CSA meal of the week
Now that the CSA season has begun, and I’m getting a batch of fruits and vegetables every Thursday whether I want them or not (I assure you I always want them), it’s time to challenge myself to create whole meals using mostly the veggies of the week. As you saw yesterday, I wolfed down the strawberries, so I couldn’t use those for dinner, but I still had a bunch of arugula (even after the arugula salad with strawberries and balsamic), so I used our O-Hitashi recipe from last month, and instead of spinach, I used arugula, which made for a REALLY great variation.
I also used the fresh scallions (which had such a pungent yet rounded earthy flavor, not the piercing sharpness of standard supermarket scallions), and made an asian inspired scallion quinoa. I just threw a cup of quinoa into the rice cooker with 2 cups of vegetable broth, a few garlic cloves, a few chopped scallions, and a splash each of olive oil, soy sauce, rice vinager, and the secret ingredient, sweet Japanese peach vinegar. I find that the rice cooker is the best way to cook quinoa, as it achieves just the right amount of fluffiness. Perhaps it’s my technique, but I just am not always able to achieve that cooking quinoa on the stovetop. What’s more, the bottom gets just a little caramelized, and when I take it out, I can gently scrape away the crust at the bottom for some caramelized chewy bits.
YUM.
food, CSA, cooking, recipe, community supported agriculture, ReMARKable Palate, Culinary Podcast Network, Gilded Fork
Mark C. Tafoya is a personal chef in New York City. He is also a world traveler and self-taught gourmand. He is a graduate of Yale University, worked as an actor for 10 years, both On and Off Broadway, and in independent films. His love of travel and food has taken him around the world. He hopes to share his love of world cuisine with you!
Okay I’ll be there in a few minutes. Thanks.
It sounds fabulous. For lunch today I had the Shrimp Fried Rice from the new Japanese Restaurant that opened in our Whole Foods market on P Street. While it looked very much the same as this, I’m sure yours tasted much better.