Soak the slices of bread for a couple of minutes, then gently squeeze each slice, wringing it out like a cloth, to remove as much excess water as possible. Using your fingers, crumble each slice into the bowl with the other stuffing ingredients. Repeat with remaining slices. Toss to combine. Let sit for at least 20 minutes or up to an hour, stirring occasionally. Stir in the hazelnuts. Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed.

To prepare the cabbage, use a thin-bladed sharp knife to cut a circle around the core on the bottom of the cabbage. (Bittman suggested cutting out a cone shape to remove the core completely, but I had trouble doing that. The main thing you want to achieve here is cutting away the bottom leaves from the core to make it easier to peel off each leaf without tearing them.

Pull off 8-12 large, untorn leaves from the cabbage. Put these leaves in a steamer basket above a couple inches of salted water. Cover and cook until the leaves just become flexible enough to bend. I had to do this in batches because I have a small steamer basket.

Remove the leaves from the steamer, and let cool for a minute or two, until cool enough to handle. Cut a 'V' in each leaf to remove the tough central stem.

To stuff the leaves, lay a leaf curved side up (the outer side of the leave is facing you) on a counter or cutting board. Place about 1/4 cup of the filling (or more, if the leaves are very large) in the center of the leaf, near the cut-out part of the stem. Fold in the sides, then roll up from the stem end, like you're rolling up a little burrito. Do not roll them too tightly because the mixture will expand as it cooks.

At this point you can cover and refrigerate the cabbage rolls for a day or two. Let them come back up to room temperature before proceeding.

Lay the cabbage rolls seam side down in the steamer basket, cover and cook for 10-15 minutes, or until the cabbage is tender. Serve immediately.

Italian Braised Short Ribs in Red Wine

I love using my slow-cooker. Especially when I find a recipe with an exceptionally long cooking time such as this one. During the week I'm away from home for about 9 1/2 hours a day, and lately I've also been doing TurboFire after work in my garage "gym" which adds another hour (I try to workout in the mornings but lately I've been lacking the motivation to get up that early). So an ideal slow-cooker recipe for me is one that can go at least 10 hours, if not more. Ding Ding Ding - we have a winner with this one! On low it goes 10-12 hours. Perfect! And it calls for two cups of wine, which uses enough of the bottle to justify finishing off the rest yourself :-)

I realize that it's now grilling season, but I made this recipe a month ago when it was still cold and wet, at least where I live, and even though I'm way behind I still really wanted to blog about it.

I really like this cookbook (it was a bridal shower gift) - it's by the makers of Crock-Pot and it features more "gourmet" recipes than other slow-cooker books I've seen. Each recipe has a full page photo. I've also made their recipe for maple whiskey glazed beef brisket which was excellent. It has a lot of breakfast/brunch type recipes that I want to try someday as well.

Italian Braised Short Ribs in Red Wine
adapted from Crock-Pot Gourmet Slow Cooking Recipes
serves 4-6

Note: For this recipe, the package of short ribs we had in the freezer ended up only being about two pounds, instead of the three that the recipe called for. We went ahead with it anyway, still using the full amount of all the other ingredients. While we only had enough meat for about three servings, there was still plenty of delicious broth, onions and mushrooms leftover, so we added some cooked wild rice and turned it into a soup for a second meal later in the week. 

3 pounds beef short ribs, trimmed of excess fat
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil, plus more if needed
2 large onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound baby bella or cremini mushrooms, cleaned and quartered
2 cups red wine
2 cups beef broth
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning

Spray the inside of a 5 1/2 quart slow-cooker with cooking spray. Season the short ribs with a little salt and pepper. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches, add the ribs and brown on all sides, adding additional oil as needed. Transfer ribs to slow-cooker as they finish browning.

To the same skillet you were just using, add the onions. Cook, stirring often, for about 3-5 minutes, until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic, mushrooms, wine,  broth, and Italian seasoning. Stir to combine. Bring the mixture to a simmer and cook for about 3 minutes. Pour this mixture over the short ribs in the slow-cooker. Cover and cook on low for 10-12 hours or on high for 6-8 hours, or until beef is tender. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed.

Transfer ribs, mushrooms and onions to a serving plate. Strain the remaining liquid to get a smooth sauce. Serve with mashed potatoes or polenta and drizzle the whole meal with the strained sauce.