Monday: Springtime standard

 

Roasted asparagus with a white bean salad with almond, scallions and dill.

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.

Tuesday: Veggie pasta

Whole wheat pasta with broccoli-white bean-cashew topping.

This is our usual broccoli-based pasta sauce, but for a little protein we added white beans and cashews which we toasted separately.

Tuesday: Two-bean soup

Barley soup with green beans, carrot and white beans.

This warm and wintry soup was made with our frozen green beans. Soup is a nice application for them - they have a good flavor, but it's impossible to replicate the texture of fresh green beans.

Thursday: Butternut squash soup

Butternut squash and white bean soup.

It's been a soupy month here at D4SA - and here's another, using our frozen butternut squash puree and fresh golden russet apples. The recipe was adapted from one of Alice Waters' cookbooks by a Winter Sun Farms CSA member. I used navy beans, which lend themselves well to soups, but this would be fine with any white bean that you happened to have in the pantry.

Monday: Pasta e fagioli

Pasta e fagioli - Italian tomato-based pasta and bean soup.

We improvised this particular variation on the classic Italian dish. First we sauteed one chopped onion and a couple minced garlic cloves in hot olive oil, then added about 24oz of frozen tomatoes from our CSA along with a can each of white and kidney beans, a cup or so of mezzi canneroni pasta (the type that look like small smooth tubes), and three or four cups of broth. For seasoning we added two bay leaves and a little dried oregano, although we'd have added more herbs if we'd had them. We let everything simmer until the pasta was cooked and the beans were heated through, then served with grated Parmesan.

Monday: Watercress-Celeriac Soup

Watercress-celeriac soup with white bean and pecorino bruschetta.

We had a couple bunches of watercress left over from the tea sandwiches, and a few celeriac that weren't getting any prettier in the crisper, so we were pleased when we found this perfect recipe that combined the two. It's an unexpected pairing, but came out very pleasant and probably lighter than if something like potato had been substituted. We basically followed the recipe above, although we weren't too picky about the exact ratio of one veggie to another, and it still came out well.

Tuesday: A light pre-Thanksgiving dinner

Roasted purple cauliflower with parmesan, white beans, and quinoa.

This recipe calls for roasting cauliflower florets in a baking dish with a little oil, garlic and lemon juice. This preparation results in a whole different flavor profile for cauliflower compared to how it tastes boiled - some people who don't think they like cauliflower might be interested in trying it out.

Although white cauliflower is the most common cultivar, you can also find it in peachy-orange and purple. (Yes, the color is completely natural!) This purple cauliflower took on a red tinge when roasted.

Monday: rustic fall dinner

Roasted Carnival squash with white bean croquettes.

Last time the croquettes appeared on this blog, they were done with ginger, garlic and soy sauce as flavors. This time, we switched it up and used scallions and a pinch of allspice.

Roasted squash is a winter standby for us - some types, like butternut, fall apart and therefore are only suitable for soups or purees, but acorn and similar types can be halved, roasted and eaten from the shell:

ROASTED ACORN SQUASH

Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds and pulp (a grapefruit spoon works well). Salt the squash.
Cover a roasting pan or tray with foil and grease it slightly. Place the squash halves in, cut side down.
Pour about 1/2 cup water into the pan around the squash halves (that's just to keep things humid as they roast).
Bake at 400 degrees F for 40 minutes.
Then pull out the pan, flip the squashes to cut side up, and grate in a little of your choice of cheese. Replace in the oven just long enough for the cheese to melt.

Sunday polenta

Polenta with heirloom tomato sauce and mixed bean salad.

You may have noticed that we often make a quick bean salad to accompany dishes that take a little more thought (like polenta, which does require a little stirring when made from real cornmeal rather than an instant mix). We generally use canned beans for these salads, for convenience's sake. We've found that adding a couple tablespoons of vinegar (balsamic, white or red wine vinegar - whatever you have around) to the standard olive oil and lemon dressing really brightens the flavor and pulls a bean salad together.

The nice thing about these quick salads is that you can use up whatever you have on hand. Tonight we combined white beans and chickpeas, and added some extra dill and scallions that didn't end up in last night's dinner.

Saturday picnic lunch

A friend of ours was dogsitting, so we headed out to Morningside Park today for some idyllic doggie picnic time. The sandwiches we brought were made with fresh bread from the greenmarket, Vivace Bambino cheese, grainy mustard, lemon cukes, and purple radish sprouts.

The bean salad incorporated the first sweet peppers we've bought this year:



Lemon cukes, besides being yellow and lemon-shaped, do actually taste a bit less grassy and more lemon-like than an average cucumber. They have a nice dense consistency, whiteish flesh, and their seeds are surrounded by neon green jelly. Here is a lemon cuke looming ominously before the peppers:



Our white bean salad included the diced sweet peppers, minced shallot, garlic scapes, cilantro, parsley, olive oil, red wine vinegar, and lemon juice.

Dinners this week

Pardon the prolonged absence, faithful readers. We've been too busy cooking up a storm to actually... update the blog about our cooking. Here's what we've cooked in the past week:


Monday, 7-6-09: White bean croquettes with mashed purple heirloom potatoes




Tuesday 7-7-09: Fresh fava beans sauteed with thyme and sardine-caper toast




Wednesday 7-8-09: Hake with red chard and couscous


Thursday 7-9-09: Curry of golden beet, red cabbage and adzuki beans




Friday 7-10-09: Garlic scape omelettes with a purslane, arugula, and chickpea salad




Saturday 7-11-09: White bean salad with red quinoa and sauteed field mustard greens




Other miscellaneous cooking: a purslane frittata, a blackcurrant cake (sort of a coffee-cake style recipe, using no leavening), and a green gooseberry crumble. Lots of baked goods lately for all of the sour berries that are in season - we have been using local stone-milled pastry flour from Wild Hive Farm.