Technicolor Cropshare

Photo via Simply Recipes

Beets and carrots, carrots and beets!  Yahoo!  Many, such as Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN, say that you should eat five different colors every day to make sure you get a broad array of vitamins in your diet.  This week's box sure helps with that approach: orange carrots, purple beets, blue blueberries, red strawberries, green chard and cabbage... There you go!

Let's see how we can mix and match colors.

Photo via Healthy Happy Life

• If you're looking for a straight-up color explosion, try this side dish, which uses almost everything in the box.  If you like pickled veggies (oh, me me me!), then this mix is a great one to try.
• Beets and carrots make a great basis for a salad, or use the chard and/or cabbage for this salad.
• If you like the Moroccan spice palate, then try this sauté for the chard and beet leaves.  This salad uses grated carrots and beets, and is delicious!
• Last year we had a discussion on cole slaw, and my favorite pickled cole slaw is quite colorful.  So is this one with beets.
• Don't forget dessert!

Photo via Epicurious

A Tale of Two Pastas

Over the winter, I've collected two recipes that I've been itching to try:  Pappardelle With Spring Vegetables, and Spring Vegetable Ragout With Fresh Pasta.  Now that we're starting to see the fruits (okay, veggies, actually) of spring, I finally get to make this!

Photo via Fine Cooking

The latter recipe is exceedingly simple.  It calls for blanching whatever baby spring vegetables you have, reducing that water to a vegetable broth, and tossing vegetables, fresh pasta, fresh herbs, and butter with the broth.  The former one is a bit more complex.  It calls for a quick sauté of the vegetables, and tossing with a sauce of shallot, seasonings (cayenne and celery seed), mascarpone, and reduced chicken stock.

When I look at the pictures of the two recipes, in both I see the ultimate taste of spring.  It should be crisp, incredibly light, and fresh tasting.  Because of that, I like the herbs from the latter, and I think the heaviness of mascarpone cheese called for in the former would be way too heavy.  On the other hand, I believe the sauté pan would give the vegetables a crispness that blanching wouldn't (think stir fry), and the dash of cayenne would definitely liven the dish.  While either vegetable broth & butter or chicken stock would make a wonderful sauce, I'm leaning towards stock.  The collagens it has (you're using homemade, right?) will give the sauce a silkiness that simple broth won't.

Photo via Fine Cooking

In either case, the great thing about these recipes is that they'll work for whatever young veggies you've got on hand at the moment.  I was at Nalls today, and picked up some asparagus and some beautiful young rainbow carrots that'll work fantastically.  So, whichever you pick, open a bottle of crisp white wine and enjoy the fruits -- er, veggies -- of spring!

Various Takes on a Favorite Winter Dessert

Either my Midwestern blood is thinning, or holy cow it's cold out there! Let's heat up the oven and bake something, shall we?

I still have a huge load of carrots that went uneaten from the Superbowl. So I have to use them up.  Hence one of my Top 5 Desserts:  Carrot cake. Believe it or not, we had one at our wedding.  (When I suggested that, the catering person looked at me like I had just arrived from Pluto.)

Photo via America's Test Kitchen Feed

The 3,000-calorie-per-slice monstrosity from the Cheesecake Factory isn't the only way to go, you know.  There are other carrot cakes around the world.  This one is Venetian, and mascarpone lends itself every bit as well as cream cheese when it comes to frosting.  This variation, while back at sky-high caloric values, will remind you of your last tropical vacation.  If you'd rather stick to the traditional flavor profile, try making it into a roll cake.

Photo via Crazy For Crust

Remember that this coming Tuesday is Shrove Tuesday, and it's traditional to make pancakes to "use up" the oils and fats in the house before Lent begins.  But nobody says the pancakes themselves have to be traditional!  (A word of advice, though, shred the carrots really fine for those pancakes.)

Photo via Smitten Kitchen

Crudités, Anyone?

Another item that can move grease off of the game day buffet is utterly simple:  crudités, or, simply, cut up veggies with dip.  Pick up some carrots and anything else that looks appetizing at the store this week, and either put out your favorite salad dressing with it, set out some hummus, or use this utterly simple dip.  My mom has been making it since the beginning of time, I believe.

Thanks, mom, for the recipe.

Photo via Saveur

Vegetable Dip With Dill

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup mayonnaise (light mayo works just fine)
• 1/2 cup sour cream (again, fat free is just fine)
• 1 tablespoon dried onion or 
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon dried dill weed (double for fresh)

Directions:

Stir it all together.  finis.  It's better, though, if it can sit in the fridge for a day or two prior to serving to allow flavors to integrate.

Let's Get Some Spice On!

When I saw the green beans in today's box, for some reason my mind jumped to curries.  I often use a mix of veggies in my curries, but for some reason I almost always include green beans.  We can use the potatoes and the sweet potatoes we've gotten recently, and if you have any carrots left, those would be good too.

Curries originated in southeast Asia, notably the area around Thailand.  From there, they expanded west across India, parts of the Persian Gulf, and into eastern Africa, jumping with the slave trade to various parts of the Caribbean; and they expanded west to places like Fiji and other islands across the Pacific.  At its most basic, it's a dish using lots of spice and almost always includes chilis of some sort.  Some are more like a soup, usually served over rice, others are more like a stir fry with a heavy sauce, again served with rice.

Photo via about.com

The key ingredient in curry is curry powder, which is simply a blend of spices.  That's it.  Take half the spice drawer, put it all together, shake until mixed, and voilà, curry powder.  Well, not exactly.  it is a measured quantity of each of certain spices, then shake 'em all together and you have curry powder.  Which spices are going to vary wildly by region, but most of them have cumin and turmeric as a base.  For example, Thai curry powder usually contains turmeric, cumin, coriander, ginger and chilis as its starting point.  As you move west through India, you'll start seeing less coriander and more cardamom, for example.

Photo via Jamie Oliver

Curries are usually quite simple to prepare.  Some are yogurt based, some start with a tomato sauce, others use coconut milk.  In essence, you start with the base, add the spices, add whatever half-cooked veggies and browned meat you'd like, and let it cook together until the meat is finished and the veggies are soft.  Some other recipes I've tried and liked are found here, here, and here.

Most of the time, curries can be prepared really quickly with whatever veggies you have on hand.  Great for those weeknights when you need a dinner in 30 minutes or less.

Photo via Food & Wine

Sesame Vegetable Noodle Bowls

Despite my recent plague, I still took myself to the grocery store and for reasons I'm still not quite clear on, I apparently developed an all-Asian menu for dinners this week.  Hey, I can't eat most of it out at restaurants (curse you gluten-hating immune system!), so why not make it at home.  Lots of naps and pitiful coughs apparently lead to good things in the kitchen, because these noodle bowls I made last night may be one of my most favorite concoctions as of late.  Loaded with good green veggies, it's like ramen but healthy and it leaves you feeling somehow full yet light.  I used rice noodles, but you could easily use udon or any other of your favorite Asian-style noodles.  This would also be fantastic with shrimp, chicken or tofu, if you're looking to add an extra hit of protein.  Or throw all of it together into a pot with 2 cups of vegetable or chicken stock and 2 cups of water, and have yourself a noodly soup of goodness.

Sesame Vegetable Noodle Bowls

Ingredients:
1 package rice noodles, soaked in hot water until soft
1 tsp chili oil
1 leek, quartered lengthwise and sliced
4 oz Shitake mushrooms (or any mushrooms of your choice), sliced
1/2 bundle of kale, leaves removed from stem and rough chopped
1 cup cabbage, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and grated thin
2 green onions, greens chopped
1 Tbsp soy sauce (I use Kikkoman's wheat/gluten free version)
2 Tbsp sesame seeds

For sauce:
2 Tbsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
2 Tbsp lime juice
4 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp Sriracha
1 knob ginger, peeled and grated

Prepare sauce first by whisking all ingredients together and set aside, and soak rice noodles in hot water or put in on the stove over medium heat (not enough to boil) until noodles are just soft.

In a large skillet, heat chili oil over high heat.  Add sliced leeks and cook for about 2 minutes.  Then add mushrooms and cook until they begin to brown.  Toss in kale, cabbage and carrot and cook for about 1-2 more minutes or until kale is wilted.  Add in green onions and soy sauce, and cook for an additional minute.  Remove from heat and toss with sesame seeds.

Drain noodles and toss with veggies in skillet.  Pour over sauce and toss until fully combined.  Serve each portion with additional Sriracha and sesame seeds, if desired...and in this house, we do desire!

In A Pickle

This afternoon, my daily Tasting Table e-mail arrived and it brought with it 3 great recipes for brining/pickling some Spring veggies.  One is for rainbow carrots, but the carrots we received this week would work just as perfect.  Especially if you're hosting or attending Easter or Passover festivities, you could pickle up some of this weeks carrots, and have a quirky homemade treat in just two days.  Or pack a peck of pickled peppers and brine up some of the green bell peppers we received.  I'm a massive fan of homemade pickles (see The Great Pickle Experiment Part 1 and Part 2), but why wait for cucumber season, when the pickling can begin now?

See Tasting Table's article on the basics and then check our their recipes for Pickled Asparagus, Pickled Carrots, and Pickled Fennel...

Brine Of The Times via Tasting Table

Salmon With Vegetables In Herb Butter Sauce

In Dublin's fair city, Molly Malone may have wheeled about her cart of cockles and mussels (alive, alive, oh!), but she might as well have been wheeling about fillets of salmon for as much as the Irish consume of this meaty, delightful fish.  That's one of the benefits of being an island, all the seafood, all the time!  And while most of us think of fish & chips when it comes to Irish seafood, that's like portraying all American cuisine as just McDonald's.  Those folks know their fishies, and how to best prepare them, and one of my all time favorite recipes comes from Margaret M. Johnson's cookbook The New Irish Table.  In a bit of a twist on a surf & turf, she tops some wine and butter poached salmon with veggies from the land and the sea. I'll spare you having to hunt down dried sea vegetables, and just stick with lovely land based ones.  But this is one dish that is sure to be a winner, winner, St. Patrick's Day dinner!

Salmon With Vegetables In Herb Butter Sauce

Ingredients
2 Tbsp dry white wine
1/2 cup fish stock or bottled clam juice
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 bay leaf
2 carrots, chopped
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 small zucchini, chopped
4 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup spinach, coarse chopped
4 salmon fillets, about 5-6 ounces a piece
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 Tbsp parsley, minced
1 Tbsp chives, minced
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
Kosher salt and ground black pepper, to taste


In a large saute pan, heat the white wine over medium heat until reduced by half.  Add in the fish stock/clam juice, lemon juice, bay leaf, and all the vegetables from the carrots thru the spinach.  Place the salmon on top of the vegetables, cover the pan and cook for 4 to 5 minutes or until the vegetables are tender and the salmon is cooked thru.  Transfer the salmon to a plate to keep warm, and into the pan add your butter and stir till well blended.  Then stir in your herbs, salt & pepper, and cook for an additional 30 seconds.

Serve each piece of salmon with a generous spoonful of the vegetables and butter sauce.

Wearin' O' The Green!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!  No, I didn't just flashback a few months to Christmas.  St. Patrick's Day is upon us and it gives myself and every other Irish American the chance to be completely obnoxious about how Irish we are.  And it's the one day of the year everyone wants to be us!  Take that kids who made fun of my red hair and held me down while you played connect the dots with my freckles!  So if you're lucky enough to be Irish, you're lucky enough.  But if you're not, then allow me to lovingly carry you through the mists and the fog of traditional, yet delicious Irish cuisine.  Yes, it's a lot of cabbage and potatoes, but the Irish have always done seasonal and local, the rest of us are just catching up to how delicious it can be.

So to whet your appetite, pour yourself a nice cuppa tea (or a whiskey) and enjoy these traditional oldies but goodies from the library of Nalls' Kitchen...

Colcannon

Leek & Potato Soup

Corned Beef & Cabbage

Vietnamese Beef Salad

There were just a few carrots in the Crop Share this week, and by a few I mean a ton.  And while I thought about a carrot soup, it was too cold and snowy yesterday after all of the beautiful Spring weather, so I had to just delude myself a little longer and make something bright and fresh that made me think of the warmer temps to come.  If you'll remember, a few weeks back when we got cabbage I did my own Vietnamese twist on TaKorean "takos".  So last night I just left out the arepas all together, tweaked a few of the ingredients, and made up some delicious Vietnamese Beef Salads.  If you're looking to make a dent in your carrot supply and ignore the continued snow, these salads are where it's at!

Vietnamese Beef Salad

For the pickled slaw:

1 cup water

½ cup apple cider vinegar

½ cup sugar

½ cabbage, cored & thin sliced

1 cup cilantro, minced

4 carrots, peeled and shredded

For the spicy garlic beef: 

1/2 cup soy sauce (I use Kikkoman's gluten-free soy sauce)

2 Tbsp Sriracha (use only 1 Tbsp for a lower heat version)

3 Tbsp local honey

1 Tbsp garlic, minced

1.5 lbs thin sliced ribeye (if you really want the perfect cut for this or for making bulgogi hit up a local H Mart, it's worth the extra trip -- alas, I did not have the time to make the extra trip)

2 Tbsp sesame oil

1" knob of ginger, minced

Make your slaw a day in advance if possible, if not, just allow yourself at least an hour for the flavors to meld and begin to pickle the veggies.  In a small saucepan, heat the water, vinegar and sugar until the sugar is fully dissolved.  Remove from heat and allow to cool.  Prep your cabbage, cilantro and carrots and then toss into a bowl.  Pour the liquid over and toss to fully combine.  Cover bowl and place in fridge for at least 1 hour up to 24 hrs (the longer it sits the better).

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together your soy sauce, Sriracha, honey and garlic, till fully combined.  Then add in your sliced ribeye and toss to coat.  Cover and place in fridge to marinate for at least 1 hour.

In a large skillet, heat your sesame oil over high heat, but take care to not allow it to burn.  Once you start to see little bubbles in the oil, toss in your minced ginger and cook for no longer than 1 minute.  Pour in your beef, marinade and all, and toss with tongs to cook.  Cook beef on high heat until you can no longer see pink on the meat, and no longer otherwise you're going to have chewy bits of beef.  Remove cooked beef from skillet and set aside on a plate.   Continue to simmer down remaining marinade in the skillet until it's turned into a thicker, sticky sauce.  Remove from heat and add beef and any drippings back to pan, tossing to fully coat the beef.

To assemble, place a mound of the slaw on each plate and top with some beef.  Drizzle any of the pan sauce over top if you'd like and serve.  You can also cook up a cup of rice if you feel like you need a starch with this too.

Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup via Two Peas & Their Pod

If you've even remotely peeked outside you know this is some serious soup weather we have going on!  And since it looks like possibly a bit more snow tomorrow night at Saturday, we're all going to want to whip up something comforting with our Crop Shares.  So prepare to use up your celery and lemon this week, and check out this bright and delicious looking Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup from Two Peas & Their Pod.

Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup via Two Peas & Their Pod

Vietnamese Style Tacos

So when we were going back and forth to Union Market during Christmas tree season, I had to watch in envious pain as everyone, including my own husband, devoured these incredible looking "takos" from TaKorean.  They have found a way to marry traditional Korean flavors and ingredients with one of our favorite Latin comfort and convenience foods...the taco.  But alas, just like most Korean BBQ, none of the offerings at TaKorean are gluten-free thanks to gluten's ability to hide itself in just about every blessed brown marinade.  Curse you gluten!!!  I love tacos and I worship Korean, Vietnamese and Thai cuisine, even if most of I can no longer have.  So after a few odd days of binge watching Korean TV (it should be noted, I don't speak a lick of Korean), I vowed to stop drooling and pouting, because I was going to do some research, follow my culinary gut, and head to the store to procure what I would need for some back to back weeknight delights.  I'm gearing up to make homemade Korean bulgogi with kimchi tonight, but last night, oh last night, I grabbed the cabbage and some of the leftover carrots from the share two weeks ago and set out to create a fusion style taco with all the bright Vietnamese flavors I've been craving (come back to me bahn mi!).  I'd made arepas for the first time earlier in the week, so the Mister begged to have those as the base rather than just a corn tortilla, so these are more open face tacos, or something.  I'm not quite sure what to truly call them other than utterly delicious!  Let's just say I had some again for breakfast this morning!

Vietnamese Style Tacos

For the pickled slaw:

1 cup water

½ cup apple cider vinegar

½ cup sugar

½ cabbage, cored & thin sliced

½ cup cilantro, minced

3 carrots, peeled and shredded

Kosher salt

For the spicy chili beef: 

½ cup sweet chili sauce (I use a brand called Mae Ploy, and can find it at the Giant in Kingstowne)

¼ cup wheat free soy sauce

1 Tbsp Sriracha

1 tsp garlic, minced

1.5 lbs thin sliced ribeye (if you really want the perfect cut for this or for making bulgogi hit up a local H Mart, it's worth the extra trip -- alas, I did not have the time to make the extra trip)

2 Tbsp sesame oil

For the arepas (or if you prefer, just use corn tortillas):

2 cups white corn masa (can be found in the Hispanic food section of most grocery stores)

1 tsp kosher salt

3 cups warm water

Butter for frying (I use Earth Balance margarine for dairy free, but beware it's melting point and it's burning point are much lower than regular butter)

Make your slaw a day in advance if possible, if not, just allow yourself at least 30 minutes to an hour for the flavors to meld and begin to pickle the veggies.  In a small saucepan, heat the water, vinegar and sugar until the sugar is fully dissolved.  Remove from heat and allow to cool.  Prep your cabbage, cilantro and carrots and then toss into a bowl.  Pour the liquid over, and sprinkle with a pinch of two of Kosher salt and toss to fully combine.  Cover bowl and place in fridge for at least 30 minutes up to 24 hrs (the longer it sits the better).

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together your sweet chili sauce, soy sauce, Sriracha and garlic, till fully combined.  Then add in your sliced ribeye and toss to coat.  Set aside and allow to marinate while you prep the arepas.

Next, prep your dough for the arepas.  If you're not familiar with these, they are fried white corn cakes, so think of a crispy, savory pancake.  In a bowl stir together your masa, salt and warm water until there are no more masa lumps.  Allow to rest for 5 minutes.  Melt a tablespoon or two of butter in a skillet over medium high heat.  Take a handfull of arepa dough and pat it out into palm sized rounds about 1/4 inch thick and place into sizzling butter.  Brown each side for about 4 minutes until both sides are golden, then transfer to a separate place to cool.  Once you're about half way through the dough, time things so that you can begin to cook up your beef while a batch of arepas cook.  Then do the fun juggling act of tending to both!

In a large skillet, heat your sesame oil over high heat, but take care to not allow it to burn.  Once you start to see little bubbles in the oil, that means it's ready so pour in your beef, marinade and all, and toss with tongs to cook.  Cook beef on high heat until you can no longer see pink on the meat, and no longer otherwise you're going to have chewy bits of beef.  Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Finish cooking up all your arepas and then begin the assembly process.  For each serving, place 1 arepa on a plate and top with beef. Use a spoon to drizzle some of the pan sauce over the beef and arepa for extra favor.  Then top the beef with a generous dollop of the slaw, and if you're a heat freak like me, grab that bottle of Sriracha and drizzle some extra over top the slaw.  Devour immediately!

We ended up with more arepas and slaw than beef, so problem solved, they made a delicious meat free pairing sans the beef.  It was my lunch today.  Yes, I've had three meals out of this dish, and I'm debating whether to be a really good wife and let the Mister take leftovers for his lunch on the night shift, or just go for round 4 for my dinner.  I'm not feeling like so good of a wife right now when I know what's hiding in my fridge.  And yes, this reheats superb, just heat an arepa topped with beef for about 30 seconds to a minute and you're set to top with slaw, devour, and repeat!

Bacheofe - Alsatian Meat & Vegetable Stew via Saveur

You hear a lot about my Irishness and love for all things potato, but that's only half of my DNA.  Another quarter is French...French Huguenot, to be exact.  So, since my Huguenot ancestors spent a good portion of their lives in the Rhine region of Germany as a means to escape persecution in France, it must be coded somewhere in my genetic tastebuds to love dishes from the Alsace region of France, because their cuisine is an incredible blend of French & German flavors.  So no dainty, delicate sauces over something poached.  No, this is good stick to your ribs food, and like all good traditional cuisines, it's comprised of what's local, seasonal and on the cheap.

Hands down one of my favorite Alsatian dishes is Bacheofe/Baeckoffe, and all you need to know is it's a giant casserole of warmth.  While I was musing over what fun thing to suggest for the Crop Share carrots this week, Saveur did the work for me and posted their recipe for Bacheofe.  Which reminded me I also had tucked away Alsatian chef, Hubert Keller's recipe for his family's version.  So I leave you with links to both versions, but do read the notes at the bottom of Keller's as there's really nothing quite like the phrase, "pig trotters add a gelatinous consistency."  Not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but I'm pretty sure Penny would have something to say about that.  Thankfully, pig trotters are entirely optional for this dish!  So use up those carrots from this week, and if you still have any leeks and potatoes leftover from last week, this will use those right up too.  The recipes are hyperlinked in each title, so click through to view them on their original pages.  But if a massive hearty stew of heavy meat & veg isn't the way you want to use your carrots this week, then enjoy another taste of my DNA (well not literally, as we do frown on cannibalism here at Nalls) with my Grammy Freer's Chicken In A Wine Sauce.  Remember two cups of white wine for the dish, and 3 cups for the chef.  ;)

Bacheofe - Alsatian Meat & Vegetable Stew via Saveur

Beef Lamb & Pork Baeckeoffe via Hubert Keller

There's no image of his version of Baeckeoffe, so I give you this photo of the silver fox himself, shaving with a kitchen knife.  I only have a slight food crush on this man.

Cilantro or Cilant-NO?

Cilantro and I are tight.  I love that fragrant herb and it loves me back.  But I recognize that for some of you, you might hear that we're getting cilantro this week and your first thought is, "Cilant-NO! That stuff tastes like soap!"  A few years ago, I learned that for some folks, cilantro only reads like soap or cleaning products on their taste buds.  This is not a case of having an unrefined palate (Julia Child herself despised cilantro), it's simply our taste buds being our personal food safety testers to keep us from harm.  Since cilantro contains the same or similar type of aldehydes found in soaps, certain chemicals and even in bugs, some people's taste buds pick up on the flavor and alert, "DANGER!  DANGER!  DO NOT EAT!"  Hence, why it reads like soap or cleaning products to many folks, it's their taste bud's way of stopping them from eating the perceived hazard.

So can those of us who love cilantro boast about having more evolved and intelligent palates?  Probably not, as I can shamefully admit to once eating an entire slice of moldy pizza and then reached for another before I bothered to flip on the light and see that my pizza was growing a sweater.  Like I said, shameful.  But the good news for cilantro-phobes is that some people have found if the herb is crushed or really finely chopped, that by breaking it down, it decreases the soapy flavor and only imparts that wonderfully fragrant note that those of us who love cilantro rave about.

Whether you love it or have always reviled it, we've got two great cilantro containing recipes.  For those of you doubters, in both of these you can just mince the heck out of the cilantro, let it rest for a few minutes and then toss it in.  Think almost a pesto consistency in how finely you mince it.  Click the link to view the first recipe, but the second is provided in this post...

Thai Chicken Quinoa Bowls

If you have an aversion to quinoa, you can easily toss this with white or brown rice, and since it has a Thai flavor profile, you might even try tossing it with rice noodles for a bit of a riff on Pad Thai.  Pass the Sriracha!

Healthier Three Layer Taco Dip

Layer 1:

8 oz Neufchatel 1/3 less fat cream cheese (I use Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese for dairy-free)*

8 oz reduced fat sour cream (I use Tofutti Sour Supreme for dairy-free)*

1 package low-sodium taco seasoning**

1 tsp chipotle pepper (or less to control the heat)**

Beat all ingredients together until well-blended and creamy.  Spread in the bottom or a deep dish or pie plate.  Refrigerate for at least one hour to allow this layer to set up and firm up.

*When using the reduced fat cream cheese and sour cream, beware of the increased water content.  So drain any excess liquid off of the sour cream before using, and then make sure your subsequent layers are well-drained before adding them.

**Since determining the gluten-safe properties of most taco seasonings, I just created my own.  This is a great way to save on sodium, because even the low-sodium seasonings are still too high for my taste.  Alas, I made mine recently at about 2 am and thus didn't measure, but I did a blend of garlic powder, paprika, ground black pepper, chipotle pepper, and a dash of salt.  So add a few dashes and season till you get the taste you want.  You definitely want the smoky heat of the chipotle in this layer, so to keep from going overboard on the heat you can up the smoke factor with more paprika.

Layer 2:

1 head of romaine lettuce, chopped fine and patted dry with a paper towel

Evenly spread over cream cheese mixture.

Layer 3:

4 tomatoes, seeded and diced

1/2 chopped sweet onion

1 chopped and seeded jalapeno pepper

3 Tbsp minced, fresh cilantro

Juice of 1 lime or lemon

Mix all ingredients together in a separate bowl and then, using a slotted spoon to allow for drainage of excess liquid, evenly spread over top of romaine.  You'll likely have left over pico de gallo, so save to use as a plain salsa or for topping homemade tacos, grilled fish or chicken.

Juice It Up!

So this Monday I had the pleasure of partnering with Pat Backe of Senior Fall Prevention and Kingstowne Pilates to host a Juicing With Greens workshop at the Kingstowne Center for Active Adults.  It was a fantastic class with lots of hilarity (a juiced apple spurting across the room) and extreme randomness (ginger root pilfering), but the juices that Pat whipped up for all of us were fantastic.  So since much of the ingredients focused on seasonal items that we're all getting right now, I thought I'd share the two recipes from Monday with you.  If you don't have a juicer, you can still use a blender to make these items, though I'd recommend peeling the items first, and just know that they won't be as smooth and pulp free as if you were using a juicer.  But no matter what equipment you have, just be sure to wash all of your fruits and vegetables well beforehand.

ABC (Apple-Beet-Carrot) Juice

Serves 1

Ingredients:
1 apple (we used Suncrisp)
2 beets
3 large carrots
1" knob of ginger, peeled
Handful of kale, spinach or even toss in the beet greens

Kale-Aid Juice

Serves 1-2

Ingredients:
5 large kale leaves
1-2 cucumbers
1 lemon, peeled
1 apple (we used Suncrisp)
1" knob of ginger, peeled (for more kick add 2 or 3 pieces of ginger)
1-2 large celery ribs

For both recipes, wash your ingredients well, then cup them up as needed to fit through the chute of your juicer or to make blending easier.  Juice the ingredients in the order they're listed and serve immediately with or without ice.

Moroccan Harira

Thanks to having a food-allergy friendly menu, Busboys & Poets is a favorite DC area haunt of the Mister and I.  Which as an aside, if you have to avoid gluten, you need to run not walk to the closest Busboys and get their GF hazelnut chocolate cake, it's like Nutella in cake form.  Just sayin'.  Any way, back to the topic at hand.  Busboys serves an amazing vegan version of a traditional Moroccan stew called harira.  It's essentially a spiced chickpea and lentil stew, and unlike many stews, this one is actually quite healthy.  So after the Mister went bonkers for the harira at Busboys, I made it my personal mission to recreate it.  This is another all-purpose Crop Share veggie recipe, but it will make a great vehicle for the bundle of parsley you'll all be receiving.  And while this stew has it's fair share of heat to it, you can easily cut back on the cayenne and then serving each bowl with a dollop of sour cream or plain Greek yogurt will help cut any additional heat.  They say you need to fight fire with fire, so perhaps this is just what this weekend's hot forecast calls for.

Moroccan Harira

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp olive oil

1 onion, diced

3 celery stalks, diced

4 carrots, diced

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp cinnamon

2 Tbsp ground ginger

2 Tbsp turmeric

2 Tbsp cumin

1/4 tsp cayenne

3 Tbsp tomato paste

2 cups stewed tomatoes (not Italian style), drained

5 cups vegetable or chicken stock

1 bay leaf

2 Tbsp Kosher salt

Ground black pepper

2 cups chickpeas, drained

1 cup brown lentils

1/2 lemon, juiced

Bundle of parsley, chopped

Sour cream (dairy-free or regular) or plain Greek yogurt to garnish

In a large stock pot or dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium high heat.  Add onion, carrot, celery and garlic and saute until tender, about 4-5 minutes.  Reduce heat slightly and add all of your spices, being careful not to allow any of them to burn on the bottom of the pot.  Add tomato paste and stir until well blended.  Add stewed tomatoes and stock, taking care to get any bits off the bottom that have started to stick.  Stir until blended and creamy.  Add bay leaf, salt and pepper.

Stir in chickpeas, cover pot, reduce heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes.  Stir in lentils, cover and simmer for an additional 30 minutes.  Check part way through lentil cook time, and add more stock if needed.

Add lemon juice and chopped parsley, and adjust seasoning to taste.

Serve each bowl with a dollop of sour cream or plain Greek yogurt, and garnish with an additional pinch of fresh, chopped parsley.

Adapted from v:gourmet (http://vgourmet.ca/tag/vegan-harira/)