I'll admit that there are weeks that I just don't feel like coming up with some creative way to use my CSA share.  Thankfully, produce that grows at the same time of year almost always tastes good together.



Our first share was a perfect combination of vegetables - leeks, lettuce, mizuna, radishes, asparagus, and strawberries - so I decided to keep things simple and incorporate most of it into a salad to highlight the textures, flavors, and freshness of the produce.

Here's yet another salad inspired by my CSA share.  Over the past year, I've gotten so much better about using each week's share more efficiently rather than attempting to make one dish with each ingredient and then buying a ton of stuff from the farmers' market or supermarket to supplement and support each ingredient.  A few weeks ago, I got all of these items (well, not the cheese or the dressing) in my share and I figured that since they're all growing at the same time, wouldn't they probably taste good together?  There was only one way to find out.

I've recently developed a minor obsession with citrus.  This may be (largely) due to the fact that, for more than a month now,  it's been freezing and snowy and slushy and gray.  When did I move to a strange hybrid of Seattle and Minneapolis?  But my daily 3 pm Cara Cara orange always seems to make me oblivious to the nasty conditions outside.


Despite of the lack of local fruit this time of year (I know there are lots of apples in cold storage, but I really cannot eat another apple for a long time - we were getting 8 pounds a week from our CSA for nearly two months and we ate every single one of them and I am surprised we did not turn into apples), February is the perfect time of year for out of the ordinary citrus: Meyer lemons and Cara Cara and Moro (aka blood) oranges.  All of them are head and shoulders above their run-of-the-mill counterparts, so I try to indulge in them as much as possible for the few weeks I can find them.

Go ahead, laugh at the cheesy name of this sandwich.  I'm laughing, too.  But it's the perfect title for my favorite sandwich.  I'm a little bit obsessed with roasted beets, especially when they're marinated in balsamic vinegar.


One of my favorite sandwiches is the beet, goat cheese, and arugula sandwich from Grandaisy - mostly because it's packed with roasted beets - but I quickly grew tired of spending $7 for a somewhat small sandwich that wasn't really all that exciting in terms of flavor.

Ever since I joined my CSA, I’ve been forced to cook around the ingredients I get each week instead of coming up with ideas and then shopping for them. I’m usually fine with this, as I always cook vegetarian and therefore use tons of vegetables, but some weeks have proven challenging – like the ones where all I get are leafy greens.


Last week was another greens-filled week. Among the bounty was mizuna, escarole, and bok choy, and I had gotten Swiss chard and romaine lettuce the prior week (half of which is still in my fridge…thankfully CSA/greenmarket produce is so fresh that it lasts longer in the fridge than supermarket produce, which is already many days, if not more than a week old by the time you get it). I transformed the escarole and bok choy into a stir fry (along with some green beans – another CSA share item – and tofu) but the mizuna stayed in the fridge. It’s still there, as Matt and I were away last weekend so there went a good four meals through which I could’ve used up a lot of last week’s haul. And let’s not talk about the huge bag of apples and pears that is going to turn into mush any second now.

Words alone cannot express how excited I am to finally be a member of a CSA! I had always wanted to join but it’s not the easiest thing in the world to do when you’re single and living with roommates. Sure, I could have found a friend to share with me, but I think that 5-6 years ago, most of us (myself included) weren’t quite as into or aware of our food as we are today.



Matt and I frequently shopped at the farmers markets in Baltimore, and when I moved back to NYC two years ago, I was living alone so a full share was, again, not really the best option. I’m sure I could have easily used up each week’s share, but I was so busy with work and wedding planning that I wasn’t particularly focused on food. So now that Matt is here and life has calmed down, we are now the proud new owners of a CSA membership.

It seems that January is the month of eating well and detox, at least according to my friends and a bunch of food publications.  I guess after all the sweets and booze of December’s holiday parties, we feel the need to negate the damage with healthy foods, and salad is usually the first thing that comes to mind.

I got to the JFX market a little late on Sunday, but I was still able to get my hands on some great spring produce (although they still don’t have too much of it – it’s mostly flowering plants and food vendors). In addition to a few pounds of asparagus (which I love), I picked up lots of mint and pea shoots, which I’ve never before seen at the market.


Pea shoots are the tops of pea plants, and they taste exactly like you would expect them to: like peas. They’re currently available at farmers markets, but you can also get them at Chinese markets (I’ve definitely seen them in Chinatown in Manhattan). Make sure the ones you buy are young; mature shoots are tough and stringy and are not fun to eat. About a third of the shoots I bought from the market were advanced in age and were barely eatable even after being cooked – they were that stringy.

Palak paneer is commonly called saag paneer despite the fact that there actually is a difference between the two. Technically, palak paneer is made with spinach and saag paneer is made with mustard greens and spinach, but most restaurants (and home cooks) make their versions with just spinach and call it saag paneer anyway.


My mom, however, has always correctly called her version of it palak paneer (yet another testament to her excellence in the kitchen). I’ve always liked my mom’s version of it better than anything I’ve had at a restaurant, and I’m not just saying that because she’s my mom – she really is an amazing cook.

This is the first of three recipes that I'll be posting from 660 Curries. Don't forget to leave a comment by 9 pm on Sunday, May 18th to be entered into the drawing for first of three copies of the book (see this post for details).

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I had a ton of fresh spinach that I had gotten at the market earlier in the week, so a spinach recipe was in order. I was all set to search the index of the book for spinach recipes, but it so happened that when I opened the book, I landed on the page for this recipe. Since I had almost all the ingredients on hand, I decided to go for it.

Most of the ingredients for this recipe are either already in your house or easily available, but it does require one very special ingredient that is only available at Indian grocery stores: sambar powder. Sambar powder is a South Indian spice blend that is not only used for making sambar (as the name might imply), but also for flavoring vegetable curries. It's made by roasting spices and lentils and then grinding them to make a powdered spice blend. South Indians are apparently the only people in the world who roast lentils and use them as seasonings, either whole, as in this green bean dish, or ground as in this eggplant curry and tomato and lentil stew. Roasted lentils lend a nutty and almost sweet flavor to dishes, and the result is unlike any other seasoning I've ever had.

I followed this recipe almost exactly as written in order to be able to properly review and critique it. On the whole, I would give it a rating of 6 out of 10. I like the combination of chickpeas and spinach, and I’m a fan of using South Indian spices in dishes, but there was a striking lack of cohesion in this dish both texturally and flavor-wise. I wouldn’t specifically make this again unless I made the following changes:

• Reduce the amount of mustard seeds from 1 tsp to 1/2 tsp - the flavor of popped mustard seeds overwhelmed the dish.
• Omit the ginger and fried onion/shallot – onions, shallots, garlic, and other allium members are never used in South Indian cooking; ginger is rarely used, and, if so, never with sambar powder and popped mustard seeds (my mother’s jaw dropped when I told her that the recipe called for mustard seeds and sambar powder AND onions and ginger). I couldn't distinctly taste the ginger and shallots, but I would omit them nonetheless.
• Reduce the amount of water from 2 cups to 1 cup and increase the simmering time to at least 20 minutes (from 8-10) - the final product was really watery and not at all cohesive in terms of texture or flavor. Reducing the amount of water by ½ and increasing the cooking time would allow for more of the water to get absorbed by the chick peas, for the chick peas to give off some of their starch and thereby thicken the sauce, and for all the flavors to blend together.
  

I might also use frozen spinach instead of fresh, because the delicate fresh spinach flavor was totally drowned out by the seasonings.

That being said, I think this would be a great weeknight dinner - it's quick, easy to make, inexpensive, healthy, and, with the aforementioned changes, probably really tasty.

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Chana Saag (Spiced Chickpeas and Spinach)
(serves 4)

2 tablespoons ghee (clarified butter) or canola oil
1 teaspoon black or yellow mustard seeds
1 tablespoon ginger paste
2 tablespoons fried onion paste (I used 2 tablespoons finely minced shallots)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons sambar powder
2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt
2 cups cooked chickpeas (I used a 15-ounce can)
2 cups water
1 pound fresh spinach leaves, well rinsed and finely chopped

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Heat the ghee in a medium-sized saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the mustard seeds, cover the pot, and cook until the seeds have stopped popping, about 30 seconds. Lower the heat to medium and add the ginger paste. Stir-fry until light brown, about 30 seconds. (Be careful with this step – the ghee will be very hot and the ginger will very likely splatter – I kept any splattering ghee and ginger out of my face by covering the pot and then pulling up the lid a bit to leave it ajar, then sticking a long wooden spoon into the pot to stir the ginger.)

Stir in the fried onion paste, tomato paste, sambar powder, salt, and chickpeas. Stir well to coat the chickpeas, then add the water. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Add the spinach and stir well to incorporate. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, until the mixture has thickened, about 8-10 minutes.

Serve with rice.

I think I’ve expressed my love for brunch on here enough times to forgo doing so yet another time.