Fried Rice and then off to England

We are off to England tomorrow bright and early. We decided to travel light, both taking one backpack small enough to carry on the plane. Because of this, we are going low tech and leaving the laptops at home. Our cell phones won't work there either, so this is our chance to disconnect and really get away from it all. I'll be sure to share some highlights when we return in two weeks.

We enjoyed a quick meal to eat up the last of our vegetables before leaving: Fried Rice. This is a great way to eat up whatever you have on hand.


Chop your vegetables and stir-fry until they are tender.


If desired, add the greens and cook until wilted.


Add cooked rice and cook until heated through. Add seasonings and cooked eggs.


I chose to garnish mine with a little extra Tamari and Srirachi Sauce.

I have to admit that I was wrong about fried rice. I thought I should pour the beaten eggs over the rice and vegetable mixture and cook it together, but my husband thought I should cook the scrambled eggs separately. I cooked it my way and the results were less than stellar. I swear that it has turned out in the past, but not this time around. The rice seemed to soak up the egg and the results were pretty gummy. (My husband thought it was fine, but I knew it could be better.)He is right. Cook the eggs separately.

You will hear from us again in two weeks. Cheers!

Cottage Pie and a Plan

We are heading to England on Thursday. This is our first international trip in our 2.5 years of marriage, and we are really excited. In honor of our upcoming trip, my husband came up with the idea of some shepherd's pie for dinner. I looked up a a recipe in Joy of Cooking, and learned that traditional shepherd's pie is made with chopped lamb. When you substitute beef, the name changes to cottage pie. The traditional recipe includes 1 carrot, 1 onion, 1 celery stalk, 1 lb of ground beef, some beef stock, rosemary, thyme and several potatoes mashed up for a topping. That sounds delicious for a cool fall day, doesn't it? We had to make a couple changes for what we had on hand (our recipe is below). For example, I looked through the cabinet to discover we were out of rosemary and thyme.

Our plan for the rest of the week is:

Monday- Chicken Scampi

Tuesday- Leftover Cottage Pie

Wednesday - Fried Rice with vegetables

Thursday - Off to England





Cottage Pie inspired by Joy of Cooking
2 potatoes, chopped
3 small salad turnips, chopped
2 leeks, whites sliced in half, and cut in thin slices
1 carrot, chopped
6 medium radishes, chopped
1 lb ground beef
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 T flour
2 t Old Bay
1 C Cheddar cheese, grated
olive oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Add the potatoes and turnips to a pot of cold water. Bring to a boil and cook until tender. Meanwhile, chop the other vegetables and add the leek, carrot, and radishes to a hot frying pan with oil. Cook until tender. Remove from the pan and set aside. Add the ground beef to the pan. When it is almost cooked through, add the tomatoes, flour, and Old Bay. Cook until the tomatoes are softened. Add the leek, carrot, and radishes back in, and stir to combine. Mash up the potatoes and turnips, if necessary add a bit of liquid. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish, and top with the potatoes and turnips. Bake for about 15 minutes. Add the cheese to the top and cook for 15 more minutes.

The traditional recipe does not call for turnips, radishes, leeks or tomatoes. I think this is a very flexible dish that allows you to substitute any vegetables you have on hand.

Joy of Cooking suggested baking it in a pie plate, but I didn't think our pie plate was deep enough to fit everything. We cooked ours in a 9 x 11 pan, so I guess ours was less like Cottage Pie and more like Cottage Cake.

This post is part of Monday Mania and Menu Plan Monday.

Burgers and Greek Salad

I have been trying to avoid gluten for a few weeks. It's a bit of a dietary experiment. I haven't noticed any differences, but I haven't been a purist for too many days in a row. Tonight's dinner was a relapse into the world of gluten, but it was worth it. We had a Greek diner inspired dinner of burgers with fried onions and Greek salad. It tasted really good. Our burgers were made from some grass-fed ground beef we found on sale at Whole Foods, and they were seasoned with sage, garlic and a bit of Old Bay (my husband made them). These flavors combined beautifully with some melted cheese and the sweet, smoky onions. Delicious! The salad helped us eat up some of our CSA bounty. The dressing was a real success. The recipe is below.



City Share Burgers
1 lb ground beef
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 T sage, chopped
1 T Old Bay
1 large onion, sliced
Cheddar cheese, sliced
oil

Combine the meat, garlic, sage and Old Bay, and let sit for 30 minutes. Heat up a cast iron skillet, lightly oil the pan and add the onion. Cook until tender and browned. Remove the onions from the pan. Form the meat mixture into small patties and place them in the hot pan. Cook to your liking. Top with cheese shortly before done cooking and cover. Top with onions to serve.

Greek Salad Dressing
2 T Greek yogurt
1 t apple cider vinegar
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped and smeared
1/8 t dill

Mix the ingredients and let sit for 30 minutes.

We served the dressing over a salad of greens, radishes, golden cherry tomatoes, red onion, corn and feta.

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday at GNOWFGLINS, Pennywise Platters Thursday at The Noursishing Gourmet, Tasty Traditions at Coupon Cooking, and Things I Love Thursday at The Diaper Diaries.

Dirt Candy Roti aka Vegetable Quinoa Pilaf

As my husband and I discussed what we should serve with the Moroccan Lamb Meatballs, inspiration struck him and he wanted to be in charge of the side dish. His working title is Dirt Candy Roti in reference to two different restaurants. I chose Dirt Candy for my birthday dinner this last year. It's a vegetarian restaurant that honors vegetables as nature's candy (It was an awesome meal. I highly recommend it! Definitely get the Mushroom Pate). The "roti" is in honor of the Kattu Roti from Lakruwana, a Sri Lankan restaurant in Staten Island. This was an impressive looking dish that came out molded like a pyramid.

Dirt Candy Roti
1 C quinoa
3 C water
1 large zucchini, shredded
1 medium carrot, shredded
2 large radishes, shredded
2 small beets, shredded
5 garlic scapes, chopped
salt
oil

Rinse the quinoa and drain. Place the quinoa in a sauce pan and toast over medium high heat. Add the water and cook until the water is absorbed (about 30 minutes). Combine the vegetables on a large platter or shallow bowl. Sprinkle generously with salt and let it sit for 30 minutes to draw out excess liquid. Place the mixture in a strainer or colander and squeeze out the liquid. Heat up pan and coat the bottom with oil. Add the vegetable mixture and cook until it starts to crisp. Fold in the cooked quinoa to combine, and cook the mixture for a few minutes.

Use a mold to plate up the Dirt Candy Roti. We used a "solo" size dish from Rice to Riches, but any shape will do.

Quinoa Burgers with Beet and Radish Salad

I planned on making this dinner last night, but by the time we got home from a day out and about we decided to stretch the leftover burrito mix with an extra can of beans. We spent the day in Hoboken visiting the Hoboken Historical Museum and following their map for a walking tour of historic sites. Frank Sinatra wasn't the only famous person born in Hoboken. Did you know that Alfred Steiglitz, Dorothea Lange and Stephen Foster are all from there too? I didn't until yesterday. Hoboken makes a great day trip. It's got a small town feel with big city amenities.


Tonight for dinner we had quinoa burgers with beet and radish salad. It took a while to make dinner, but it made enough for several meals and it was delicious. The quinoa burgers were crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and full of flavor. The beets and radishes were cooked which mellowed their bite and combined nicely with the mustard vinaigrette. It had never occurred to me before to cook radishes as a stand alone dish, but I was trolling the web for radish ideas when I came across a whole list of radish recipes. Jack pot!

Quinoa Burgers makes 8 patties
1 C quinoa
1 1/2 C water
1 bunch greens, chopped
2 shallots, finely chopped
2 salad turnips, shredded
1/2 large zucchini, shredded
2 eggs
1 t Old Bay (or more to taste)
Oil

Rinse the quinoa and add to a hot dry sauce pan. Cook until the grains start to smell nutty and add the water. Bring to a boil, and then lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Set aside and let cool.

Saute the greens until tender. Squeeze the turnips and zucchini to get rid of the liquid. Add the shallots, turnips and zucchini to a skillet. Cook until they are soft.

Beat eggs and add the Old Bay. Combine all of the ingredients and chill.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Shape mixture into eight 1/2-inch-thick patties, pressing firmly. Cook in batches until golden brown and cooked through, about 3 minutes per side.

I could taste the Old Bay when I tasted a bit of the mixture raw, but when it was cooked it mostly disappeared. It just added some complexity to the flavor. If you would like to be able to taste the Old Bay you will want to add at least 2 teaspoons.

Beet and Radish Salad serves 2-4
3 small beets
2 long French radishes
2 T olive oil
1 T apple cider vinegar
1 T mustard
lettuce or salad greens

Scrub the beets and radishes. Boil them until they are fork tender. Let cool and then peel the beets. Cut the beets and radishes into bite size pieces.

Combine oil, vinegar and mustard and pour over the radish and beets. Chill in the fridge. Serve over lettuce.

Vegetable Burritos

I'm a cook. I can follow a recipe and come up with the desired results. Since meeting my husband, I have even gotten better at using a recipe as inspiration and adapting the ingredients/directions to what I have on hand. My husband, on the other hand, is a chef (not for a living). He is great at looking at the ingredients before him and coming up with a scrumptious meal. I tell you this because last night my husband took the lead on dinner, and it was lots of fun to see his thought process at work. It was interesting to see how he chopped the vegetables, cooked and then combined them all in a way different from how I would do it. The results were delicious too.

He made vegetable burritos and guacamole. We have made burritos before. The previous burritos were good and really fast, but if you have little bit more time this recipe is even better. I loved the combination of vegetables with the scapes, beans and cheese. As always, our cooking decisions are driven by what is available from our farm share. Cooking radishes and salad turnips for a burrito might sound bizarre, but we really needed to eat them up. If we were head to a store to buy ingredients for vegetable burritos, we might select other things. This can provide inspiration to others needing to eat up some random veggies in the fridge. Try them in a burrito!

Vegetable Burritos serves 4
2 small bunches of turnip greens, chopped
2 small bunches of radish greens, chopped
1 bunch of beet greens, chopped
4 salad turnips, chopped
4 radishes, chopped
handful of scapes, finely chopped
1 can of pinto beans
cheddar cheese, grated
salsa
guacamole
tortillas

Saute the greens until tender. Place in a large mixing bowl. Saute the salad turnips, radishes and scapes until browned, and add to the mixing bowl. Drain the beans and rinse. Drain well and add to the mixing bowl. The heat of the vegetables will heat up the beans. Combine ingredients and mash with a fork until the salad turnips and beans break up a bit. Heat up the tortillas over the burner or in a dry skillet to soften them. Layer the cheese, the vegetable and bean mixture, salsa and guacamole in the tortilla. Roll up and enjoy.

Guacamole
1 avocado, roughly chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 pinch of salt

Mash together with a fork. Serve immediately.

Some people like to add tomatoes, onions and lime, but we are purists and like that avocado flavor to shine through. Of course, you should add any other ingredients you enjoy.

Kohlrabi Hash

I woke up this morning wondering what I should make for dinner tonight. In my half-asleep state, I was trying to figure out what we had left in the fridge from the farm share. I could think of greens, radishes, turnips... aha, we have kohlrabi. I was excited to remember the kohlrabi because that guaranteed something new and different to prepare, eat and write about. I decided right then that I wanted to have kohlrabi hash with steak and salad.

I had seen kohlrabi in the stores, but I had never purchased it, prepared it, or eaten it. I got some tips from our CSA coordinator last weekend, and I double checked on the internet to make sure I wasn't missing out on any other stellar ideas. Everyone seemed to agree that kohlrabi hash was a great way to go. When our CSA coordinator mentioned kohlrabi hash, I envisioned grated kohlrabi in a cast iron pan cooking away in some olive oil, but when I looked up kohlrabi hash on-line all the recipes were inspired by potato pancakes. They included eggs, breadcrumbs, onion and seasonings. Of course all 5 or 6 of the recipes ended up referring back to one source – funny how that happens. We decided to go with the original idea - simple kohlrabi hash browns.

We made a salad with salad mix, radishes, carrots and salad turnips from our CSA share. Salad turnips are interesting because from the outside they look like regular turnips with a white waxy skin, but once the skin is peeled off, the texture is much closer to jicama. It has a slightly sweet flavor and is great raw. Salad turnips and kohlrabi are the two new things I have tried so far through our farm share. We topped the salad off with our house vinaigrette. My husband's salad dressing came through yet again - it was delicious!

We cooked the steak in a cast iron pan on the stove top. Before living in an apartment, the idea of frying a good thick steak would have appalled me. I thought the only way to cook them was on a grill, but they turn out great this way. We generously salted and peppered each side and placed it in a hot pan over medium high heat with a bit of olive oil. The trick is to leave it alone for as long as it needs to cook on that side, ours was over an inch thick so we did 6-7 minutes per side. This part is hard for me because I'm a cook that likes to fiddle (stir the pot, push thing around while they are sauteing, etc.). But in this case, it's best to set the timer and leave it alone until it is time to flip it because it will create a wonderful crust on the steak. Here is a photo of the finished meal:


Kohlrabi Hash Browns
2 heads of kohlrabi, peeled
olive oil
salt and pepper

Grate the kohlrabi with a box grater or food processor. Place the grated kohlrabi in a piece of cheese cloth or paper towel, and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Heat up a skillet and generously coat the bottom of the pan with olive oil. Dump in the kohlrabi and spread out into an even layer. Cook for a couple of minutes over medium heat and then flip. Cook until the kohlrabi is browned on both sides. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

The kohlrabi hash browns were great! We both wished there were more so we could go back for seconds. They are very similar to potato hash browns, but slightly sweeter and a slightly firmer texture.

Chicken Salad Crostini

The East Coast is in the middle of a horrible heat wave; it was 103 yesterday and 100 degrees today in NYC. The electric company is urging everyone to cut back on their electricity consumption because there are concerns of blackouts. Because of the temperatures, we were determined to prepare a dinner that required no heat.

We cooked some chicken in the crock pot over night, and put it in the fridge for the day. My goal for dinner was to make something new and different that used the chicken and CSA veggies, but required no cooking. Nothing came to mind, but luckily my husband came up with the idea of chicken salad sandwiches with homemade mayonnaise. We discovered in the process that the bread was a bit stale, so the sandwiches became crostini.


Chicken Salad Crostini
2 salad turnips, peeled and chopped
1 French breakfast radish, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 C shredded chicken
2 T mayonnaise
salad greens
toasted slices of bread

Mix the turnips, radish, carrots, shallot, chicken and mayonnaise. Layer the bread, salad greens and chicken salad.

Mayonnaise inspired by Joy of Cooking
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
1/2 t Dijon mustard
2 t vinegar
1/2 t salt
3/4 C olive oil

Blend egg, egg yolk and half the mustard in food processor or blender for several seconds. Add half the vinegar and salt and blend for several more seconds. Slowly add the oil while the blender or food processor is running. (We are able to pour the oil through a small hole in the top, and it controls the pace for us.) Once the oil has been added, turn off the machine. Fold in the rest of the mustard, vinegar and salt. The mayonnaise will only last 1 -2 days in the fridge.


The crostinis were ok. We kept a lot of the marinade in the chicken salad, but it ended up not tasting great with the veggies. Maybe it burned a bit? Next time I would make the chiken salad with plain shredded chicken.

Purslane Salad

I'm attending a farewell dinner this evening for one of our beloved staff members. She is off to new adventures and we are taking her to 5 Napkin Burger for dinner. I've never been there before and I'm curious to see what $15 burger tastes like.

Because I knew I would be out for dinner this evening, I saved the recipe from last night's salad for today's post. I was very excited to get three types of wild foods last week in the CSA share. The first one we're trying is the purslane. I tried looking up some recipes, but they were very sparse. The basic message I took away from my research was that purslane is similar to watercress. I have never prepared watercress either, so that wasn't too helpful.



Purslane looks like a jade plant with thinner leaves, and it's hard to imagine it tasting great raw, but it does. Here's the recipe:

Purslane Salad
2 C purslane, broken into bite-size pieces
1 radish, sliced
1 salad turnip, sliced
1/2 cucumber, sliced

Dressing:
1 T balsamic vinegar
2 T oil
pinch of salt and pepper

Mix the salad ingredients in a large bowl. Mix the dressing in a separate container. I like to use a coffee mug and spoon- the handle makes it easy to grasp the mug and the spoon blends the oil and vinegar together well. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss to mix.


Purslane

Vegetarian Sushi Salad

I don't like to be late. I feel like it's inconsiderate and disrespectful to the person I'm keeping waiting. But sometimes life seems to get in the way, and I can't help it. This morning I decided I wanted to try a recipe that required I run to the store to pick-up a couple of things before preparing the meal. I had 2.5 hours. That should be plenty of time to get everything done at a nice leisurely pace, right? Wrong. Somehow I got down to 30 minutes before I had to leave and all I had ready was some chopped up broccoli and marinating tofu. Where did the time go? I had to buy myself some time and push lunch back 30 minutes, but the results were worth the wait.


I had some salad greens and radish that I wanted to use up from the share and decided to try Green Sushi Salad from Green Kitchen Stories. I like this blog because it has great recipes, beautiful photos and it's in English and Swedish. Tack så mycket. I tend to use recipes as a starting point, so here's my version:

Vegetarian Sushi Salad, based on Green Kitchen Stories
Requires 1-2 hours for the tofu to marinate

5 T sesame oil
5 T soy sauce
2 T rice vinegar
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 red chili or 1/4 t red pepper flakes
2-inch fresh ginger, peeled and minced
1 16 oz. package of firm tofu
2 C cooked short grain brown rice
1 C field greens
1 large radish, sliced
1 crown of broccoli, cut into 1-inch florets (about 2 C)
1 avocado, cut into cubes
1 handful sugarsnap peas
1 handful bean sprouts
1/2 cucumber, cut into slices
4 sheets nori seaweed, ripped into bite size pieces
1 small handful roasted sesame seeds
1 handful cilantro

Combine the sesame oil, soy sauce, rice vinegar, garlic, red pepper and ginger in a mixing bowl. Drain and dry the tofu and cut into small cubes. Add the tofu to the marinade and gently spoon the marinade over the tofu. Cover the bowl and place in the refridgerator.

Cook the brown rice and allow to cool.

Layer the rice, vegetables and tofu and drizzle the marinade over the top as a dressing.

All we have left from our first week is some braising greens. Any suggestions on how to prepare them?