Pickled Cucumber Salad

I love cucumber salad when Surferman takes me for sushi.  From lots of recipes, I've developed this one to make and enjoy at home.  It's crunchy, refreshing and a great way to get an extra serving of vegetables into your day.

Pickled Cucumber Salad

ingredients:

salad

cucumber washed and sliced thin

carrots washed and sliced thin (optional)

radishes washed and sliced thin (optional)

daikon radish washed and sliced thin (optional)

I always make a huge batch.  My family loves it and we happily eat it all week.  

Until recently, I didn't think I liked radishes. Radishes keep coming in our CSA box, so I gave them a try. Rarely, they are too hot, but usually they are crispy and refreshing like water. If you don't think you like radishes, pick up a daikon radish and give it a try. Daikon is very mild and a great place to start with radishes.

dressing:

3/4 cup rice wine vinegar

1/4 c. fish sauce

1 tsp grated giner

1 tsp chopped garlic

2 tsp brown sugar

These are the ingredients you might not have on hand.  I buy the Fish Sauce in the "oriental section" at the grocery store.  It is a thin brown liquid.  I understand it's made from dried fish, which doesn't sound super appealing, but give it a chance.  It has a salty taste and is really the magic ingredient in this salad.  The Ginger paste comes from the produce department.  It's refrigerated.  You can grate fresh ginger instead.  The paste is soooo easy though.

directions:

Slice the vegetables into a plastic or glass container.  I use a hand-held mandolin to slice the veggies thin.  Use cucumbers and add the other vegetables as available.

I scrub the vegetables well, but don't remove any of the peels.  

Mix dressing ingredients together and pour over vegetables.  Stir well and let sit (the longer the better) before serving.  

Enjoy!

Beet Chips

I found a way to get Grom to happily eat veggies. Beet Chips!

They are pretty easy to make. Here's how we do it...

1. preheat your oven to 350F.

I use our convection setting.

2. wash and peel your beets

veggie peeler works great.

3. use a mandolin to slice the beets into thin slices.

Grom has mad knife skills. He respects a sharp blade and is very careful. I was still watching close when he gave the mandolin a spin.

4. spray a cookie sheet with olive oil spray.

I like to use my Pampered Chef stoneware pans.

5. arrange the beets in a single layer. it's ok if they overlap a little bit.

6. give the beets a light spray of olive oil.

I think Grom thought he was spray painting them. He got a bit heavy handed. In his defense, I think spraying cooking spray is fun too.

7. give the beets a gentle sprinkle of salt.

Our last batch was pretty salty. I think I'm going to try giving the sliced beets a salty water bath before cooking next time.

Don't worry if your hands get stained. It just shows that you really made these amazingly yummy chips. (And it comes off pretty easy with a little hand soap.)

8. bake for about 15-20 minutes. flip them over about half way through.

9. chips crisp up as they cool.

10. enjoy!

Be warned, beets can make you think you're having a medical emergency. This too will pass... literally. hee hee.

Eat your veggies!

veggiesOriginally uploaded by dboy

The CSA where we get our beautiful veggies every week needs more subscribers for it's 12 week summer season starting June 22.

Large shares are $26.50. Small shares are $20.

If you sign up, make sure you tell them I sent you... they are giving away free totes.  And we all know how much I like free things.

Last summer we were CSA newbies.   I blogged about the contents of our CSA box and experience every week.  If you'd like to see the variety and what you might expect if you sign up, check out the posts under my CSA Box label.

Tales from the CSA box

We found another mystery vegetable in our CSA box this week.



It's called Romanesco. If you guessed that it's related to the cauliflower and broccoli you're right.

It's beautiful and further proof of God's creation being deliberate and beautiful. It's a Fractal Food which I don't fully understand (probably because I didn't take the time to read it all, but there are some incredible pictures of this baby enlarged).

I cooked it just like cauliflower and broccoli... steamed. It has a wonderful flavor that is pleasantly milder than cauliflower.

I hope we get more. If you see some at your Farmer's Market... buy it.

Bob Marleyrabi...

is chillin' in my fridge.


I imagine him listening to some Christafari. Especially the kids album - Reggae Sunday School.
Reggae ABCs and Higher Higher (click the links to listen... it's good stuff).

Surprises from the CSA Box

This is the biggest and purplest cauliflower I have ever seen.

Here's what I'll do with it... Roasted Cauliflower with Capers.

Pears

Had to share these cute little pears. They came in our box this week. Each about the size of a golf ball (and just as hard right now).

I can taste them already. I hope they are as juicy as they are cute.

Grom is going to eat them up.

Tales from the CSA box- August 18

photo by rjs1322 licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Today I filled out the paperwork to continue receiving lovely organic vegetables until March 2009.

We have really enjoyed getting our goodie box every week. It has been a challenge and sometimes a project, but I believe we are eating more veggies and organic ones to boot. I have been able to keep our grocery budget the same. It has been a success.

I was going to post my last full set of photos tonight. The battery in my camera is dead. I tried to get some with my camera phone, but they were b.a.d. bad. In case your wondering, it was a typical box of variety. Lots of peppers this week and a handful of tomatoes. I have decided that they throw in one special treat every week. This week it's the cutest little nectarines you've ever seen.

I'll write about the oddities we receive each week. And maybe take a picture of a beautiful vegetable here and there.

Tales from the CSA box - August 11

Wheat Bread! We got a beautiful loaf of wheat bread in our box this week. Our CSA is offering a bread subscription in the fall. It's $5/week. I think I need to dig out our bread machine.

Here's our veggies for the week...


Have you seen cas' armenian cucumber?

Tales from the CSA box - August 4

I decided to get artsy with this weeks box contents. Here's my still life of Veggies.

• butter crunch lettuce
• romaine lettuce
• spring mix lettuce (not pictured)
• summer squash
• corn (not organic)
• cilantro
• lemon cucumbers
• green beans
• potatoes
• peppers
• raspberries

And here's proof that this stuff is organic. Only an organic farmer would send something like this along and count it a cucumber. I can hardly wait to see what/who is living in the end of it.
Watch for my menu plan where I try to use up all these lovely veggies feeding my family.

Tales from the CSA box - July 28

We are doing a good job of keeping up with our veggies with the exception of the kale. It wilts and looks ugly before I get creative and motivated to cook it up. I was looking forward to trying a new recipe with it this week, and wouldn't you know we didn't get any.

The tomatoes have arrived. They are pretty green this week. Hopefully they'll get better as summer progresses.

It's a beautiful box.

Can't wait for some fresh mint tea.

Tales from the CSA box - July 21

I'm posting this a day late and without pictures because I was super sick yesterday. Don't know where it came from, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. I tried to "suck it up" this morning, but my body wasn't ready yet.

photo by dboy (Flickr)

Anyway this is about veggies...
Another nice box... cucumbers, zucchini, green beans(new), spring mix, romaine lettuce, parsley, cilantro, potatoes (new), kale, and raspberries.

There might have been something else, I was functioning at about 40% when I put them away.

I'm surprised we haven't seen any tomatoes yet.

It's also time to sign up for the Fall / Winter shares. I think we're going to go for it.

Tales from the CSA box - July 14

More yummy veggies this week!

Tales from the CSA box - July 7

Chocolate! Today we got chocolate! It's Fair Trade, Organic, Vegan and DELICIOUS!

I'm starting to gather some weird stuff in my fridge. It's not that I don't want to eat it. I just don't know what to do with it.

Got any great recipes for kale and celery root?

Tales from the CSA box - June 30

More fresh veggies! We finally got something I have no idea what to do with. Celery Root! Usually we get a newsletter from the CSA that has recipes and a preview of what we can expect in our box. I didn't get a newsletter so I guess I have to figure out how to use celery root. I don't have any experience with fennel either, but I know it can be sauted or roasted.



I'll post a recipe when I decide what to do with that alien looking root.

Grom volunteered to eat the strawberries.

Tales from the CSA box - June 23

Stoked again!  It's going to be like Christmas around here on Mondays.  It's so fun to go through the box and see what goodies we get to eat this week.

YUM!

Tales from the CSA box - June 16

We bought a subscription to the CSA program at our local university.  We'll be getting fresh, organic veggies and some fruits all summer long.  We bought a large share with local delivery for $27.50/week.

Surferman picked up our first box this week.  They like to recycle the box they transport the veggies in, so Surferman decided to load the items onto what he promises me was a clean towel in the back of his Volvo.

Yep,  that's his surfboard and gear.  Those are my beautiful veggies.
Here's what we got...  1 bunch of beets, 1 bunch of carrots, 1 bunch of baby red onions, 1 head of butter lettuce, 1 bunch of basil, 1 head of cabbage, 2 stalks of broccoli, 2 small heads of cauliflower (one that I'm hoping tastes like cheese - but I doubt it - it's a lovely cheddar color), 1 bunch of kale?, 3 heads of garlic, a couple sprigs of rosemary, a box of blackberries, a half a dozen baby summer squashes and a softball sized zucchini?.

I'm excited to figure out how to work it into our meal plan.