Salad Nicoise

I was really happy with this recipe. It’s a perfect hot weather dinner, while still having some substance to it. It’d be even easier to put together if you cooked the beans, potato and/or egg ahead of time.

CSA Challenge: Sage

Ok, so things weren’t too weird in the CSA this week. More garlic scapes, lots of mustard greens (which I’ve already asked you guys about), basil/oregano, lots of salad greens, and some good looking eggplants. So I think I’m going to make this week’s CSA challenge sage, since we got a sage plant in the CSA as well, and I’ve already got two in the garden, so I’m going to be sage-tastic this year.

What do you do with sage? I use it in roast chicken, blueberry sage cocktails, stews, stuffings, white beans, fall pasta dishes, saltimbocca…what’s a good summery sage dish that doesn’t require a lot of oven use?

Mediterranean Couscous Salad

Mmm, this was delicious. I basically incorporated the main ingredients of a Greek salad with couscous. We served this with spicy grilled chicken thighs and grilled wild mushrooms. I love grilling.

Lemon Chicken

This was one of our favorite meals in recent memory. I made it close to a month ago and never updated the web site, so let’s hope my recollection of the recipe is accurate.

This was a great way to use up leftover chicken parts (I’ve been in the habit of buying whole chickens lately), and John particularly liked the mix of white meat and dark meat.

Pea Crostini

Got the crostini idea from Joy’s blog, though I adapted the ingredients to what I had on hand. Nice and sweet. Thinner bread would have been better, but we didn’t have a baguette.

Pork Summer Salad

CSA Meal #2. Ingredients used: Garlic scapes, basil (in both dishes), salad greens. Pictured with pea crostini, which I’ll post in a separate entry.

Herbed chicken thighs w/ garlic scape potatoes

First CSA meal was a rousing success! Ingredients used: bok choy, garlic scapes, fresh oregano and fresh basil. Delicious. Served this with bok choy sauteed with sesame oil and black bean sauce.

CSA Challege: Bok Choy

It’s the first week of our CSA! I’m very excited. I want to do a feature called “CSA Challenge”, where I ask for input on how to use the most unusual ingredient in my CSA share (which I get every other week, on account of splitting with a coworker).

This week’s share is pretty tame, though. It’s mostly herbs and plants, along with salad greens, garlic scapes and bok choy. I’ve got the greens covered, and I just used scapes the other week. So I’m going to make this week’s challenge bok choy.

I’ve made the cabbage several times, almost always with some sort of Asian preparation. I’m making tonight’s batch with a black bean sauce, though I find it a bit off with the rest of the meal, which is more traditional. So my question to my readers: how would you prepare bok choy without going the Asian route? Please leave answers in the comments!

Herb-Stuffed Chicken Over Penne In Creamy Tomato Sauce

Remember me? Between getting married, going to Barcelona on my honeymoon, etc., I haven’t been doing a whole lot of cooking, and have been doing even less recipe blogging. Anyway, I’m back now, and getting back in the habit by posting the first meal I’ve made since I returned.

I did a lot of work in the garden yesterday and had trimmed a bunch of chives and arugula as a result. Wanted to use them up in some way, so figured I’d stuff them in chicken with goat cheese. The rest of the meal went on from there. I served this with wax beans with tarragon, and some sourdough bread, both from the market.