cooking outside of the box!

What did you cook this week with your bountiful box of vegetables? Tell us all about it!

your stories

Lip-smacking Mango/Kale salad is delicious. And I love it amazingly. We all friends eat in the summer hot weather. It’s really really tasty. Yummy!

Made the Collard Greens Pesto and it was fantastic. I’ve never been a fan of collards but the Pesto converted me!

I’ve never had fava beans before so I really appreciated the wonderful recipe that came with last week’s box.  It was delicious!

Love getting the Alaska barley! Is it available regularly anywhere else?

Found a recipe online for a Mango/Kale salad - it is delicious.  The recipe instructs you to “massage” the kale in the citrus/oil mixture for a few minutes.  This makes the kale nice and soft, but not mushy.  Enjoy!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/aarti-sequeira/massaged-kale-salad-recipe/index.html

It was a nice surprise to see carrots in this weeks box since they weren’t on the list… thought maybe they were put in place of the mushrooms that we were notified weren’t coming, which either way was great! So, I grated up some of the carrots and made fresh carrot cake with cream cheese frosting & shared it w/the guys at my pick up spot!

Cake:
2 C.  flour
2 C.  sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
3 C.  carrots, shredded
1 C.  veg. oil
4     eggs
frosting:
2 (8 oz.) pkgs. cream cheese
1/2 C. butter, softened
2 tsp. vanilla
4 C.  powdered sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour 2 (9"x1.5”) round pans or 1 (13"x9”) pan and set aside. Cake: Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon in a bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl, beat oil and eggs together until combined and then stir in carrots. Add carrot mixture to flour mixture until combined. Pour batter into prepared pan(s). Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove cake(s) from pan(s). Cool thoroughly on racks. Frosting: Beat together cream cheese, butter and vanilla until fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar and mix teal spreadable consistency. Frost tops and sides of cake. Cover and store in refrigerator.

I found a new, fantastic way to use collard greens.  The recipe is on epicuriuos.com - search for Collard Green Olive Pesto.  YUM!!!!  You’ll be surprised by the flavor in this fun twist on pesto.

Super wonderful surprise:  fresh tofu!! Oh wow—tofu stir fry tonight! I used to make my own in Japan and now look forward to this great treat—thanks!!

Bonanza! On to curried lentils with garnet yams and red pepper over cilantro rice or braised bok choy. And salad galore! Ginger carrot soup. Fresh fruit for dessert. A Happy Week to come!!

Jonesing for pork chops, but one last night was enough, so to celebrate 3rd 30-min elliptical machine work-out since getting GBS, I made Basque Pork Stew with red peppers and oranges and put over organic chard—so good no words for it! Now back to beans, grains and veggies…...
Asked Glacier Valley what to do about all the stems I throw out—oops Glacier Grist #20 told us! So I did this for my Basque Pork Stew bed—-wow! Stems ahoy!! Wish I could put the photo here!