thoughtful consumption

• herbs: chives, chervil, and cilantro
• English peas
• green hydroponic lettuce
• Bordeaux spinach
• strawberries (1 lb!)
• eggs
• blueberry muffins
• radishes
• green onions
• red hydroponic lettuce

This week’s collection is very spring, don’t you think? The chive flowers, radishes, strawberries and the delicate green colors looked really pretty spread out on the table. The blueberry muffins are moist and delicious. These muffins are the right size, too, for a satisfying, quick breakfast or treat.

C Herbs

The herbs are cool for a couple of reasons. One is the chervil. I’m sure I’ve had this in herb mixes before, but I’ve never had it by itself. It tastes like a subtle parsley with a little licorice thrown in. I’ve already made some salad dressing by mixing some chopped chervil with vinegar, sugar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. It was really good on the delicate hydroponic lettuces and radishes. Here’s another vinaigrette recipe from The Spice and Herb Bible. It’s written to be served over seared tuna, but it will probably go with lots of things.

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Chervil Vinaigrette

Combine

1 tbsp chopped fresh chervil

1 tbsp cider vinegar

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1-1/2 tsp Dijon mustard

½ tsp crushed garlic

Whisk in

2 tbsp olive oil

until the whole thing emulsifies.

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We’ll definitely use some chervil and chives on salads and chives on loaded baked potatoes. If I had my way, I’d toss the chives, chervil, some garlic, salt and olive oil with fresh pasta. But I don’t think anyone else likes pasta without red sauce as much as I do.

The other reason I like this herb bag is the cilantro came in a manageable amount. I’m not a huge cilantro fan, but I can work with this much. I’ll add it to salsa and tacos sometime this weekend or next week.

Strawberry Freezes Forever… or just for a few days

I went ahead and froze some of these strawberries after we had a couple go moldy in the fridge last week. My husband enjoys them fresh but doesn’t always get through the whole supply. Many more things can be done with frozen strawberries than can be done with moldy ones, so I’m freezing them now. Fresh frozen strawberries can be defrosted a little into a delicious slurry that’s just as good as fresh,  if not better on a hot day. Frozen berries can be added directly to smoothies and ice cream or put in a pot and cooked down to sauce. Or they can be used to make dressing for Bordeaux spinach.

But I don’t intend them to languish in the freezer for months. Freezing as a short term storage solution is what Mark Bittman wrote about this week. I find the concept helpful because I tend to think about my freezer as long term storage for enjoying stuff out of season rather than as a short term tool. It also inspires me to get back to organizing my freezer. Maybe.

Cooking for Mom

This weekend we’re going to make shrimp fried rice for my mom for Mother’s Day. I’ll use green onions and eggs and hopefully some pac choi from my mom’s CSA box. I don’t like English peas that much, so even though they’re naturals for fried rice, I’m not putting them in. Instead, I’ll cook them as a nice side with another meal.

Update on Peas

How to Cook Everything has a great, easy pea recipe. I ended up with a little more than a cup of peas, so I melted a tablespoon of butter (or you can use olive oil) in a little skillet. After it was hot, I added about a tablespoon of chopped chervil and chives to sizzle for a minute. (These seasonings were just one of the possibilities listed in the book for peas.) Then I added the peas and cooked them about two minutes. Right before they were done, I sprinkled a little salt and sugar over them. The recipe was easy and quick, but I still don’t like peas. Thankfully, everyone else ate them up with no problemh.