Kids Dish

Tomorrow I pick up my vegetables from the CSA for the week. I’m unaccustomed to dealing with so many leafy greens so this past week was a challenge. Here are some of the meals we’ve enjoyed.

Since I had an entire head of red leaf lettuce I made a salad with dandelion greens, goat cheese and strawberries in a balsamic vinaigrette. It was so good I ate it for lunch two days in a row and Bob had it for dinner one night when I was out. Sam liked it too and shocked me eating the salad off of my plate. He seemed to be most interested in the slightly peppery dandelion greens, which are a little bitter. I incorrectly assumed he’d gravitate more towards the strawberries.

Sam ate some of the broccoli steamed over whole wheat pasta with a little olive oil and parmesan cheese for dinner one night. He ate the rest of the steamed broccoli plain or on the side of whatever he had for lunch or dinner and I dipped some in hummus for a snack.

I stir fried the bok choy in peanut oil with garlic and ginger and topped it with a bit of reduced soy sauce. Sam unfortunately slept through this meal and there were no leftovers. I’d never had it before and now I know that bok choy is delicious. I originally wanted to make a recipe that called for a peanut/hoisin/red pepper sauce, but I didn’t have any hoisin on hand so I’ll have to do that one another time. I hope it’s available for next week’s share since I placed my order for tomorrow before I knew how good it is.

I cooked the spinach and swiss chard together in a white sauce, like Kelly suggested. But I added a bit of feta to the sauce instead of nutmeg, and served it over whole wheat pasta. Sam, who generally doesn’t like feta, seemed to really like this combination.

The recipes are after the jump.

Stir-fried Bok Choy

1 medium head of bok choy
2 tablespoons peanut oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1 clove minced fresh garlic

Cut the bottom inch off of the bok choy and rinse the leaves in very cold water (My bok choy was full of soil from the farm so I soaked it for a while then rinsed several times.) and dry the leaves. Separate the leaves of the bok choy from the stalks with a kitchen knife. Cut the stems in half, then cut them lengthwise. Stack the leaves and slice thin. Mince the ginger. Mince the garlic and mix with the soy sauce.

Heat the peanut oil in a large frying pan over high heat. When the oil is very hot, almost smoking, add the bok choy stems and stir fry until lightly browned, about 6 minutes. Add the ginger and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the bok choy leaves along with the soy sauce mixture and stir fry about until the leaves are wilted, about a minute more. Serve immediately.

Salad with goat cheese, dandelion greens, and strawberries in a balsamic vinaigrette

1 head of red leaf lettuce (or whatever lettuce you have on hand, though I wouldn’t recommend iceberg)
1 bunch dandelion greens
1 cup strawberries hulled and quartered
4 oz crumbled goat cheese (chevre)

Pour a couple of tablespoons of vinaigrette in the bottom of a large salad bowl. Add salad greens. Top with goat cheese and strawberries and toss. I put the dressing at the bottom because a little bit of dressing distributes better that way and you can always add more dressing if you want more. I make my own dressing, but you can used a prepared dressing if you have it on hand.

Balsamic Vinaigrette

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup olive oil

I put the ingredients in an old jelly jar and shook vigorously to combine. If you don’t have a screw top jar around you can whisk the first 5 ingredients together in a bowl until the sugar and salt dissolve then slowly whisk in the oil.

Here’s a tip for storing leafy greens. When you get them home soak them to loosen any dirt or sand then rinse a few times in very cold water. Once rinsed, either pat dry or run them through a salad spinner. Once dry, I highly recommend wrapping loose greens in towels and putting the wrapped greens in a plastic bag. I try to use kitchen towels since they’re less wasteful, but paper towels work just as well. Wrapping the lettuce (or spinach, or swiss chard, or whatever greens you have) in towels keeps it fresh much longer than just leaving it in the plastic produce bag. And doing this bit of prep work when you get the stuff home makes preparing it easier later on.

eat local, salad recipe, CSA