Giving Lambchop a Fighting Chance

A few weeks ago, Zack read this article in the New York Times. "Did you see this?" he pestered me. "We should eat more like this." So I, being the accommodating girlfriend that I am, made an effort to make our meals more like this.

For those of you too lazy to read the article, it basically talks about the merits of eating less meat (not no meat, just less). Having grown up in the land of tofu, I feel pretty much the opposite of that sentiment. "Meat!" I grunt. "Bring it on. Extra bloody. I will suck on the bone marrow!" (No, I haven't had bone marrow yet. We should go! Yes, I mean you.) However, we're getting our CSA deliveries every week now, and I basically have more vegetables than I know what to do with, so I can see the merits of eating more veggies and less meat.

Tonight for dinner, I throw together what is rapidly becoming my go-to salad: baby arugula (thanks, CSA), cherry tomatoes, avocado, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and a few shavings of Parmesan cheese. It is really good, plus it uses up a lot of lettuce and I get A LOT of lettuce every week now.

I moved on to polenta (which you've all seen me make a thousand times. Click here if you feel nostalgic) with sauteed swiss chard. The more CSA veggies I eat, the more I feel like Alice Waters. Instead of cooking really complicated things, I just get really good produce and cook it simply. I sauteed half an onion in some olive oil, chopped up my beautiful rainbow swiss chard and threw it in the pan. After it wilted, I hit it with some salt and pepper. Super easy and delicious. Anyone could do it.

I finished my plate with some tiny loin lamb chops. I figured, if I'm going to eat less meat, it may as well be a really good cut. I just sprinkled some salt and pepper on them and threw them in the broiler. They sure were tasty.

Here's our meal after I ate half of it and then decided to take a picture with my cell phone. I miss my camera.

Food, glorious food!

Another week, another box of veggies from my CSA. This week, I got so much stuff, I had to fill not just one tote bag, but two. What did I get? Well, I'll tell you.

More Rainbow Swiss Chard - I love pretty-colored veggies.
Romaine Lettuce - good for salads, if only my sister was here.
Strawberries!
Rhubarb! - oh I love rhubarb. Remember that crumble I made? Oh deliciousness.
Baby Arugula - which Zack and I had for dinner....along with steak.
Broccoli - we get the smallest head of broccoli ever. It's almost comical.
Flat leaf parsley - ok, it says it's cilantro on the website, but I swear it's not.
Garlic scapes - do you know what those are? I do.
Kohlrabi - I bet you really don't know what those are.

Ok, here they are - garlic scapes:


And kohlrabi:


(No, I did not find my camera cord. But I took these of my Astoria CSA website, so I figured this is as close as I'm going to get to pictures of the actual vegetables that I have)

According to Astoria CSA, garlic scapes are "are the stems of the Allium plant, with the flowers attached." I diced mine up and sauteed them in olive oil, then added my kale from last week and chicken broth. I also added red pepper flakes which Zack did not especially appreciate. Oh well. The scapes gave off a really strong flavor - way more taste than I was expecting.

Kohlrabi is "a cruciferous vegetable like broccoli, kale, cabbage, bok choy, guy lan and brussels sprouts. High in Vitamin C and soluble fiber, it is great for you as well as tasty." I asked the lady at the CSA what to do with it and she suggested salad....I guess we'll see. I'll make sure to tell you how it is!

Find one thing, lose another

I got my second box of CSA veggies today. I am liking the CSA so far. You pay for it in advance, so after you pay a (rather large) lump sum, you don't have to give anybody any money and they just give you a giant box of freshly grown veggies. It feels like it's free (even though it's not).

I got some pretty things, my favorites being the strawberries and rainbow swiss chard. I took some pictures for you, and I was all set to post them (since I finally have internet in my apartment again), but then - I couldn't find the cord to my camera. Figures. I'm like a Buster Keaton character over here. Oh well. I stole this picture off the internet instead.


I made a great whole wheat pasta dish with my swiss chard. You can expect many vegetable based recipes in the months to come!

Greenies

Today is my first day as an offical tree-hugging-veggie-eating-birkenstock-wearing "green" New Yorker. That's right, today is the first day of my CSA.

What is CSA, you're probably wondering? It stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Basically, Zack and I have bought a share in a local farm (out on Long Island) and each week from June until Thanksgiving, we get a box of fresh local organic vegetables. It's pretty neat. At least, I hope it is. Kate over at pie in the sky has had one for a while. She seems to like it (or so I gather from reading her blog). Plus, Katie from the Red Terror Squad (or from many other posts on my blog - see here) has one. Meredith just got one as well. So, bandwagon, consider yourself jumped upon. I'm getting my veggies. And fruit!

My CSA is called Astoria CSA (clever, no?). I'll take some pictures and post them just as soon as I get internet in my apartment....any day now.