CSA week #2

This week's haul was less exciting than last week; no hearty veggies like carrots or radishes, lots of leafy green things. Don't get me wrong, I like my leafy green things, but I wouldn't describe them as exciting.

- one head red leaf lettuce
- one head romaine
- one head boston lettuce
- 1lb mixed baby brassica
- three purple kohlrabi, with greens
- one bunch chard
- 2 bunches of dill
- 1 green cabbage
- several small cucumbers (for pickling?)
- several small yellow summer squash

I got to the pickup spot a little late, maybe thirty minutes before she closed shop, and she she was already out of garlic scapes (damn!) and winter turnips and parsnips. Lesson learned: be early to the pickup. Because I loooove garlic scapes.

So anyway, with Ed up in Vermont for the rest of this week, I did the obvious thing and made a salad. Ho hum. Despite my general disinterest in salad (I know, coming from MY family? who eats a salad every single night after every single meal?!?), it was a damn good salad. Actually, I'd totally make that salad again. The mixed baby brassica were interesting - I have no idea what I was eating. I chopped it up and mixed it around so that you couldn't really differentiate what was what, anyway, but some of the leaves were very peppery (arugula?), some were bitter, some were sulfurous, but they were all quite nice mixed up with the red leaf lettuce. I topped with a cucumber, some crumbled feta, and sunflower seeds. And a lemon/mustard/dill dressing, that also went nicely on top of a piece of cod on the side.




Trader Joe's sometimes has these wild Pacific cod pieces, I guess things that didn't make the cut on the fillets, for like $3/lb in the frozen section. Don't buy Atlantic cod, because that fishery isn't doing too hot, but Pacific cod is alright, I hear.

So anyway, I fried the cod in a mix of butter and olive oil, and really I should have done it much hotter and for much less time and finished it in the oven, because it got a little tough near the outside. Or just braised it slowly and then applied a blow torch. It was still tasty enough, but I wouldn't have served it to someone else.

While the cod was going in the pan with butter and oil, I split a yellow squash down the middle and added one of those, too. It browned up nicely. And two really sad-looking shitakes that had been in my fridge too long - I soaked them for a bit in a mix of white wine and chicken stock to re-hydrate, as I assembled the salad, and then ripped off the stems and just let them be in the cod pan with all that butter. Mmmm.

Oh, and the salad also had some croutons - I had some bread trying to go stale on the counter, so I hastened the process with a hot pan and some butter. Very worthwhile addition to the salad.

Now that I think about it, this meal could really be titled: Ways to add butter to your diet.