Quick Leftover Lunch

Week Seven, Sunday

I had a baby shower to go to on Sunday afternoon. Roy and I were going to the Diana Ross concert at the Fox Theater on Sunday night, so we decided to eat dinner out. There wouldn't be time to cook.

I made a quick lunch for myself before going to the shower. I used the leftover egg noodles. (I already cooked them on Friday, but we didn't use them all.) And I topped it with the last bit of spaghetti sauce from a few weeks ago. Nothing fancy, I just microwaved it all for 90 seconds.

Fennel Gratin

Week Seven, Saturday

I got fennel this week, another vegetable that I'd never eaten or cooked. I found a recipe in my Chez Panisse Vegetables cookbook for fennel gratin. It called for leeks, yet another new vegetable. I felt really proud of myself for going to the fresh greens section of the market and picking out the leeks and parsley. I've always bought bagged greens before and avoided this section. But now I recognize quite a few of the vegetables there.

This could have gone bad. I bought the fennel, parsley, chicken stock and heavy cream. But I completely ignored the fact that the recipe called for six fennel bulbs, and I only had one. I wasn't sure that I could just cut all the ingredients in sixths and have everything turn out okay. I found another recipe online that called for potatoes with the fennel, so I kind of combined the recipes.

I sauteed the fennel and leeks in butter. I had no idea what was length-wise and what was cross-wise in the spherical fennel. That's how I was supposed to cut them. Same with the leeks - I could figure out length-wise with the long vegetable, but a picture would have been nice. I added these and the potatoes into a mixing bowl.

The second recipe called for gruyere cheese, which I didn't have. (The original recipe had heavy cream, but no cheese.) I threw in some romano and parmesan cheeses. I added the stock and heavy cream. It seemed like a lot of liquid in the bowl. I put it in the oven and hoped for the best.


I do find cooking in the oven less stressful. I do everything and hope it turns out. Cooking on the stovetop, I'm actively tending to the food most of the time. I see things go wrong and I don't know how to correct them.

Surprise! It turned out great. This picture is misleading. There's just a thin layer of food along the bottom, maybe four servings. It was so creamy and cheesy and good, we finished it in one meal. I still don't know what fennel tastes like. It was buried in with all the goodness.


We had burgers with the fennel-potato-leek gratin. I've been eating these a lot lately, with all the ground meat we've been getting. These might have been a little overdone, but they were fine.


I also made salad with this week's lettuce. For breakfast, we had bagels with that lovely "Our Garden" butter.

Another Frustrating Friday Meal

Week Seven, Friday

Even though I'm cooking new stuff every week, I have been falling into a pattern. On Thursdays, I run to the market to pick up any ingredients I need for my new Fair Shares foods. I've been cooking up the vegetables along with chicken, which I'm very comfortable cooking. On Fridays, I've been trying the meat choice, with less success.

How can I screw up ground beef? We got egg noodles from Fair Shares this week. I got ground beef as a special order, in place of the cube steak. I was going to make meatballs. I've made these twice with unusual meats like lamb, and they turned out great.

I don't know what I did differently this time. The meatballs stuck to the frying pan, they started to fall apart, they seemed to take much longer to cook. Eventually, they tasted okay, but not worth the stress.


This is what was left in the frying pan. Roy suggested we scrape it out and add it to the sauce. I'm not a big fan of meat sauce though - I like discrete pieces of meat in my pasta, so we left it there. Roy cleaned out the frying pan, so I wouldn't have to.


I bought some fresh parsley for another recipe, and I used some here too.

Weird Vegetable Night

Week Seven, Thursday

I'd never eaten kohlrabi or bok choy, let alone cooked it. This would be the night. I made roasted chicken legs (with fresh thyme!) to go along with them.

I sauteed the bok choy using these directions. I looked around on the web for a bit, and I'm glad I found something that explained that the white parts were the "stem". This ended up being okay, but not something I'd get on my own. I used about half of it, so we will be eating it again at some point. Maybe I'll try cooking it differently.


I could have done a better job with the kohlrabi. This recipe says to cook it for 15-20 minutes at 425 degrees. Which would be fine, except I was cooking the chicken at 375 degrees. I peeled and cut up the kohlrabi, and put it in for 25 minutes, checking around the 20 minute mark. The kohlrabi is related to the turnip, and I liked those.

Unfortunately, I didn't cook the kohlrabi long enough. It wasn't as tender as I was expecting. What I did love was adding the parmesan cheese and letting it melt over the vegetables. I guess I could have just kept them in longer, but the chicken and bok choy were done, and I didn't want to wait longer.

Mmmm...Butter

Week Seven, Wednesday

I used a combination of foods leftover from last week and a few new ones in this meal.
I made omelets with:
eggs (from last week)
asparagus (new this week)
mushrooms (last week)
cheddar cheese (two weeks ago - finished it up)
fresh thyme (this week)

The salad used last week's greens. I think I finished up the last of the radishes and scallions. I had been using an olive oil and vinegar dressing, but I bought a bottle of Thousand Island dressing at the market this week. It's what I grew up using, except we called it Russian dressing. I wonder if there's something different about them or if it's just a regional difference. (I'm originally from Philly.)

We could hardly discern the mushrooms in the finished omelet. Neither the taste or texture really stood out. The asparagus on the other hand was great. I sauteed both of them in butter before adding them to the egg mixture. I have purchased asparagus before joining Fair Shares, but I'm eating it a lot more often now. It had a great crunch and taste in each bite. The cheese worked well too. Roy grated it while I was getting other things ready.

This is the thyme plant we got this week. I'm sure I'm on my way towards killing it; not very good with plants. I pulled out a sprig, chopped the leaves off, and threw it in my eggs. I've used dry thyme with chicken, but I wanted to try this now. I didn't notice it in the omelet really.


The big surprise was the butter. We had something labeled "Our Garden Butter" in this week's share. Very creamy butter. We both had some toast with the eggs.

Week Seven Share

Week Seven

Lots of new and strange-looking vegetables this week.


I placed a special order this week. The meat option this week was cube steak. I tried it a couple weeks ago and didn't really care for it. I got ground beef instead. I also ordered asparagus; we've been enjoying it, and the newsletter said the season for it is coming to an end.

Our Garden Butter
Biver Farm Potted Herb (Thyme)
Claverach Sunflower Shoots
Biver Farm Kale
Berger Bluff Kohlrabi
Lee Farm Pac Choi
Ivan's Head Lettuce
Sunshine Strawberries
Yellow Dog Fennel
Hilty Egg Noodles
Billy Goat Potato Chips
Ground Beef
Asparagus
Kreta Reserve olive oil

Several things I've never eaten or even seen before:

Kohlrabi

Bok Choy

Fennel

Cilantro Rice

Week Six, Tuesday

I hadn't done anything with the cilantro yet. My neighbor Michael stopped by on Monday. I gave him half of it, and he suggested using it with rice.

On Tuesday, I made brown rice. I put some cilantro, a scallion, and some olive oil into the food processor and added it to the rice. I roasted up a bell pepper, onion, and a garlic clove, chopped them up, and added that. It turned out pretty tasty. Oh, there was butter too.


I also made a salad, using more of Week six's lettuce. I'd be getting more on Wednesday. We had grilled chicken with the rice and veggies.

Fair Shares food used:
Salad - lettuce, scallion, radish, pea shoots
Main Course - last of the Kreta Reserve olive oil, cilantro, scallions, brown rice

Memorial Day

Week Six, Monday

I'm going to pretend that this is healthy. My reasons:
I'm eating it with fruit
The maple syrup is from Fair Shares
The waffles are multi-grain

But really, it was a treat. Roy put whipped cream on his.



We didn't have any plans for Memorial Day. It was so nice to have this extended weekend all to ourselves. I made a meal reminiscent of a barbeque - hamburgers, chips, and pasta salad.


For dinner, only the lettuce came from Fair Shares. I used some peanut butter on English muffins for breakfast, and had the maple syrup with the frozen waffles for lunch.