Lemony Cucumber Salad with Soba and Tofu

Meet my nemesis. 

CSA dill is the bane of my existence. I barely finished the bunch from last week and a got another huge bunch today. I like dill a lot. I think we forget about it if we aren't making pickles, but that it's subtle flavor compliments many different vegetables. But seriously. Two weeks in a row is a little much. I probably should have put it in the swap box, but I didn't. Oh no. I decided I'm cooking everything from this CSA and damn it, it will happen.

Week 8

Oh no! More dill! Dill, thankfully, pairs quite well with all of the other veggies in the box...

Fried Polenta with Goat Cheese and Gooseberry-Chili Relish

I have a problem. Every time I find a lovely, sophisticated place to buy exotic, briny olives and flavorful cheeses, I develop a crush on the cheese monger. 

I know. I'm not single. I'm getting too old to have crushes. But like good cheese, 20-something Brooklyn men who have seemingly infinite knowledge about olives, wine and cheese are, well, pretty tasty.

Zucchini and Arugula Salad with Dill-Dijon Dressing

So, the salad is nothing special. Just CSA veggies to go alongside a main course. But the dressing...

It is my new favorite thing. And it uses up a lot of dill. And as anyone with a CSA knows, at some point during the summer you will have more dill than you can possibly use.

Red Currant Syrup (or maybe sauce...)

It really remains to be seen.

Zucchini & Goat Cheese Pizza

So, of course, it was rainy and below 80 today, so cranked the oven up to 450 and made pizza. I also made a really delicious salad dressing, Dill-Dijon Vinaigrette, which I'll try to share later in the week. It's a great use of overloads of CSA dill.

Eggplant & Couscous Salad

Thankfully, it has cooled down quite a bit. I could chop vegetables (and even saute them) without feeling like I was going to die. And yes, today there's a little bit of church-talk with your recipe. Skip it if you so choose, but read at least a little. It's about my experience at a particular place, not about what you should or shouldn't believe.

Heat Wave Dinner: Cucumber Salad with Smashed Garlic

It is too hot to cook. It is also, apparently, too hot to stand in the kitchen and chop a cucumber.

Week 7

The view from our roof right now. The city looks so pretty.
Too bad it is approximately 900 degrees.

It is far too hot. It is supposed to hit a high of 101 today and the heat index should make it feel like it is even hotter. I'm going to spend the day hiding out in the bedroom with D and the cat and the a/c on watching Mad Men and playing Scrabble. The good news is, it should be cool enough to move by tomorrow and cool enough to make food by Monday.

Mini Red Currant Chocolate Truffle Cakes

A decadent dessert to celebrate my friend Becky's new apartment. I'm a good friend.

Of course, then it was too hot in my apartment and we went out to celebrate with drinks and I didn't bring them with us. So I'm not that great.

But I'm bringing them to work today to share with the OTs and SLPs I eat lunch with, so I'm a good colleague at least.

Veselka-ish Cold Borscht and Tempeh Sandwiches

There's nothing like cold soup in the summer. It's refreshing and healthy. I used to love getting strawberry-cucumber soup in the summer. While I still find that delicious, now that I'm a New Yorker (nearly 8 years lets me claim that title, right?), I find myself craving cold borscht from Veselka.

Potato and Swiss Chard Hash

Quick and easy. Healthy and tasty. And doesn't make the apartment too hot when it's 90 some-odd degrees out.

Raspberry-Gooseberry Jam

Welcome to VERY small batch preserving...

Salad with Asian Slaw and Shredded Egg Crepe

A delicious lunch with crunchy veggies and thin strips of egg and a salty-sweet sesame dressing.

Simple Supper: Cucumber Bruschetta

Another installment in meals to throw together when you've had a long day, fallen asleep on the couch, woken up at 8 PM and been kind of hungry.

Week 6

Some healthy food to get me through Week 3 of summer school. Nearing the half-way mark is when you start to want to eat nothing but pizza and ice cream.

Raspberry-Basil Cocktail

I made a cocktail with the raspberry vodka and some basil. Thanks to my friend Matt for some advice on cocktail making. He's both a fabulous bartender and a fantastic actor.  He also writes a blog about what he thinks about in the shower. And to The Pickle Juice Guy, as he's requested to be called on the blog, (yeah, we're still friends) for a suggesting a name for the cocktail.

Tofu and Vegetables with Miso-Walnut Sauce Over Collards

Crispy tofu, stirfried Japanese turnip and green beans tossed with a flavorful miso-walnut sauce and served over ribbons of collard greens that have been blanched and then sauteed with garlic in a combination of olive and sesame oils. Leftovers are fantastic tossed with some soba (that's how I had it the second night).

Chocolate-Raspberry Pops

I know it's hard to believe, but I'm a little tired of fresh raspberries. I've had several pints of them in the past three weeks. I decided heat wave meant I should make popsicles, which always brings a little wave of nostalgia.

I remember making all sorts of popsicles and Jell-o pudding pops with my mom in the summers. We'd freeze lemonade, chocolate pudding, vanilla pudding with berries, creamsicles--I think one time she even made tofu-carob pops.

Green Tart with Cornmeal Crust

Yet another installment in "just because it's green, it doesn't mean it's healthy (but it is delicious)"...

Just a quick warning for those of you who don't know me: I am a liberal and I go to church. This happens. More than you think. I'm going to be writing a bit about both of those things here (and about the amazing savory tart pictured above).

Tortellini Pasta Salad

I love pasta salads (I think I've made this point before). I was particularly happy with this one: crunchy veggies, a bright, lemony vinaigrette, tortellini with the slightest amount of cheese, a bit of creamy avocado and lots of herbs.

Pickled Zucchini

So, when I got the CSA email on Friday it said we would be getting 3 lbs of green beans. Obviously it was time to can some green beans, so Emily and I scheduled a canning date. She would bring the peaches, I would bring the beans and it would be fantastic. Imagine my surprise when I got to the pick up and they were handing out .3 lbs of green beans. Just in case you missed the decimal point, that is three tenths of a pound of green beans. This is considerably less that three pounds. Not enough to can. With Emily already on her way down, I had to make a quick decision. I ran to the farmer's market, picked up some more zucchini and we were in business.

Week 5

Lighter on the lettuce this week. Which is sad, because one of my coworkers was willing to take a half a head of lettuce off my hands. I'm sure the offer will still stand next week.

Raspberry-Infused Vodka

That's right. I did it.

This is an extremely simple, hands-off way to preserve summer fruits (or at least their flavor). You can substitute whatever berry you'd like (though the only vouched-for recipes I've found thus far are for strawberry and raspberry). I imagine black currant would be amazing.

Black Bean & Cheese Cakes with Chimichurri and Roasted Beet and Avocado Salad

The original plan was for baked black bean cakes, but it was way too hot for the oven (and still is). I pan-fried them and they turned out fine. I prefer the baked ones, but these were good as well.

Raspberry-Cabernet Sorbet

This isn't just sorbet. It's machineless sorbet. That's right. Machineless. It's sweet, cold, deep red and delicious. (Make sure to read all the way to the end--there's a bonus drink recipe!)

Pasta Salad with Peas and Fried Zucchini

Green does not always equal totally healthy (but often equals delicious)

When I first decided to cook this recipe (another adaptation from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty), I thought that maybe I should "healthy it up". I mean...fried zucchini, oil-based dressing, cheese...this is not exactly health food (although it's full of green foods, which usually means healthy). But then I decided: I've eaten A LOT of salads in the past month. I mean, I've eaten probably close to 5 lbs of lettuce on my own. Plus all the salads I made out of arugula. That's pretty darn good. And really what isn't better if you fry it (except for maybe Oreos...I just don't get it). So, fried zucchini it is...

Zucchini Pasta with Oregano-Parsley Pesto & Crispy Chickpeas

I love pasta. Maybe it's the Italian side of the family exerting an influence on my tastes. I like plain pasta, whole wheat pasta, farro pasta, spinach pasta, beet pasta--fresh or dried as long as it's high quality, I'm happy. (Especially if it comes from this place--curry pasta? Heaven. Seriously). Although, in a very un-Italian manner, I like my pasta paired with lots of veggies. By that I mean that I usually have veggies with a bit of pasta, not pasta with some veggies. Then I started thinking...what if the pasta WAS the vegetables?

Simple Supper: Garlic Bread and Green Salad

Yesterday I slept most of the day. I don't know what was wrong with me. We did, however, end up going to the Brooklyn Museum's First Saturday. You get into the museum for free, there's music, and if you stay late enough, which I obviously didn't, there's dancing. As you can imagine, when I got home I was hungry, but in no mood to cook. I didn't want to do take-out again (the whole anxiety-provoking "how will I eat all of this lettuce" thing). So I went with simple: garlic bread with fresh garlic and a salad. The question you're probably asking yourself right now is: Why is she writing a post about how to make salad and garlic bread? Because this is really a post about fresh garlic--the kind with the green part still attached--and how to use it.

Week 4

I did my CSA work shift this morning. When I got home I was so hungry that I just put the veggies away (along with the eggs and cheese I scored for doing the work shift). Then I ran out to Brooklyn Flea to get myself an All-Day Breakfast sandwich from The Milk Truck and a limeade.  This means that I've had a delicious lunch, but no pictures of my bounty today.

Kohlrabi Greens with Baked BBQ Tofu

Sauteed Kohlrabi Greens with Baked BBQ Tofu

The closest a vegetarian gets to down-home southern cooking: BBQ tofu and some greens. If I had had the inclination to make corn bread, it would have gone nicely with this meal. But I didn't, so I didn't. I actually contemplated whipping up some polenta and making some sort of vertically plated southern-ish delight like one would see in one of those expensive "New American" restaurants in SoHo (polenta as a base, then greens, then BBQ tofu). It would have been pretty, but so much stirring. So I went with simple, but still went with the plating it vertically idea, because, well, why not pretend I'm trendy (I'm not).