thoughtful consumption

• radishes! (I’ve been looking forward to these.)
• onion
• eggs
• apples
• kale
• breathtakingly pretty lettuce
• edamame (This is about half of my order; I gave the rest to my neighbor Lucy.)
• Zephyr squash
• a large quantity of wonderful herbs

Herb bonanza!

After I put everything else away, I went through the herbs that were part of my gourmet upgrade. There was a lot to find.

Clockwise from top left: lovage, sorrel, Mexican tarragon, Nasturtium leaves, salad burnet, chives, and parcel

And more!

fennel, summer savory, chocolate mint, spearmin, mystery lemony herb

After figuring out (for the most part) what the herbs were, I bagged them wrapped them in moist paper towels according to use. And gathered the loose flowers and leaves for tonight’s salad.

Tea herbs: spearmint, mystery lemon herb, and chocolate mint. I probably won’t use the chocolate mint for tea, but it seemed like the best place to put it. I’d love to dip the leaves in chocolate like the last time, but it was such tedious work!

Girly salad: Sometime this week, I hope to have a salad of sorrel, nasturtium leaves, salad burnet, radishes, and mint and savory flowers. I’ll make a vinaigrette with some of the other herbs, too, for dressing. It won’t make enough for more than one. And if it did, I’m not sure Chris would appreciate it. I could add the sorrel and nasturtium to stretch the beautiful lettuce, but I hate to dilute the flavors. So one afternoon, I’ll make Chris some Southern green beans and eat my herb salad.

Soup herbs: Lovage, parcel, and savory will be great with a chicken soup. Or maybe onion soup. I’m totally craving French onion soup.

Vinegar herbs: The fennel and tarragon may end up as vinegar. I always have a hard time making it through the tarragon. So I’ll give it a few days to see if I come up with any other uses.

Online store order

This week I ordered two pounds of coffee and 4 ounces of mushrooms. I have no pictures of the coffee because Chris already transferred the coffee to his coffee cans to be ready for the morning. But here are the mushrooms.

I love the color! I planned to make mushroom kale pasta. But I wonder if that heavy cream sauce will cover up the taste of the mushrooms. Now I think I’ll make a mushroom and fresh herb pasta dish and a separate kale alfredo pasta. Mmmm… more pasta.

Tonight’s supper

As part of the gourmet upgrade, we got two beautiful pork chops from Gum Creek Farms.

But what do you do with two pork chops when you have three people for dinner?

I thought about drawing straws, but the odds weren’t good. What if I was the one who ended up pork chop-less? Then I considered holding a fixed drawing of straws.

Then I remembered I had some lemongrass stems left to use, so I chopped up the pork and dumped it in a lemongrass-garlic-soy sauce marinade. Everybody wins!

The only CSA meat I’ve had so far has been ground – either beef or sausage. So I was really surprised when I started working with these chops. They just felt different and cut up like butter.

I’ve frozen the two bones in the hopes of finding a good recipe or an even better dog.

The pork is marinating in soy sauce, chopped garlic, and lemongrass stems. To prepare the lemon grass, I chopped off the ends, scored the stems, and then pounded them with the butt of my knife. That way they release their oils, but they’re still easy to pick out before serving.

By the way, I love the CSA garlic because the cloves are really big. So many recipes call for one clove of garlic. So I pull out a clove and think, “Oh, yeah! One clove, comin’ up!”

I’ll stir-fry the pork and serve it over noodles maybe with some of the Asian chili oil and chopped parcel on top. I’ll also boil and reduce the marinade for a sauce.

The salad will be lettuce with radishes, salad burnet and random herb flowers. Can’t wait!

9/29 Update

Here’s how it turned out.

really yummy with chili oil

Other plans

We’ve ended up with a whole bunch of breakfast radishes. Before I saw that I had some in my box, Lucy mentioned she had some from last week. Then when I began raving about radishes, she gave me hers. I felt pretty silly when I got home and started going through my stuff.

If Lucy doesn’t want me to repatriate her radishes, we’ll have too many for salad. So I’ll slice them longways and make baked radish chips. And dip them in radish green-artichoke dip! I think there are enough usable radish greens for that.

_________

I’m going to boil the edamame for a salty snack. All the directions for edamame call for boiling the pods in salted water for 8-10 minutes and then seasoning the pods. I want to use some nice salt and some of the summer savory for seasoning. But why do you season the pods if you don’t eat them? According to The Food Virgin,

…As for eating the pods, technically, they won’t harm you if you do decide to eat one, but edamame pods are nowhere near as chewable as snow pea pods.  If you put one in your mouth, you’ll be chewing, and chewing and chewing… long after the sushi chef has packed up his knives and gone home.  Make life easy for yourself– pop the beans out into your mouth, and enjoy.

Because I don’t I want to waste savory or salt, I think I’ll shell the beans and season them directly.

_________

For the squash, I’m kind of tired of stir-fried squash, so I’m thinking squash muffins or squash tian (or both!) this week.

_________

Stay tuned for baba ghanoush and the saga of the very large Napa cabbage!