This week's haul

This week I'm really excited about what's in the box: strawberries! And rhubarb! It's a sign from the farmer gods that I should make something with the two together...perhaps a strawberry rhubarb galette to bring to our friends in Ottawa who we're visiting this weekend. Or maybe just for ourselves...we'll have to see. The abundance of green onions this week leads me to want to make another batch of green onion pancakes...

In the rest of the box:
- string beans
- peas
- green onions
- a purple kohlrabi
- lettuce
- asparagus
- spinach
- beets

There might be a salad in the future for the beets and kohlrabi, and the string beans will be eaten my favorite way: raw. As for the other vegetables, I think I'm learning that I can't really anticipate what, exactly, I'll do with it. We're still working on the spinach, asparagus, and zucchini (and a little bit of bok choy) from last week. The zucchini and bok choy will last another day - we'll see what I do with them tomorrow. With that in mind, here's what was for dinner tonight, with more of the Fred's Bread from last night as toast:

Spinach and asparagus omelet
Serves 2

Unsalted butter for pan
Bunch of spinach
1 clove of garlic, chopped or put through garlic press
5 - 7 stalks of asparagus, cut into 1-inch pieces
3/4 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated
5 eggs
Salt & pepper to taste

Melt 1/2 pat of butter in a non-stick pan over medium heat. Add garlic; saute for 30 seconds, and add spinach. Cook until wilted; put aside. Add another 1/2 pat of butter to pan. Saute asparagus in same pan until crisp-tender, adding some salt and pepper; put aside. Beat eggs, a generous pinch of salt, and a few grinds of pepper in a bowl; add to pan. Move egg around until mostly cooked; add cheese, spinach, and asparagus. Cover until top is firm. Serve immediately.

You could use olive oil instead of butter, but the butter adds nice flavor to the omelet. Adding the salt twice also layers the flavors a bit - so long as you're not going salt crazy (or using salted butter), it won't be too salty to eat.

Wednesday dinner

Today's dinner did not go as planned - yes, we ate pork tenderloin, but we did not have the radishes with it. After some thought, I figured they'd last longer than the other, more delicate vegetables, and could therefore wait to be used until later in the week. (We'll see if I'm right in a few days.) So tonight the menu was:

Ginger-garlic pork tenderloin
P's couscous salad
Roasted asparagus

Because today I wasn't feeling all that energetic, both the pork tenderloin and couscous salad are of P's creation - I was his sous chef today, preparing the asparagus for roasting and chopping the vegetables for the salad. The result was a summery mix of textures and tastes that I could easily see eating too much of. This salad is great to bring for next-day lunches, since it's everything in one package, and is fine cold or at room temperature (or even hot, if you're so inclined). The couscous salad recipe is modified from recipes found who-knows-where.

For the couscous:
2 1/3 cups homemade chicken broth
1 1/3 cups whole wheat couscous
2 tsp ground cumin
1 3/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne
For the dressing:
juice and zest of 1/2 large orange (approx. 4 tbsp of juice)
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Add-ins:
1/3 cup goat cheese, broken into pieces
3 medium-sized tomatoes
3/4 of a large cucumber (approx. the same volume as the tomatoes)
3 large green onions, white and green parts, sliced thinly crosswise
1 19 oz (540 mL) can of chickpeas, rinsed
1 tbsp capers, rinsed
1 tbsp mint, chiffonaded

Boil the chicken broth. Mix couscous and spices in large heat-safe bowl. Whisk together orange juice, zest, oil, salt, and pepper. When chicken broth is boiling, add to bowl with couscous and cover with plastic wrap until it has soaked up all of the liquid. (Follow the directions on the package for proportions of liquid to couscous.) Fluff with a fork. Add cheese first, then vegetables, chickpeas, capers, mint, and dressing; mix. Eat, or let sit in the refrigerator for a while before eating.

The roasted asparagus was simple: drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt and pepper, and roast at 450 degrees F until tender. This was done while the pork was resting - it really only takes a few minutes.