Tag

greens

Farmer's Market Lunch Recipes Main Dishes Salad

Arugula Pesto Salmon Salad

written by Ali

I’ll admit that I’ve been having a bit of a food blogging crisis of faith lately. Before we moved, before I started my new job, I had a better grip on work life balance. Here of late, it’s been challenging. I haven’t had nearly enough time to cook, much less take photos, promote my posts, and so on. I’m also five weeks into our move and still can’t find anything. Immersion blender has gone missing, as has the crockpot, and most of the lids for my lunch dishes. It will get better, right?

In the meantime, I’ve got a good reason to start cooking (and hopefully blogging consistently) again. We are sharing a CSA share with another couple and the CSA baskets started rolling in last week. I was inundated with veggies. I’m going to do my best to be inspirational and start cooking more around the CSA baskets, because, if you are anything like me, you may not quite know what to do with some of the veggies that show up in a CSA share.

So – here’s what we received this week: a head of lettuce, a bag of arugula, two harukei turnips (we are sharing, so my friend split the turnips 50/50), six baby artichokes, two bok choy, and a bundle of oregano. The bok choy went into stir fry, which is honestly the best way to handle much of what comes from the CSA. The oregano is languishing in the fridge – I’m open to inspiration on that one. The baby artichokes got roasted (and over-crisped – I’m also still figuring out the oven in our new house). Everything else landed in this arugula pesto salmon salad. I’m super lucky that we have access to some pretty incredible fresh seafood. It doesn’t hurt that where we go also serves some of the best clam chowder in the state (but I digress). The combination of arugula pesto and salmon is so wonderful. And it’s so easy to bake the salmon with the pesto and then toss it all into a salad. It’s the perfect easy lunch.

It’s so pretty, isn’t it? The salmon fillet gets coated with the arugula pesto and then baked. The salmon is perfectly moist and flaky and goes great with salad greens and a little drizzle of avocado oil and lemon juice. Super easy, super healthy, and the perfect lunch for a busy weekday.

Yum

Arugula Pesto Salmon Salad

Ingredients

1 cup arugula
1/3 cup pine nuts
Juice from 1/2 lemon
1 pound fillet salmon
Assorted greens
Other veggies as desired
1 tablespoon avocado oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Salt to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
In a food processor, combine the arugula, pine nuts and juice from 1/2 lemon and process until finely chopped (alternatively, you can chop by hand).
Place the salmon on a parchment lined baking sheet. Cover the salmon with the pesto. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until the salmon is cooked through.
To serve - flake the salmon into smaller pieces and place on salad greens. Drizzle with avocado oil and the remaining lemon juice. Salt to taste.
Serves 2. Enjoy!

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June 7, 2017 0 comment

Farmer's Market Lunch Recipes Salad

Green Salad with Asian Pears and Preserved Lemon Vinaigrette

written by Ali

There’s nothing quite so satisfying as a good green salad, especially when you add ingredients like Asian pears and preserved lemons. Asian pears are one of my favorite winter fruits: they are about the size of a very small apple, but have a brown-yellow skin and a pale white flesh. They are quite tasty while still a bit firm and can be eaten skin and all. They lend a lovely crunch to a salad and pair really well with nuts. If I could figure out where I put the hazelnuts from last year, as well as find the nutcracker, I would definitely have used hazelnuts on this salad. As it was, I do know where the walnuts are, so that’s what I went with.

I’ve been waiting weeks to start eating my preserved lemons. Preserved lemons are amazingly easy to make – all it takes is salt and lemons, though you can add in various spices, like peppercorns or bay leaves. This year, I made my preserved lemons with both peppercorns and bay leaves, but also added in the few juniper berries I had left over from pickling last summer. The lemons are perfectly salty and tart and ideal for adding to vinaigrette. I’m sure I’ll be posting more recipes with preserved lemons soon. If you are looking for a recipe, check out the preserved lemon recipe I posted last year. You can use regular lemons or Meyer lemons – both are fantastic. They do take a little bit of time, as the lemons have to cure in the refrigerator for at least a month. Use only the rind – the pulp is discarded. You can also find preserved lemons in various specialty food stores, though I have to say that these are super easy and quick to make and well worth the time to make a batch of your own.

As we move into the calorie laden holidays, I definitely will be eating salads with my lunches. This green salad with Asian pears and preserved lemon vinaigrette is a bright spot this time of year. Enjoy!

Yum

Green Salad with Asian Pears and Preserved Lemon Vinaigerette

Ingredients

4 cups salad greens
2 Asian pears, sliced and cored
1/4 cup walnuts
Preserved lemon vinaigrette (below)

Preserved Lemon Vinaigrette

1/3 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon finely chopped preserved lemon
Fresh ground pepper to taste

Instructions

Combine the salad greens, Asian pears, and walnuts in a salad bowl.
In a small jar with a lid, add the olive oil, red wine vinegar, preserved lemon and pepper. Shake to combine.
Dress the salad with the vinaigrette and enjoy!

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December 13, 2016 0 comment

Farmer's Market Freezer Meals Holiday Recipes Lunch Recipes Main Dishes Vegetarian

Winter Squash Stuffed Shells with Greens Pesto

written by Ali

I am a huge fan of all things winter squash (as you’ve probably figured out), making this recipe, a winter squash stuffed shells with greens pesto, one of my absolute favorite December lunches. This has everything I most love about the fall and winter: the slightly sweet squash, salty cheese, pasta, and pesto made with kale, spinach and walnuts. Since there is a small chance that there might be a little bit of snow in this part of the PNW tomorrow, this comfort food just seems perfect.

I used a combination of red kuri (my favorite) and the rest of the pumpkin puree I’d frozen earlier in the fall. Fortunately, I still have one more pie pumpkin in the garage – I figure we still have a few more months of cold weather and might need to make some more pumpkin bread. I also used a bit of the sage that is still growing out in the herb bed.

The pesto consists of both kale and spinach – really, you could use just about any combination of greens. I also used walnuts, because it’s what I had on hand. Pesto can be made out of any combination of herb or green, nuts, garlic, and Parmesan or other hard cheese. I love to try out different combinations. I also have started hand chopping my pesto – I think it helps the herbs or greens retain their integrity and not get mushy like they might in a food processor. The taste is a lot closer to pesto I had in Rome many years ago, so I enjoy it for the nostalgic value, as well.

All together, the winter squash stuffed shells with greens pesto takes about forty minutes to make, and most of that time is hands off while it bakes. It’s well worth the time. It also makes a great freezer meal – making it very appealing for lunch. Since it’s vegetarian, it would also make a great main dish for the holiday festivities for vegetarian friends and family.

Yum

Winter Squash Stuffed Shells with Greens Pesto

Ingredients

For the shells:

2 cups pumpkin puree or similar winter squash puree
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 + 1/3 cup parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon chopped sage
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 box of large pasta shells

For the pesto

1 cup tightly packed greens (spinach, kale, etc.)
1/3 cup walnuts
1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1/4 cup olive oil

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Bring a pot of water in a medium saucepan to a boil. Add the shells and cook for 8-10 minutes or until al dente.
In the meantime, combine the squash puree, the ricotta cheese, 1 cup of the parmesan cheese, the sage, and the pepper in a small bowl. Set aside.
Drain the shells in a colander and rinse under cold water. When the shells are cool enough to handle, stuff each with about 2 tablespoons of the squash and cheese mixture. Place the shells in a single layer in a 9 X 13 baking pan. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/3 cup parmesan cheese. Bake for 30 minutes or until the cheese gets lightly browned on top.
While the shells are baking, prepare the pesto. Put the greens, the walnuts, the garlic, and the parmesan in the middle of a cutting board and gently chop until the ingredients are finely diced and combined. Put the pesto in a small bowl and add the olive oil, gently combining.
Serve the stuffed shells with the pesto and enjoy!

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This post has been linked to Tinned Tomatoes: Meatless Monday. Check out her great posts!

December 5, 2016 18 comments

Beverages Lunch Recipes

Green Power Smoothie

written by Ali

When life gives you beets, make a green power smoothie – this might just be my new motto. We’ve had a project going on for the past three months that has involved a lot of driving, a lot of weekends away from home, and, unfortunately, eating what feels like a lot of fast food. Since that project is pretty much over, I’m feeling like it’s time to detox. Fortunately, it is summer and the farmer’s markets are in full swing, which means I have an abundance of fresh produce in the fridge. This past weekend, in addition to first of the season tomatoes, I also came home with Chioggia beets and a bag of mixed kale greens (though the latter was by accident – I actually thought I was grabbing a bag of spinach). My first impulse with the beets was to recreate a beet tartin recipe I’d had in Bandon, but then I decided that would take too much work, so opted to create a smoothie instead.

Chiogga beets are wildly striped pink beets. They are a variety of beet that hails from Italy and they have a decidedly un-beety taste. In other words, a beet hater might find them more palatable than the traditional dark red beet. I’ll take beets in any form, but I do like the milder, sweet taste of the Chiogga for a smoothie. I hate wasting beet greens, so decided to wash up a handful and toss them in the smoothie too. And of course, I had that bag of kale greens that needed to be used up. We also brought home blueberries and thus, a power smoothie was born.

I made up freezer smoothie packs. This entails putting together some or all of the fruits and veggies for a smoothie in individual freezer bags and freezing them. It makes it easier to blend a smoothie a day for the week. I’m not a fan of including the greens in these, so left them separate and will add them as I go this week. I also added banana for a bit more flavor and to get some additional potassium in my diet. The most time consuming part of this is boiling the beets, but that’s a very hands-off process.

Green Power Smoothie
Makes 5 Servings

3 beets of any variety
4 bananas, peeled and chopped into chunks
1 pint blueberries
Several bunches of greens (kale, spinach, and/or beet greens)
Coconut water

Wash the beets to remove any major deposits of dirt. Add the beets to a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring them to a boil and let simmer for 45 minutes to an hour. You’ll know the beets are done when a knife or fork goes into them easily. Remove the beets and run cold water over them. When they are cool enough to handle, slip the peels off. Chop the beets into chunks.

To make smoothie packs, distribute the chopped beets, the chopped bananas, and the blueberries evenly into five freezer bags. Freeze.

When you are ready to make smoothies, add one frozen smoothie pack to about a cup of washed and de-stemmed greens in your blender. Add a half cup of coconut water and blend until smooth, adding more coconut water if needed to get a smooth consistency.

June 22, 2016 0 comment

Farmer's Market Freezer Meals Lunch Recipes Vegetarian

Spring Saag Paneer

written by Ali

One of my favorite freezer lunch meals is saag paneer. Saag is typically made with some kind of green – in most Indian restaurants, you’ll find it with spinach. However, a few years ago, I came across a recipe for saag paneer that was made out of chard, and since then, I’ve been experimenting with various kinds of greens, particularly this time of year when spinach, chard, and other greens are in abundance at the farmer’s market.

As I mentioned in a previous post, there is another vegetable that is abundant this time of year – the hakurei turnip. I first encountered these in a CSA basket and fell in love with their radish size white globes and sharp turnip taste. My favorite preparation of these is a refrigerator pickle, but then I’m always left with the dilemma of what to do with the greens. Most root vegetable greens are edible, and I’ve experimented widely with radish greens, carrot greens, and beet greens. I have one go-to recipe for the hakureis that uses the entire vegetable, but didn’t want to go to that effort this week. Instead, I decided to use the hakurei greens, in combination with some chard, to make saag paneer. Given that I was missing some of the spices I might usually use making saag paneer, I was pleasantly surprised by how spicy the turnip greens make this dish. This is a lunch that freezes exceptionally well.

Spring Saag Paneer
Serves 3 or 4

1 package paneer
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 bunch Hakurei turnip greens or other similar greens (radish greens would also work well)
½ bunch chard or kale
1 teaspoon turmeric
¼ teaspoon cardamom
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup heavy cream
3 or 4 cups cooked rice

Cube the paneer. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a cast iron or non-stick skillet. When the oil is hot, put in the paneer and brown on both sides (about five minutes per side on medium heat). Meanwhile, chop the garlic finely and sauté in a medium saucepan in the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Chop the chard/kale and turnip greens coarsely.

When paneer is browned, turn off the skillet and set aside. Add the greens to the garlic in the saucepan and cook until they are wilted. Add the spices and salt and combine. Add the paneer and cook for a few minutes to combine flavors. Add the heavy cream and cook for another minute over low heat.

Serve over cooked rice.

This post is linked to the No Waste Food Challenge at Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary.

May 17, 2016 1 comment

Farmer's Market Lunch Recipes Vegetarian

Spring Green Buddha Bowl

written by Ali

I’ve been keeping a running list for a while now of lunches I really want to make (and eat). Featured prominently on that list for some time now is the whole grain, healthy and happy Buddha Bowl. The components of a Buddha Bowl can vary, but the basic foundation includes some sort of grain, vegetables, beans or nuts, and a sauce.

Spring time is such a great time for the vegetables for this lunch: at the farmer’s market on Saturday, I snagged broccolini (which, if you were wondering, is not baby broccoli, but a hybrid vegetable of broccoli and gai-lan), rapini (or broccoli raab), more asparagus, and more pea shoots.

Then came the challenging part. We now live in a metropolitan area that has a Trader Joe’s, a Whole Foods, and a New Season Market, in addition to three or four Fred Meyer’s, a Safeway, and a Win Co. Not a single one ever has every ingredient we need (at a price that’s reasonable). In an effort to avoid spending all weekend shopping, we tried to buy everything we needed at Trader Joe’s, but for the life of me, I couldn’t find the one ingredient I wanted to make a tahini-based dressing for my Buddha bowl – the tahini. Knowing that the week ahead was going to be busy, I went with the path of least resistance and bought Trader Joe’s peanut satay sauce. I’m not always a fan of pre-made sauces like this, but this one is good with the flavors in the bowl.

I also bought an interesting grain mix: it’s got Israeli couscous, orzo (so technically a grain and pasta mix), quinoa, and lentils. I threw in some avocado, chickpeas, and some cashews, and sprinkled the whole thing with a little bit of pink Himalayan salt.

Spring Green Buddha Bowl
Serves 4

4 – 5 cups of a grain or grain mix (Israeli couscous works well, as does quinoa, brown rice, or other similar grain or grain mix)
4 cups mixed greens chopped in small pieces (broccolini, broccoli, rapini, asparagus, chard, etc.)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 avocado, diced
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
½ cup cashews
4 – 8 tablespoons of peanut satay or similar pre-made sauce
Pinch salt

Follow the directions on the package to cook the grains. Divide cooled grains between four bowls.

In a non-stick or cast iron pan, heat the olive oil. Sauté the greens until they are cooked to your liking. Divide the greens between the four bowls.

Divide the avocado, chickpeas and cashews and distribute between the bowls. Add the sauce and combine. Sprinkle with salt.

These hold up well in the refrigerator so can be made early on in the week for lunch all week long.

May 4, 2016 0 comment