15 June, 2010

Making CSA Magic

Yes, people, it’s true! I’ve been making more than smoothies for the past four days!

My first challenge was the radishes. I’d never eaten/bought a radish in my life so I was at a bit of a loss. Especially when the woman at the booth said that I aught to cook the greens as well. I didn’t really want to sauté them because that’s boring, frankly, and also I’ve got 4 pounds of swiss chard to eat my way though in what will probably be a similar fashion. So what do I do? 

Make soup of course!

GO GREEN! really, really green.

Creamy Radish Leaf Soup

Ingredients:

2T Earth Balance
1 large onion, diced
2 medium potatoes, diced
4c raw radish tops
4c vegetable broth
1/3c soy milk (I used soy for its thickness)
salt and pepper

Method:

1. Melt the butter in your favorite soup pot. sauté the onion until tender. Toss in the potatoes and radish tops and stir to coat.Pour in the broth and bring to a boil. Put a lid on it but leave it crooked so the steam can vent a little and simmer 30 minutes stirring occasionally (if you feel like it).

2. Allow the soup to cool slightly, transfer it to your blender. blend.
**note**Be sure you know how your blender works with hot food!!! You definitely do NOT want a giant green explosion instead of lunch.

3. Return your super-smooth soup to the pot, mix in the soymilk, and season to taste with salt and pepper

So, that’s what I ate on Saturday. I was really surprised and happy with the results. It had an earthy-peppery taste that i really enjoyed. I’d feed it to anyone :)

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Sunday’s dinner I don’t have any pictures of. It wasn’t exactly picture worthy. . . that’s a lie, I was just SUPER hungry and forgot. Anyway.  I made the gnocchi from Vegan Yum Yum (have you gone out to buy it yet?!) but instead of thyme and cashew cream I did a butter and sage sauce since I’d gotten sage in the CSA.  Holy cow. I ate SO MUCH. All you need to do is sauté the sage in a couple tablespoons of butter until they’re crispy, toss it with your gnocchi and nom away until you explode.

I also shelled and boiled the entire giant bag of peas that I got and served those with the traditional butter, salt, and pepper fixing. This pairing of potato and peas was a little on the starchy side for me but still, I’m glad I made it. For you, I’d recommend a nice salad or some steamed veggies as a side instead of peas.

Now, Monday morning arrives and I’m left with a big pile of leftover peas. What to do, what to do. . . Make ravioli! That’s what! I tweaked a Martha Stewart recipe that I had collected years (literally) ago and just kept and forgot about until now. She calls for wonton wrappers for the ravioli skin but I was too lazy to go out an buy some so I made my own pasta. (yeah, I know, you don’t have to say anything, but I can’t go to the store in my underwear, can I?)

I’m putting one picture here for you and one at the end to “incentivize you to scroll all the way down!

Tiny plate or HUGE ravioli? You decide!

 

I decided to use the pasta recipe from Urban Vegan; the most simple of the eggless pasta recipes I’ve tried and, to date, the only one that has work even remotely well. I had to add more water than she said to but any number of factors could have contributed to that. Just be careful. Also, if you’re going this route, don’t roll the pasta out too thin! It should be a little thicker so it holds the filling in. I stayed at the third thinnest setting on my pasta machine.

Don’t be put off because the recipe seems long. I added extra details for the uninitiated or un-Italian. Just read it though once before you start. Okay, enough of this talk! Time for the recipe!

1 recipe of pasta dough
filling:
   3T olive oil
   .25c chopped onion
   1 clove of garlic, minced
   2.25c shelled fresh English peas
   .25c dry white wine
   1c water
   1.5t salt
   2T nooch
   black pepper
a small bowl of water

1. Follow the directions to make your pasta. While the dough is resting make the filling.

2. Heat the oil in a pan and cook the onion until it's translucent. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant. Add peas, wine, water, nooch, and salt, season with pepper and simmer until the liquid has almost evaporated. about 15 minutes. Let the mixture cool a little then puree it in a blender or food processor. Filling is done!

3. Now comes the part of the process that is a total pain in the ass as I do not have a ravioli maker thingie. Not only that, but I don't even have a round cookie cutter. Ah well, where there's a will there's a way. . . the way I chose was the top of a wine glass. Feel free to do whatever feels right for you. Just keep in mind to put the "appropriate" amount of filling for your shape. An over-filled ravioli is an exploding ravioli.

Roll out a sheet of pasta and cut out the shape you want your ravioli to be. Dust them lightly with flour so they don't stick together ad stack them on a little place in the fridge. . . You may not have to stack them in the fridge but my kitchen is hot as Hades in the summer. . hence cooking in my undies. . . anyway. . . Once you've got all your little circles, or squares, or triangles, or giraffes, cut out you can start a little assembly line.

4. First get your pasta shapes out and set them at the beginning of your line. in the middle there'll be your workspace with your filling in one upper corner and your little bowl of water in the other. Get a sheet pan out and line it with waxed paper. Dust that with some flour and set it at the end of your line. You may also need some extra flour to dust your workspace with.  Now, set out some of the pasta shapes (I like making 12 at a time because I'm anal retentive).

Plop down some filling in the centers of your shapes. I had circles about 2" in diameter and I used a teaspoon of filling. just for reference, you know. Now grab another piece of pasta and moisten the edges with a little dab of water all around. Flip that, wet edges down, over the filling and seal the edges with gentle pressure all the way around making sure to get out any air that may be trapped with your filling. Repeat for what feels like eternity.  As you finish each ravioli, place them on the prepared sheet pan. Once the pan is full, move it to the freezer while you fill up the next pan. By the time your second pan is done the first ones will be frozen enough to dump into a Tupperware in the freezer to keep until you're ready to eat them.

5. I'm sure, by now, you're starving because you've been making ravioli for 3 days so put a big pot of salted water on to boil. When it comes to a rolling boil carefully dump in your frozen ravioli. Once it seems that most of them are floating to the top let them boil for 1 more minute and gently drain them. 

How you sauce them is up to you. Martha suggests butter and chiffanade mint leaves. I, being the rebel that I am, made a basil cream sauce for mine. Usually I go for vegan Yum Yum's hurry-Up Alfredo but I used the recipe from Urban Vegan instead. It tasted alright but I added about a tablespoon of Bragg's Liquid Aminos to tone down the tangy nooch-ness this sauce had.

I barely managed to take some quick photos before scarfing this all down. It was TOTALLY worth all the effort and I'm defiantly making this again if I ever end up with another ton of peas in my fridge.

It's not easy being green.

1 comment:

  1. Very creative idea for using up those radish greens! I too hate to throw things like that away- They're perfectly edible, and packed with such great nutrition. And besides all that, I already paid for them anyways! I'll try out that soup next time I have beet greens on hand.

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