Back to the Grind

For me, weekday cooking is all about making extra stuff to make meal preparation easier and to have quick lunchable stuff on hand to pop into the microwave at work. Because as fun as eating out for lunch is, it's a bummer on both the wallet and the waistline.

Tonight's dinner goal is to make something that will provide enough for lunch tomorrow and use up some veggies from the box. I'm going to go for quasi chow mein - i've got some bok choy, zucchini and snow peas from the CSA box as well as some canned water chestnuts and frozen shrimp to spice it up.

During last superbowl weekend (still hating the Steelers) I learned how to make a warm noodle salad at the demo kiosk at Shoreline's Central Market. Basically soak premade chinese noodles in warm water, while sauteeing your veggies, then mix up with high quality teriyaki sauce like soy evay. I think my quasi chow mein will be something like this.

I also need to get on my next slow cooker staple project as we finished up all the white beans.

CSA Box

First of all, I have to put in a plug for the CSA program I belong to Full Circle Farm rocks!

Since this blog is all about just cooking what I've got on hand, I thought I should share my latest CSA delivery list with you to kind of preview what I'll be cooking with over the next two weeks.

1 bunch Baby Bok Choy FCF
1 bunch Red Radishes FCF
0.75 pound Asparagus
2 each Hass Avocados
1 pound Sunchokes FCF
4 each Cameo Apples *
0.5 pound Snow Peas
4 each Oranges
1 each Green Leaf Lettuce
4 each D'anjou Pears *
1 each Cucumbers
2 each Grapefruit
0.75 pound Zucchini
FCF = Grown at Full Circle Farm
* = Grown in the Pacific Northwest

From my own garden I have a ton of Kale that we need to eat.

We did already eat the asparagus steamed and smothered with this incredible sauce my Aunt Cheri makes - lemon zest, mayo, garlic and capers. We also ate one of the avocados with chilaquiles. As well as mashed sunchokes (like mashed potatoes) with truffle oil.

I'm toying with making tzatziki with the cucumber since I have dill and mint in the yard and possibly using the hard boiled eggs in salad with the green leaf lettuce.

Hard Boiled

After patiently listening to my fried egg stories, my friend Jenn has turned me onto the virtues of hard boiled eggs. I boiled up a few last night to see what I can pull off with this theme. 

Cooking on Friday nights is always sort of a bummer and I was feeling a touch overwhelmed by the fridge so full from the latest CSA box, so I opted for sandwiches. In keeping with the hard boiled idea, I made Pan Bagnat, basically a tuna sandwich with extras popular in Nice, France. There are 1,000s of variations listed on the web, this takes advantage of what I had in the fridge. 

Pan Bagnat for two

2 chunks of baguette (hoagie sized)

1 can of tuna (I used oil packed because I thought it would add flavor, but I don't think it necessarily did)

Anchovy paste (if you like it)

Mustard 

Mayo

1 Tb Capers 

Thinly Sliced Onion

1 Hard Boiled Egg 

Lettuce

Pepper

Be warned, the measurements listed here are eyeballed. I hate actually dragging out the measuring tools. 

While briefly heating the baguettes (do not forget you are doing this), I chopped up the capers and mixed them into a ramekin with generous spoonfuls of mustard and mayo, then spread a thin layer on the baguette. I also spread a small amount of anchovy paste, then added half the tuna to each, a slice of lettuce, and slices of hard boiled egg (length wise). Ground some pepper on top and presto! Dinner is served. 

Bonus round - I had extra mayo mustard mix and used this to make one deviled egg for us to share as a treat with dinner. To make this, unpeel a hard boiled egg, cut it in half lengthwise, then mash the yolk in with mayo/mustard, then spoon this back into the eggwhite half. If you are feeling fancy top this with paprika or pepper (I was not and just ate it, loved it with the capers). 

Ok I have 5 hard boiled eggs left and a week to eat them - send any ideas you have. Jenn swears by hard boiled eggs with nutritional yeast as a quick snack, but I don't have any on hand. 

Everything is Better with an Egg on Top

This "Everything is Better with an Egg on Top" article has inspired much of my cooking lately.

http://www.seattlepi.com/food/405132_egg0414.html

I put this article to use straight away. For a quick low-effort dinner, I sauteed the last of the salad spinach with garlic and a dash of leftover evaporated milk and the last tablespoon of butter. Then stirred in cooked whole wheat pasta, and topped it with a two fried eggs. I sprinkled this with pinenuts and parm for good measure.

It was awesome.

Since this pasta had no veggies to chop and a new CSA delivery was scheduled for the next day, i opted to cut up the remaining roots from the last box (in this case beets and yams) and toss them in olive oil to roast at 350 for 40 minutes or so while preparing the pasta. After we were done eating dinner, I moved these into pyrex for lunches or to make a hash with some morning, because hash is an awesome way to eat fried eggs.

I dealt with a mountain of bolting kale from the garden with the new fried egg article ideas. For breakfast, i tossed fresh kale into the saute pan to steam and then added some crushed garlic, white beans from my latest slow cooker staple making* and again topped this with fried egg and parmesan. So far the husband seems happy to be enjoying the fried eggs and my trainer did tell me to eat more protein right? After a long work day plus night class, I again reached for a fried egg to top the last of the left over chow mien for a late dinner. It was way better than when it was delivered.

Content with the fried egg trend, the next morning i noted some aging tortillas in the fridge and thought: I should try chilaquiles! This was shockingly easy - i just chopped 3 corn tortillas into strips, doused them with verde salsa, added some cream cheese and covered it while i made coffee. After the tortillas looked like they had absorbed the salsa, I cracked two eggs on top, put the lid back in for a couple of minutes and voila, yummy breakfast for two that was reminiscent of something we ate on a beach in Mazatlan.

*once a week I try to remember to cook some beans in the slow cooker. You just toss in a cup or two of dried beans, 2 cups of water per cup of bean and turn it on high, 3-4 hours later you have cooked beans that you can use for the week. Just freeze what you don't get to that week. I like canned beans too, but this is cheaper.