Week Two (Summer 2009)

Week two has arrived.

Week One, Part Two...

With the rest of week one's selection, I went with mostly salads, given the massive amount of salad greens. I actually made a nice salad of mixed greens with a truffle vinagrette for serving with slices of pate (from The Italian Store - highly recommend), but for some reason, the pictures did not capture. In retrospect, the dressing came out a bit more acidic than I would have liked, but in a way, that, combined with the bitterness of the chicory endive, was actually pretty good up against the richness of the pate.

The other thing I did with the produce was to slowly cook - almost steep - the garlic scapes in olive oil over low heat until the roughly-sliced scapes were tender (almost the consistency of a well-cooked green bean). I cooled them and stored them in the oil, which I thought might be useful when flavored of garlic.

My sister and her partner were in for the weekend, so I ultimately wound up using them as part of the filling for more refrigerator pie - a great fallback recipe courtesy of Alton Brown. Super-fast, super-easy quiche is basically what we're talking. In this case, the filling is the scapes, a package of baby portabella mushrooms, shredded cheese (goat and ultra-aged Gouda), and some more of the chives. I roasted the mushrooms in the oil with the scapes, so the filling picked up a really nice flavor of garlic without being too overbearing.

The rest of the weekend, while not CSA-related, was fun in that I got to cook up some goodies for a Saturday night Wolf Trap concert out on the lawn. It wound up being a really good show (David Byrne of Talking Heads fame and DeVotchka) and a beautiful night.

I basically made two bean-based dips. One was fava beans (two cups when cooked from dried beans), olive oil, and ricotta salata, with a touch of garlic, lemon, and mint. The second was a dip made from black-eyed peas, whipped together much like hummus, with lime juice, hot chili and sesame oil, a touch of the garlic scape oil, salt, and white pepper.

I think they turned out pretty well, but the food highlight of the day was probably our stop at the Wine Kitchen in Leesburg. I'd been before, but this time I got to take Meghann and Chad, and I think all of us were pretty impressed by both the wine and the food (let's not forget the desert). They emphasize serving the wines in organized flights of three - each wine comes with a notecard containing a detailed description at a reasonable price for one or all three...

Needless to say, I got the special. Which was fabulous. And I got the macaroni and cheese - which was solid if not just a bit light on the salt. Other items included a portabella panini, polenta with mushrooms, frisee and a poached egg, and the desert - two small ultra rich and moist chocolate and mint cakes with mint cream and, to top it off, a mint-perfumed salt...

I also had the pleasure of talking with the manager Michael Mercer, who was incredibly kind and corteous. After learning we were headed to Wolf Trap for the evening, he recommended a bottle of 2007 Domaine Felines Jourdan Picpoul De Pinet that we might like.

Needless to say, we left with two bottles. One for the show, and one for DE consumption. A great thing about the wine selection at the Wine Kitchen is you get $10 off the list price if you get wine to go. The rest of the evening was great - a beautiful night (just about the only one that week), wonderful sound, great set-lists, and even easy traffic in and out of Wolf Trap and back onto 267 for the return ride back to Arlington.

It's Back!!!

Today, the first week's share of the 2009 Summer CSA from Potomac Vegetable Farms arrived...

In case anybody is new here - the primary purpose of this blog, when I first started, was to detail the weekly shipments of vegetables I'm getting from Potomac Vegetable Farms, and what they become... It's not entirely that anymore, but it's a pretty big part.

That said - the first week of the 2009 Summer CSA includes: garlic scapes (4), a head of chicory endive, a head of green lettuce, mixed salad lettuce, a healthy amount of green chard (rear part of the picture), a small head of cabbage (a variety named "arrowhead") and chives...

I think it's going to be a lot of salads for this first week - the only thing I'm locked into is a saute of the chard with some shitake mushrooms over some brown rice - something that could be eaten at room temperature.

Brown Rice Salad w/ Green Chard and Shitake Mushrooms

I sauteed half a large white onion (thinly sliced) in olive oil with some crushed red pepper flakes. After a few minutes, I added 2 cloves of thinly sliced garlic, followed by a 3.5 oz package of sliced shitake mushrooms.

After the mushrooms had softened and the onions browned slightly, I added a handful of raisins, pine nuts, and finally, the chard (washed, drained, and roughly chopped).

After the chard had cooked down and wilted thoroughly, I added half the juice of a lemon (and some of the zest), tossed in a splash of balsamic vinegar, seasoned with salt and pepper, and then combined with cooked browned rice (roughly two cups), and heated through.

The last thing I did was to add in some diced chives (along with the chard, the two contributions from the farm share)...