My thoughts on Recipes

I know I am writing this blog as if I am some kind of "authority" on cooking.  Believe me...I am NOT.  I am, however, a cook who is willing to experiment and try something different.  I usually tell dinner guests to come with the knowledge that they might be getting "take out" pizza for dinner if I screw things up too badly.  Admitted...it hasn't happened yet...but it still could. 
Here is whow I usually decide what to make..and how to make it.  First of all...I watch WAY TOO MANY cooking shows.  I love them.  I am addicted to them.  My favorite show is the old Japanese version of Iron Chef.  Food network doesn't show it anymore, but I really wish they would.   I loved the idea of "mystery" ingredients that you had to figure out what to do with (Many of the ingredients on that show were still a mystery AFTER they told me what it was.  That is what I like about our CSA basket.  I get to be an Iron Chef. 

When I get our basket, I usually get a few ideas right off, but if I don't...there is always the internet.  What I will do is read as many recipes as I can for something and then promptly ignore them and do whatever it is that I want.  You see...I consider recipes as loose "guidelines".  I take  what I like from the recipes I see and then put them together how I see fit.  Sometimes it works...sometimes it doesn't, but it is always an adventure.  I hope that anyone and everyone approaches my recipes on here the same way.  Maybe you can make and improvement on what I came up with.  If you do...please let me know.  My recipes are always changeing and evolving. Partly because I learn more and partly because I don't write them down and my memory sucks.  Oh well.

Gyros....great results

Okay...so I made the gyros for dinner tonight.  After last nights prep work (making the tzatziki and marinading the flank steak), I had a quick and easy meal tonight.  I simply grilled up the steak, some onion and some pitas and served it alongside the tzatzkiki, some chopped tomato, cucumber, some feta cheese and a little bit of our salad greens.  It really came out great.  The marinade for the meat was fantastic.  I was a little afraid that I had put too much lemon juice and it would "cook" the meat overnight.  But...Nope!  It came out great.  I let it rest about 5 minutes after grilling and sliced it against the grain and it came out with a great flavor and very tender.  I am becoming a BIG FAN of flank steak. 

 

I have tomorrow afternoon off so it will be a major cooking day as I take a stab at my version of the vietnamese soup...pho.  It won't be traditional, but it should be good.  I have no recipe I am following...I am just going to "wing it".   I will let you know how it goes!

Grilled Gyros and Pho in the planning stages.

Just got our basket for this week and it looks pretty good.  Simple...but good.  Here is what I will be working with for the week:

Bag of Mixed Lettuce
Bok Choy
Green Garlic
Mustard Greens
Sugar Snap Peas
Broccoli
4 tomatos
Carrots (I bought these in addition to our basket)
Two Cucumbers (left over from last week!)

Tonight I started working on dinner for tomorrow.  GYROS!  I mainly was looking for a way to use my cucumbers and a bit of salad mix.  Tonight I made my version of Tzatziki, a yogurt based  sauce for our gyros.

Tzatziki:
1 cucumber grated
1 cup greek style plain yogurt
Juice of 1 lemon
Fresh Mint (6 or 8) leaves (minced)
1 TBS greek oregano (minced)

Mix all ingredients together and let sit overnight.  I also marinated my flank steak in a mixture of Garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, oregano, honey, salt and pepper and a little soy sauce.  Tomorrow I will grill the steak and my pita bread, and maybe a bit of red onion and serve it all as a sandwich with some of my salad mix, tomato, and our tzatziki.  Should be good!  I'll let you know tomorrow. 

Also looking ahead a bit, I think I will use some of my carrots, broccoli, snap peas, green garlic, and bok choy in a soup similar to vietnamese pho.  Not exactly the same, but I would say "inspired" by pho.  I'll let you know how that one goes too.

Our favorite Salad....with a twist.

When my wife and I are wanting something light for dinner, we often turn to an old "stand-by".  It is a salad that is very filling and tastes great.  With all the fresh lettuces we get in our harvest basket, we make it quite often, however this week we mixed it up a little.

Salad:
1 bag mixed greens
2 Grilled Chicken breasts
1/2 cup blue cheese (or goat cheese)
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup almonds

Dressing:
8 (or so) raspberries
Juice of 1 lime
1 TBS  Balsamic Vinegar
1/2 tsp  Dijon Mustard
1 1/2  tsp Honey
Salt and Pepper
1/4 cup olive oil

Normally we eat this salad with Blue Cheese and a balsamic vinegret dressing and it is really good.  However..just to mix it up a bit (and used another item from our basket) we used Goat cheese and some Raspberry Venegret.  I simply through all the dressing ingredients into a blender and blended until emulsified.  In retrospect....I think I should have strained the dressing afterword.  I am still picking seeds out of my teeth.  The goat cheese was also a nice change.  This is a great dinner salad. 

When all else fails.....PASTA PRIMAVERA!

When given a diverse buch of vegetables to use, it is great to have Pasta Primavera in your arsenal of "loose" recipes (and by "loose" I mean they are easy to change in and out ingredients).  Here is what I am making today.  I am not putting amounts in the recipe because it is totally up to you how much you put in.  It won't affect the recipe at all.

Pasta Primavera
Bacon
Penne Pasta
Garlic
Onion
Yellow Squash
Peas
Arugala
Parmesan Cheese
Salt and Pepper

Start your pasta cooking and then:  Dice up your bacon ( I used 2 strips) and render it down in a saute pan.  Remove the bacon and drain, while reserving about 1 TBS of the drippings.  In the drippings I add a little olive oil, garlic and onion and begin sauteing.  I try not to cook the vegetables too much as I like them to have a little texture in the final product.  I then added my peas and sauted them for a minute or two.  I then added my Yellow Squash which I cut into matchsticks.  I only cook the squash for a minute or so.  At this point I usually add about 1/4 cup of the pasta water and all the pasta to the saute pan.   Toss to coat in the oil, add the arugala, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.  Toss again and serve.  Also great to add:  Cherry tomatos, Red Peppers, basil, Zucchini, Carrot. etc.  Whatever you have on hand!

RESULTS:  This really came out nice...arugula really just is perfect with pasta.  I would have loved to add a bit of dry white wine when I added the pasta water and maybe a few cherry tomatos. It was good but it would have been better with just a bit of zing from those two things...I just didn't have any on hand.

Turnip Bubble and Sqeak!

Thanks to someone from a CSA group on facebook, I had an idea for my Turnips.  They said that Turnips made really "zippy" hashbrowns and I ran with that idea.  I also saw, on food network, a recipe for "Bubble and Squeak", so I combined the ideas.  Here is what I did:

Turnip Bubble and Sqeak:

1 cup Turnips (cubed)

1 cup Red Potatos (cubed)

3 slices bacon,

1 cup Turnip Greens (chopped)

1 TBS Butter

Salt and Pepper

First I sauted my tunip greens in a little olive oil and garlic.  Once they were done, I set them aside to cool.  After coating with olive oil, salt and pepper, I roasted my potatos and turnips in a 400 degree oven until  they were fork tender and a little browned.  While they were cooking I cooked up some bacon, crumble it and dicarded most of the oil. 
I then combined everything in a bowl with a little butter and mixed until the potatos and turnips started to break up a little.  I re-heated the bacon drippings in my small frying pan and added the mixture to it.  I let it go for a while without turning and mashed it all down into the pan like one big pancake.  After it started to brown, I gave it a flip, brown the other side and served. 

RESULTS:  This actually came out pretty good.  We had Salmon Croquettes on the menu tonight and this went with it pretty well.  I think the only thing I would change is to use a different type of greens with the turnips and potatos.  The turnip greens and the turnips was just a little too much together.  I think a milder green would have worked better.  It did make a really good side dish though!

HELP!!!.....Turnips

And todays mystery basket contains: 

Mixed Lettuce

Snap Peas

Turnips

Onions

Cucumbers (2)
Yellow Squash (1)
Raspberries
Arugala (This didn't actually come in the basket, but I added it)

My wife and I had already planned for salad one night, so the lettuce is taken care of along with some of the arugala and I think I will make a raspberry vinegret dressing.  The rest of the arugala, yellow squash, onion and some of the peas I will use in a pasta primavera (a personal favorite and an easy way to use a lot of vegetables).  I am not too sure about the Cucumbers ( I generally just cut them and eat them, but I would like to try something else). 

Turnips!  Growing up, all we did was pull them out of the ground, brush the dirt off and eat them.  I really don't know much else to do with them.  I think someone put a recipe up on Facebook about steaming them in butter with mushrooms, but I'm not sure if that appeals to me too much.  Anyone have any ideas?  I am gound to spend a little time on the internet exploring possibilities, but ideas are always welcome!

Mango Sorbet and Lentil Sweet Potato Packets

I am Dying to get my harvest basket tomorrow!!!  It is always such a challenge to see what we got and figure out how to use it.  Makes me feel like an "Iron Chef".  Since I don't have the basket ready, I am still trying to be creative in my cooking.  For dinner tonight I am making Curried Lentil and Sweet potato packets. And for desert we are having Mango Sorbet.  (I have to admit that the strawberries from past weeks have made me wan to tinker with the ice cream machine a lot lately.  Also our local grocery store had mangos 10 for $10 so I had to have a little fun with them!).

I will start with the Mango sorbet since I actually started it last night so it could be thoroughly chilled before I put it in the ice cream maker.

Mango Sorbet

2 Ripe mangos cubed

1 cup sugar (minus 1 TBS)

1 cup water
1 tsp white corn syrup
1 TBS orange liquor 
1TBS lemon Juice
2 TBS Orange Juice





In a small saucepan put your water, sugar, lemon juice, orange liquor and corn syrup, and heat on meduim and stir until all sugar is dissolved.  Set aside until cool.  In a blender add your Mangos and Orange Juice (I really used the orange juice just to get the mangos liquified, but I figured it would add some flavor also).  Puree this until smooth.  Mix together the syrup with the fruit puree and chill in the fridge for at least a couple of hours.  I did mine overnight.  Put into your ice cream maker and mix until frozen.  I usually put mine in the freezer afterword to firm up a bit.  The corn syrup and liquor are there to help keep the ice crystals small and give the sorbet a good texture.  I leaned this from my Gelato experiments in earlier posts. This came out so delicious...you have to try it.  My wife and I set down and ate the whole batch for desert. 

Curried Lentil and Sweet Potato Packets
1/2 cup Green Lentils
2 small Sweet Potatoes (1/2 " dice)
1/2 medium White Onion
1 Carrots (diced small)  *Optional*
1 Clove Garlic
1/2 cup Chicken Stock
1 Red Pepper (diced)
1 1/2 tsp. Curry Powder
Salt and Pepper



The first thing you want to do is pre-cook your lentils a bit.  I simply add mine to a saucepan, cover with water (or stock) and simmer until almost they start to get soft and tender.  You can also add some spices during this part to give a bit more flavor to your lentils (consider, curry, turmeric, cumin, red pepper flakes).  After the lentils are cooked, let them cool slightly.

To assemble the packets get a couple of sheets of Aluminum Foil about 12 inches square or bigger.  I like to mix together, the Lentils, Potatos, Onions Carrots, Red Pepper, Garlic, Curry Powder, salt and pepper in a bowl and then add a large serving to the middle of the foil.  Bring up the edges of the foil leaving an opening at the top to add about 1/4 cup of chicken stock.  Now crimp the top of the foil pouch and place on a baking sheet.  I usually bake mine at about 400 degrees for 20 minutes or so.  I actually did mine on the grill along with some grilled chicken.  Open carefully and serve!  These would be great with other vegetables as well.  A good recipe for using what you have on hand.

Spinach and White Bean dip

This is still a slow week for creative cooking since we did not get a basket last week and won't get one again until this Wednesday.  However, we did pick some things up at the farmers market to play with.  First of all we picked up some snap peas to use in a stir fry along with some of our left-over green garlic and scallion.  With the addition of a little broccoli, carrot, cauliflour and some edamame we had a great little stir fry.  Not all that creative and exciting...but still quite tasty!

While at the farmers market, we also picked up some spinach (very hard to find this week) to try a dip recipe I had seen.  It is a Spinach and White bean dip that looked really good. 

Spinach and White Bean dip

2 1/2 - 3 cups chopped fresh spinach

1- 15.5 oz can Canellini beans (rinsed)

1/4 cup Olive Oil

1 clove Garlic

1 TBS Lemon Juice

1/4 cup chopped fresh Dill

Salt and Pepper

I made a few changes to the recipe right off.  It called for steeping the garlic in the olive oil and using the oil, but that was too much work and unneccessary in my opinion.  Also, I used some of our green garlic from our harvest basket.  I also added some scallion.  I did not have an fresh dill so I used about 1 1/2 tsp. of dried dill.  Here is what I did.  I rinsed my beans and added them to my food processor.  With that I added some chopped scallion and green garlic, the spinach, lemon juice and dill.  I pureed all of this until relatively smoothe.  I then added in the olive oil and gave that a buzz also.   after that I emptied it into a bowl and added salt and pepper to taste.  We toasted up some crostini and gave it a taste.  WE LOVED IT.  I think I might try the same thing later with some other greens such as Kale etc.  I will probably have to cook that a little bit to get it tender first...but I bet it tastes great! 

Results and a recipe EDIT

Okay...I grilled my ribs last night.  I cooked them for about 1 1/2 hours at about 250 - 275 degrees ( a bit difficult to regulate with my grill).  The first 1/2 hour of that they were wrapped in foil.  In retrospect that should have been longer and the meat would have just fallen off the bone.  Oh well...they were still delicious.  The rub really did give them a great flavor. 
Also....I made a second batch of Strawberry Gelato last night.  I made two small additions to the recipe this time around.  1st I added about 1/2 tsp of good vanilla extract to my simple syrup.  I thought the vanilla gave it a bit more "richness" and a greater creamier taste.  2nd, I also added about 1 tsp. of white corn syrup to the simple syrup.  I seem to have a vague recollection of Alton Brown saying that this will result in a finer crystal structure to the final product....and it did!  The gelato had a much smaller grain of ice crystals  which gave it a much better texture.  If I falsely attribute this to Alton Brown...I apologize. 

No Veggie basket this week....let's talk about MEAT!

Our farm family are taking a, much needed, vacation this week.  (I can't even imagine how hard it is to do what they do).  What does that mean to me?  Well....no harvest basket.  But don't worry...I will find something food related to talk about.
For the last few weeks, I have seen ribs at the grocery store, and seen them on TV on cooking shows.  I think I am finally going to have to give them a try.  I have NEVER made ribs before so this should be interesting. 
Last night I mixed up a dry rub to put on the ribs.  It was something like this:

RUB:
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup finely ground coffee
1 TBS Cumin
1 tsp.  Cayenne
1 TBS Smoked Paprika
1 tsp. Black pepper
1 tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp.  Garlic Powder
1/2 tsp. Ground Ginger

I rubbed this liberally over the ribs and then wrapped them tightly in plastic wrap.  I placed them in the refridgerator overnight and they should be ready to go this evening.  I will let you know how it all comes out!

Man...do I love greens!

So tonight for dinner I decided to make the greens recipe I blogged about yesterday.  A good use of several items from our harvest basket.  Garlic, Onion, Mustard and Asian Greens (see recipe on yesterdays blog).  I also made some Phyllo dough wrapped Asparagus (to use up some of what we have on hand.  I have about 3-4 lbs. frozen also!).  I got this recipe from Cooley Family Farms Blog, but I made one change.  I added a bit of goat cheese to each roll just to give it some richness.  It came out great.  Serve all of this with a nice grilled pork chop and you have a beautiful and tasty meal. 

6/8/2010....ARRRRGGGHHH!!!!.....More Asparagus

Okay...Here is what my wife brought home in our basket today!

Garlic
Scallion
Mustard Greens
Asian Greens (?)
Asparagus
Strawberries
Salad

Okay...so I already used the salad with our Ceviche, but we have enough of that left to have with dinner one night this week.  My wife has already informed me that this batch of Strawberries will be going to Gelato again since it came out so great last time.  (Since then I tried vanilla and it was good, but not so different from regular ice-cream).  I am thinking that tomorrow night we will have grilled pork chops with some of the greens.  I have fallen in love with greens over the last year or so. 
   A couple of years ago, my wife and I ventured into an Ethiopian restaraunt to give their cuisine a taste.  We did so because were adopting a child from Ethiopia and wanted to find out more about the culture.  At the time we went to the restaraunt, I had never had greens before (even growing up in a mostly southern family).  It turns out that Ethiopians also eat a lot of greens.  I think they call them "gomen".  I tried them and couldn't believe how great they are.  Since then we have them quite often.  Usually collard greens. 
  Since  I am not too sure what "Asian Greens" are, I think I will do the following, just to be safe this time around.

Greens:
1 bunch "Asian Greens"
1 bunch Mustard Greens
2-3 Scallions
1 garlic
1 Jalepeno pepper
1 cup Chicken stock
1/4 tsp Cardamom (used in Ethiopian Greens)
Salt
Pepper

Dice the onion and garlic and saute it in some olive oil (bacon grease works REALLY well too).  Add Greens and stir to coat with the oil.  Add the chicken stock and Jalepeno pepper and some salt and pepper.  Cook uncovered until most of the stock has evaporated and the greens are tender.  Add the cardamom and more salt and pepper if needed. 

That should use up my greens and even some of my scallion and garlic.  I am sure I will find plenty of uses for them during the rest of the week. 

Okay.....as for the Asparagus.  We have recieved a LARGE bag of asparagus every week.  More than  we can eat.  I have been simply blanching it, drying it in a salad spinner and freezing.  I'm not sure how good it will be after doing this.  If nothing else, it should be fine for pastas, stir fry, soup, and things of that sort.  I guess we will have to wait until I run out of fresh and have to use the frozen.  I'll let you know how it works out!

Finishing up the week!

I suppose the first thing I should do in this post is finish up some of the things we used from last weeks harvest basket.   I had planned to make a nice Spinach and Potato curry with the rest of our Spinach, which I did do.  I just didn't do it the way I had planned.  Truthfully, it was just too hot and I was too tired to make it all on Tuesday so I cheated.  I used a "Trader Joe's" curry sauce mix and doctored it up a bit with some fresh spinach.  Here is what I did:

1 Jar "Trader Joes" curry sauce
1 bag Spinach
1 small onion
6 small red potatos
1 TBS Curry Powder

I started by sauteing the onion until soft in a little olive oil.  I then added the jarred sauce and heated to a simmer.  At this point I added the potatos that I diced into about 1/2 inch pieces, all the spinach and a little water.  I simmered this until the potatos were cooked.  At this point I tasted it and realized it needed a little more curry powder so I added some.  We served it with Brown rice and Naan.  Not the most homemade dish ever, but still quite tasty, and VERY fast. 



Last week we also got a nice bunch of Cilantro in our basket.  My wife and I both LOVE Cilantro.  If it were a little later in the summer and there were some fresh tomatos I would have made salsa, but I decided to do something a little different with this bunch.  We made Ceviche!  One of my all time favorite dishes. 

Ceviche:
4 filets Halibut
1 red bell pepper
1 jalepeno pepper
1/2 medium red onion
1 cup chopped cilantro (less if you don't like it as much as we do)
the juice of 7 limes
Salt
pepper

I simple dice all the vegetables and the fish to about 1/4 inch pieces and place it all in a non-reactive bowl.  Then add the chopped Cilantro and the lime Juice.  I like to let mine set for several hours and then add some salt and taste.   I keep tasting until I have the salt correct.   I also add pepper...well...because I usually add it to everything.  We served ours with an avacado, simple salad and good quality tortilla chips (El Milagro are our favorites). The fish is cooked chemically by the acid in the lime juice so don't worry about eating "raw" fish.  If you like salsa...you will probably like Ceviche.  The fish gives it a little more "hearty" texture.  For variations try other fish, other citrus juice and even fruit.  The first time I made this I added diced watermelon and served it with a watermelon sorbet and it was amazing. 

Traditional Strawberry Gelato!

Honestly...I am not the biggest fan of strawberries.  Something about the seeds and that they are never as sweet as I want them to be.  This week I decided to try something adventurous and it came out great.  My new favorite summer treat. 

Strawberry Gelato
1 cup sugar
1 cup filtered water
1 pint (or so) strawberries
1 TBS Orange Juice
1 egg white

I started by stemming and cleaning the strawberries and placing them in a blender with the Orange juice.  I then pureed them long enough to really liquify them.  I then passed it through a fine strainer to remove as many seeds as possible.  I hate this part.  It takes a while to push the liquid through as the seeds will just plug up your strainer and you have to use a spatula to push it all through. 
I then put the sugar and water in a saucepan over medium heat and stirred until the sugar was completely dissolved.  Put aside and let cool a bit.
Mix strawberry puree with the simple syrup and refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours.  (I actually did mine over night.  My ice cream maker needed to be frozen for 8 hours at least so I put it in the freezer at the same time. 
The next day...I took the strawberry mixture out of the fridge and mixed it thoroughly with 1 egg white and added it to my icecream maker and mixed until quite thick.  I then poured it into a container and placed it in the freezer to firm up. 
It was great!  I guess it is the egg white that gave it a really creamy texture.  I can't wait to try this with raspberries and any other fruit I can get my hands on!

Improvization!

Well, I came home from work early today to go fishing. When I first got home I had a look at our menu to decide what to make for dinner. Nothing on the list sounded good or I didn't have all the ingredients necessary to make what did sound good. So I had a look around the kitchen and then went fishing. I get a lot of good thinking done while fishing (especially when, like today, I don't catch any fish), and today I came up with a good idea for dinner.

I have a lot of Spinach right now. Some I got in yesterdays basket and some that was left over from last week but still looking really good. I decided to make some Spinach pasta. Partly because I knew it was a good way to use some spinach and partly so I could get a vegetable into my two year old son. Lately he loves to say "I don't like vegetables" everytime we sit down to dinner. Here is what I ended up making and the recipes.

PASTA:

1 1/2 cup flour
2 eggs
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup spinach pureed with a little water (just enough to make it all puree nicely)
pinch salt ( I acutally forgot this, but it came out great anyway)

SAUCE:

olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced
2 large Scallions (from harvest bastket!)
2 TBS tomato paste
1 can diced tomatoes
1/4 cup sliced black olives
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 cup parmesan cheese (grated)

To make the pasta, I use my stand mixer. I start by adding the flour and salt to the mixing bowl. I add the olive oil and the eggs (lightly beaten) and then start the mixer on low. I slowly add in the pureed spinach (which should be a thick liquid) until the dough comes together. I said 1/2 cup of spinach, but really I just use however much it takes for the dough to come together. I shape the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 1 hour. After the dough has been hydrated in the fridge...I roll it out with a little more flour. I use a pasta machine, but it could easily be done by hand also. I cut mine into linguini and boiled it very quickly in salted water.

To make the sauce, I started by sauteing the scallion and garlic in olive oil for about a minute. I then added the tomato paste and cooked it for about 1 minute. This is a very important step. As the tomato paste browns you develop some really great flavor. I then added in the canned tomatoes, olives, the white wine and the basil. I also added the pre-cooked chicken. Simmer this until it really starts to thicken. (if it gets to thick...add some pasta water).

I added the pasta to the suace and tossed over low heat. I then added the parmesan cheese and served. It came out pretty good. That is the first time I have ever made spinach pasta and the first time I have ever tried to make linguini.

My son loved it ....here is what he had to say!

I did manage to use two things from the harvest basket in this meal. Spinach and scallion. I have no idea what the rest of the week will bring. We'll see!

6/1/11- Planning stage

Today we picked up the following in our harvest basket:
6 medium scallions
1 bunch of Bok Choi
1 bunch Cilantro
Asparagus (about a pound?)
1 pint Strawberries
Spinach (large bag)
Salad Greens

We had stir fry for dinner right after I picked up the basket so I was able to use a few of the items right away plus one from last week.

Stir Fry
1 tsp olive oil
2 large boneless chicken thighs
1 cup Broccoli florets
1 cup chopped Bok Choi
1/2 cup frozen edamame
Sauce:
2 cloves garlic (crushed)
3 scallions
1 tsp Fresh grated ginger
3 TBS Hoisin Sauce
2 TBS Soy Sauce
1 TBS Mirin

I like to start by dicing my chicken and sauteing it (in a BLAZING hot pan) until cooked through. Remove and set aside. I then start on the sauce. I add more oil if necessary and then quickly add the garlic, ginger and scallion. Stir constantly! I usually then add the vegetables and stir fry only until they are warmed through. Add back in the chicken. I then add the Hoisin, Soy and Mirin and toss. (tonight I had some Korean hot pepper paste so I added that too!) Serve over rice and enjoy.

This recipe is great because you can use whatever vegetables you have on hand, and also because it is a quick fix after work.

PLANNING:
I am now also formulating plans for the rest of the vegetables. To be honest, I have a TON of asparagus so I will probably just blanch these and freeze them for a later date. I think I am currently sitting on over 3 lbs. of the stuff. As for the Spinach....I am thinking about a spinach and potato curry with rice. I have had this before in England but never made it...I'll let you know how it comes out!
I am also thinking about something fun with the strawberries. It has been really HOT here lately so I am thinking about Strawberry Gelato. Should remind my wife and I about our honeymoon in Italy. As for the rest of it....no idea yet, but I SWEAR I will let none of it go to waste! That is my goal this year.