Tuesday: Spaghetti alla carbonara....sort of

"Spaghetti alla carbonara" with summer squash.

This recipe, from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, substitutes summer squash and an onion for the bacon or pancetta that gives spaghetti alla carbonara its artery-clogging goodness. Never fear, cholesterol lovers: this recipe still calls for some eggs and Parmesan, so we trust it's not TOO healthy.

Wednesday: Mind your p(ea shoot)s and q(uiche)s

 

Pea shoot quiche.

You can make a quiche approximate a balanced meal by adding in a generous quantity of greens, as we did here.  You may want to precook any greens that will release liquid, so that they don't change the baking time.  Same goes for frittatas.

Saturday: The other "C" word

Delfino cilantro pesto.

As we mentioned previously, we recently learned that the original pesto may in fact have been cilantro rather than basil.  When we picked up this lacy varietal of cilantro, we decided we'd try taking pesto back to its roots.














Otherwise, this is just a standard pesto with Parmesan, garlic, walnuts and a generous amount of olive oil.  Despite her cilantrophobia, Lizz gave this dish her seal of approval.

Monday: A frittata for Caitlin (in spirit)

 

Broccoli rabe frittata.

We quickly blanched the broccoli rabe for this recipe before mixing it into the eggs and cheese and putting it in to bake.

Thursday: Asparagus pasta

Whole-wheat pasta with purple asparagus and Parmesan, tossed with lemon. 

After many weeks of being foiled by the early-morning greenmarket shoppers, we finally got our hands on some beautiful purple asparagus.














yes, asparagus too can be purple.

Elizabeth Schneider, in her Vegetable Book, claims that she has found purple asparagus to be uniformly good, and indeed we thought this bunch was particularly sweet and tasty.  It was good in this pasta, but if you happen to get your hands on some we recommend that you just roast it and eat it plain in order to experience its full flavor.

Friday: Mac and cheese, Esq.

Wednesday: Beet + goat cheese + X = tasty

Salad of beets, goat cheese, and wilted chickweed, served on quinoa.

We improvised this second use for chickweed: a simple sautee in olive oil with some garlic, to which we added pre-roasted beets.  We also crumbled in some goat cheese.  Beet + goat cheese + greens is a pretty standard combination which is easy to change up by throwing in seasonal foraged greens.

For leftovers the next day, we actually supplemented this dish with some sauteed left-over wild arugula we hadn't used yet. 

Monday: Escarole soup

White bean and escarole soup. 

We weren't quite sure what to do with escarole, but vegetable soups like this one are pretty foolproof.  Escarole, a type of chicory (which puts it in the daisy family), stands up well to braising or being thrown into soups.

Saturday lunch: Sprout sandwich

Sandwich of sheep's milk cheese and mixed sprouts on sourdough bread.

These sprouts were very interesting. The buckwheat sprouts are the ones with bright pink stems - which isn't too surprising, considering that they're related to rhubarb (as well as sorrel, which shares its relatives' sour flavor). The darker purple sprouts were radish, and there may have been some pea shoots and other greens sprinkled throughout.

Thursday: Where's the chicken?

Polenta with braised maitake mushrooms and parmesan, served with sweet-spiced carrots with chickweed.

What would we do without Elizabeth Schneider's Vegetables: From Amaranth to Zucchini? We don't know. Both of these recipes come from her book, which is always our go-to source when we encounter a wholly new veggie (or fungus, as the case may be). Chickweed, another foraged spring green, has a flavor reminiscent of cornsilk when raw, but it wilted into a mild, chewy mass when mixed with simmered carrots, ginger powder and allspice. It was traditionally given to chickens, who apparently like it - hence the name. Maitake, also known as "hen of the woods," has a meaty - even gamy - flavor and aroma. Here it was braised with garlic, rosemary and sherry, and used as a topping for soft polenta.

(We suppose the use of chickweed and hen-of-the-woods mushroom makes this a chicken-themed meal, despite the lack of actual chicken.)

As a belated celebration of Giselle's last-EVER day of law school classes, we cracked open this pretty bottle of dandelion wine:


Bottle of wine, fruit of the dandelion

Giselle has been curious about dandelion wine for years, ever since reading the Ray Bradbury book of the same name. It really is made with dandelion petals, mixed with sugar, a souring agent, and some other substances which assist in fermentation. (As the man at the Chateau Rennaisance stand told us, "it takes a lot of flowers.") Dandelion wine did not disappoint: it was lightly herbal but not over-sweet like some fruit wines can be, and not at all flowery. It was more similar to a mildly sweet white grape wine than you might think.

Tuesday: A not very nettlesome soup

Barley-nettle soup with chives, topped with Parmesan.

This was our second go with nettles, and another success. Nettles are traditionally wilted into soups, and after seeing how well they held up to sauteeing last week, we understood why. We loosely based the soup on this recipe, but it's not really rocket science - it's a very basic veggie and grain soup. Here, we thought the nettles had a more spinach-like taste than they did in the stir-fry, where they tasted more herbal and reminded us a little of black tea.

Monday: It's not delivery, it's D4SA!

Homemade pizza with mozzarella and sunflower sprouts.

Pizza made from scratch on a Monday night might have been a challenge, but Lizz whipped up the dough early in the morning so that it could rise in the fridge during the day. With the dough already made and a jar of tomato puree from Norwich Meadows Farm at the ready, this wasn't a difficult meal. The sunflower sprouts, which were new to us, really do taste a bit like sunflower seeds. They were pretty strong raw, but mellowed when baked.

Monday: Where the wild greens are

Whole-wheat spaghetti with anchovies, Parmesan, and wild Italian arugula.

This is yet another simple pasta based around an interesting-tasting green. Like a few veggies faithful readers will have seen on the blog lately, some wild arugula is a foraged green, albeit one with a familiar cultivated relative. However, according to Elizabeth Schneider's Vegetables: From Amaranth to Zucchini, a cultivated form of "wild arugula" has been introduced. We're not actually sure which one we have. In either case, the taste of wild arugula is not too different from that of its better-known relative - maybe a bit spicier. Wild arugula has thinner stems, much smaller leaves, and a darker color.

The arugula in this recipe is briefly sauteed to tame its heat and then folded into the pasta. A small amount of the raw greens made a nice garnish.

Thursday: On a Ramp-age

Macaroni and cheese with sauteed ramps.

This is just our typical mac and cheese recipe - quick-sauteed ramps made a sweet, oniony side dish.

Wednesday: Sorrel-ramp pesto

Sorrel-ramp pesto.

You might be unaware, faithful reader, that sorrel is a leafy green had you only encountered it on our blog last year. Thankfully our improved camera can do justice to the beautiful, bright parrot green color of this early spring veg.

Although we used to think that pesto was synonymous with basil, we've come to realize that any leafy green with a strong flavor can serve as the base of this sauce. Here, we take advantage of the bright, tart flavor of sorrel. Since basil pesto typically includes a few cloves of garlic, we instead threw in a handful of ramps, which added another complex but not overpowering flavor. A quarter cup or so of walnuts and a half cup or so of grated Parmesan were the final ingredients. Delicious.

P.S. Speaking of pesto, if you haven't seen this recent article by Harold McGee on the great cilantro debate, you might want to check it out. Apparently it was cilantro, not basil, that served as the base of "traditional" Mediterranean pesto!

Wednesday: Frittata frittata bo bata banana fana fo fata fee fi mo mata....

Bell pepper and Parmesan frittata with wild rice.

Giselle has an evening class on Wednesdays this semester, so this is just a quick dinner which is easy to make with our frozen CSA peppers.

However, it is NOT easy to play "The Name Game" with the word "frittata"......just FYI.

Monday: Squash quesadillas, take two

Butternut squash-black bean-goat feta quesadillas with yogurt-lime-cumin sauce.

These were a snap since we could start from our frozen butternut squash puree - and the goat's milk feta provided just the right bite. We liked the idea of making a simple yogurt-based sauce, because we never have pre-made salsa in the house, and it's a bit of a fuss to make on a weeknight (especially when it's not even tomato season).

Wednesday: I'm in yr childhud, relivin it

Cream of yellow tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich.

Who doesn't like a little comfort food once in a while?

Tuesday: Stuffed acorn squash

Acorn squash stuffed with wild rice, oyster mushrooms, toasted almonds, and melted Sun Cheese.

We improvised this squash stuffing, as we often do. Basically any cooked veggies can be mixed with a grain and a nut and used to stuff a pre-roasted winter squash. We particularly liked the flavor added by the fresh mushrooms.

Monday: How sweet the onion

Roasted beet salad with pickled onion and feta, served over quinoa.

In this recipe, the shallots (here, onions since we were out of shallots) are simmered in a sugar-vinegar mixture. The end result is something like a quick, sweet pickle. They contrasted perfectly with the earthiness of the beets, and cut the dense creaminess of the feta. This salad could probably be served on its own or on a bed of greens, but we actually liked it on top of quinoa, which made it more like a grain salad.