CSA week 8.5: Okra

Oh, my. It's fuzzy.

That was my reaction when I stuck my hand in the bag I'd brought home from the farmers' market. What had possessed me, to buy a bag of damp, soft, furry vegetables? I grew up in Ohio, for cryin' out loud; what do I know about okra?

But this recipe for Indian-spiced okra was calling. Specifically, it was saying, "Your mother is coming tomorrow for a week-long stay, and she doesn't want to eat okra, although she might fib and say she doesn't mind."

I made two changes to the recipe. I didn't have jalopenos, so I used two small banana peppers. I also added a white Asian eggplant that I forgot to put on the grill earlier in the week.

More forgetfulness: I didn't realize that half of the onion was supposed to be fried 'til crispy and reserved to garnish the top. I left the browned onions in the pan; added the paste made of pureed onions, garlic, peppers and spices; then put in the okra and eggplant with some water to cook for 10 minutes.

At this point, I noticed that there was no picture accompanying the recipe. The dish had a nice lemony, spicy aroma, but it looked rather muddy, despite the bright green okra. I kept waiting for okra's notorious slimy side to appear.

My final verdict: not bad. The okra was lemony and tender, not slimy (although I could see it heading that way if I'd cooked it any longer). The spice balance wasn't quite right -- I was rushing to get dinner on the table -- and it needed the zing that jalopenos would have provided.

I'll give okra another chance, but probably not with this dish.

CSA week 7: Succotash

There wasn't much cooking going on this week, as I cleaned out my fridge in the aftermath of a multi-day power outage.

After cooking dinner for friends one night, I had several ears of corn left over. This made me think of a delicious succotash I had once, made with fresh lima beans.

Limas can be pretty starchy, and I don't think much of them when they've been frozen. The fresh beans are a different matter. I sauteed chopped onion in olive oil, then added lightly steamed lima beans, minced garlic, the corn, and some farmstand tomatoes.

I modeled my succotash on this recipe from Epicurous. Topping the vegetables with slivered fresh basil was a nice touch. It made for a fresh-tasting side dish with grilled chicken and shrimp.

Not-so-fun fact: raw lima beans can be toxic! Lima beans are one of many plants that protect themselves from herbivores by storing a naturally occurring form of cyanide. Cooking the bean destroys the toxin.

CSA week 6: Rainbow chard

Photo by Strata R. Chalup, My Bay Area Garden

A refrigerator drawer full of vegetables, and what did I do? Bought some more!

I was shopping at MOM'S Organic Market for a few things I can't find anywhere else, and I was attracted by some beautiful rainbow chard. It looked so bright and fresh that I picked it up, even though I wasn't sure what I'd do with it.

I turned to Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, a great resource for simple, appealing recipes. There was a dish of braised chard with cilantro, and I followed its lead, even though I had no cilantro. I liked that that the recipe called for dicing and slow-cooking the colorful stems along with the sturdy leaves. Some little onions and garlic from the CSA went in the pot too, along with... paprika? Hmm.

After 45 minutes on low heat, the stems were tender and the greens had cooked down yet still had some texture. "The chard should be silky and very fragrant," Madison says. Not sure I quite achieved that, but it was hearty and tasty with some steamed new potatoes.

I learned that chard is a type of beet, chosen for its leafiness rather than its ability to grow tasty roots. Chard provides lots of vitamin A as well as calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium.

Next time, I think I'd try wilting the greens after sauteing the stems in olive oil. Maybe that would preserve some of the stems' brilliant color.

CSA week 5: Purslane

For our holiday weekend barbeque, I wanted to feature summer vegetables alongside the grilled chicken, and I was determined to find a way to use two weeks' worth of purslane.

I've decided that Wikipedia is not a great source for culinary inspiration. Here I learned that purslane is "considered a weed in the US" and is known for its "musilaginous" quality, as a thickener for soups and stews.

On the positive side, however, it has more omega-3 fatty acids than any other green leafy vegetable, and it's a good source of vitamins A, C, E, as well as iron, calcium and potassium. The raw leaves taste like watercress, but less peppery and more lemony.

This recipe for purslane-potato salad suited my menu, and allowed me to use Yukon Gold potatoes and cucumber from this week's CSA share. I prefer vinaigrette to mayonnaise-based potato salads, and a light dressing of olive oil and lemon juice complemented the purslane nicely.






This summer vegetable gratin did a lot to raise the profile of zucchini in my house. (A teenage visitor who reportedly does not like cooked tomatoes ate two large helpings.)

Baked zucchini can turn into soupy glop, but this recipe called for salting and draining the sliced tomatoes and zucchini before assembling the dish. The result was juicy, but not watery.

There's a layer of caramelized onion between the zucchini and tomatoes, which really enriched the flavor. It's topped with Parmesan bread crumbs, and some chopped fresh basil added after baking.

CSA week 4: Fava beans

It's Wednesday, and that means it's time to clear out the produce drawer before the next CSA share arrives. Fava beans, garlic scapes, spring onions, chard...

Preparing the fava beans was an interesting process. I was fascinated by the fuzzy white inner lining of the pods: nature's perfect packing material, and it's compostable!

I may have boiled the beans a little too long; removing the outer husk squished some of the beans and split others in half. The beans had a bright, fresh flavor that was sweet like garden peas, only stronger. (Later, I learned that fava beans actually belong to the pea family.)

My smallish bunch of young chard looked a little wobegone and wilted, but I went ahead and sliced it, separating the leaves and stems. I chopped up garlic scapes and sauteed them in olive oil with the chard stems, then added the chard leaves, onions, and a couple of shakes of crushed red pepper.

The chard smelled great. The greens cooked down quite a bit, but adding the beans made a fairly substantial plate, with an ear of corn on the side. Next time, I'd skip the onion; I preferred the flavor of the garlic with the chard.

Fava beans -- also called broad beans, windsor beans, horse beans and pigeon beans -- are a good source of fiber, protein (1 cup = 12g), and folate.

While learning about fava beans, I stumbled upon Chef In You, a blog filled with vegetarian recipes and lovely pictures of fava beans in all the stages of shelling and cooking.

CSA week 3: Escarole

I was starting from scratch with escarole: a large leafy head, and no idea how to prepare it.

Escarole looks like romaine, but it's a type of endive, broad-leafed and a little bitter. I knew I wanted to cook it, finding it too sharp as a raw salad.

My mom recalled a Rachel Ray recipe for escarole with lemon bread crumbs. I've never watched Ray's TV show or tried any of her recipes. But this recipe's combination of lemon and olive oil, with a touch of honey to "mellow" the greens, sounded intriguing.

I sliced the escarole into ribbons and wilted it in a large skillet, with olive oil, salt and freshly ground pepper. Next I simmered the greens for just a few minutes in chicken broth and a touch of honey. (I used much less broth than the recipe called for, noting several reviews that deemed the dish too soupy.)

The cooked greens are topped with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a mixture of butter-browned bread crumbs, lemon zest, and minced spring onions (also from my CSA share).

The flavors of honey and lemon blunted the bitterness of the greens and made for a great combination. I was a little disappointed that my big pan of escarole cooked down to a shallow soup bowl. Here's hoping for more escarole this week!

CSA weeks 1 & 2: Lamb's-quarters

For the first time in several years, our family is staying in the DC area for the summer, and I'm participating in community sponsored agriculture -- a CSA. For a flat fee at the beginning of the summer, I get a weekly share of the farm's harvest, a grocery bag full of fresh vegetables, eggs and fruit.

I like that I know where my vegetables were grown (on Allan Balliett's farm, near Shepherdstown, WV), that they are grown biodynamically, and that they were harvested the same day I receive them.

Fresh & Local CSA's Web site promises "over 150 varieties of vegetables, fruits and herbs" in the course of the season, but I was still surprised by the quantity and diversity in the market bag when it was all spread out before m.

There were spring onions and shallots, fava beans, purslane, lamb's-quarters, chard, escarole, heirloom lettuce (Simpson), mixed baby greens, and basil. What to do with this bounty?

I had to go online and find images to identify the purslane and lamb's-quarters. I learned that lamb's-quarters is also known as pigweed, dungweed, or goosefoot. This did not immediately inspire me to start cooking.

Some online sources recommend using tender young lamb's-quarters in salads. I tasted a raw leaf and found it weedy and unappealing. It had a flavor like the smell of a fresh-cut lawn.

Several recipes treated lamb's-quarters like spinach. I took spring onion and garlic scapes from the market bag, minced them and sauteed them in olive oil. I found a yellow bell pepper in the fridge that needed to be cooked, so I diced some of that and tossed it in the pan, mostly for the color contrast.

The lamb's quarters took a little longer to wilt in the pan than spinach would, and it didn't cook down quite as much. I served it with some leftover grilled chicken breast and steamed rice. Cooking mellowed the greens nicely.

According to my favorite veggie cookbook -- "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone," by Deborah Madison -- lamb's-quarters is an excellent source of beta carotene and antioxidant vitamins C & E. I would continue to use it as an occasional alternative to spinach.