CSA Week #3

Uh oh, I'm starting to understand what people mean when they say they can't get through their CSA boxes - so much lettuce! Other things can cook down, but cooked lettuce sounds gross.

All green, with a splash of purple and yellow.

- 2 heads romaine
- 1 bunch of collards
- 1 bunch purple onions
- green garlic
- garlic scapes
- 3/4lb salad greens
- zucchini
- yellow squash
- cucumbers
- 1 bunch savory
- two giant broccoli crowns

Caesar Salad

So first up was a caesar salad. A loaded caesar salad, I will add. We have supplemented our CSA this week with mushrooms (shitakes, morels, and procinis), an avocado, and tomatillos, so you'll see some of those coming up. Anyway, a caesar salad is all about the dressing. Do that part right and the rest will follow. The dressing and the cheese, I should say.

Dressing
1 egg
1 egg yolk
~2 tsp dijon mustard
olive oil. How much? I have no idea.
lemon juice
salt to taste
freshly ground pepper to taste

Dump everything except the oil and seasonings into a food processor. Process to combine, and then start drizzling in the olive oil, until you've reached a consistency that you want to drizzle onto your salad. I wish I could tell you how much that is, but I suspect you can also google it and let the internet give you a more exact recipe.

Salad
Chop up a lot of romaine. Romaine is really the perfect lettuce for this, because it's firm enough to hold up to the heavy dressing. Grate in a TON of parmesan, and toss that around, reserving some for on top. There's your basic caesar, though really croutons would make it ideal. We didn't have any. Optional toppings, that we cooked last night:
- 2 yellow squashes, cut into rounds and fried just until there is color on both sides
- bacon. duh.
- avocado
- shitakes, cooked first in butter and finished with chicken stock
- more cheese

Catching up...
Also, catching up from last week, here's how we finished off week 2's veggies:

Sauteed baby brassicaceae with garlic scapes and butter-fried porcinis and morels and a small hunk of cod that had been butter poached with thyme and then topped with a tomatillo sauce and the fried thyme, and of course a broiled wedge of cabbage drizzled with any remaining fish/mushroom/thyme butter. Quite delicious.

The drinks, though. I don't have the full recipe, but they were so awesome I should write it down. Ed is the bartender around here, so they were his creations.

Strawberry-mint cocktail:
- mashed strawberries
- muddled mint
- lillet
- white rum
- chartreuse

Basil-Lillet cocktail:
- muddled basil
- lillet
- white rum
- chartreuse
- honey