Super Filling!

Today was an exciting day (well, in my definition of exciting)...we got our first box from our new CSA. My friend J. is managing this CSA and I am really excited to support her and the farm that she gets the veggies through. It is a great value and the food is super fresh. The photo at right is of the contents of the box. It is just the right amount of food for us...the portions are smaller than they were in the Farm Fresh To You box, but there is a bit more variety and every single item is something that I will certainly use in the next week. Today's box included: spinach, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, garlic, cilantro, romaine, radishes, kale, pinto beans and wild rocket (arugula). I was able to make a lot of choices when I picked up the box (i.e. I could have had chard or kale, spinach or more arugula...) but I chose pretty "regular" stuff for us this week. I will get more adventurous in weeks to come. We also got our first batch of meat from the accompanying meat CSA. We don't eat much red meat at all (I grew up in a family that didn't eat beef so i am not very adept at cooking it) but it will be a treat to get a bit of beef and lamb each month. We get about 3 pounds a month and this month's batch included lamb chops, ground beef and a steak...all grass fed and organic. Yum!

For dinner tonight I cooked 3 CSA box items: butternut squash, broccoli and kale. The butternut squash came from last week's box and I used it for a curried butternut squash soup with curried cashew cream and the broccoli and kale were super fresh from this week's box. I roasted the broccoli and made delicious kale chips from the kale. It was a really tasty dinner and it was also SUPER filling. I am always amazed how full a bunch of vegetables can make me!

This dinner was a little more time consuming than most of my recent dinners have been, but I split the work up and I also had help tonight from my trusty assistant Z. He is always at the ready to work the salad spinner and man the cuisinart and blender when necessary. He performed his duties with a lot of enthusiasm tonight and even had time to do dishes for the first time ever. I love love love when he asks to help in the kitchen!

While I was cooking dinner I also soaked and then cooked big batches of both black beans and chickpeas, which will be turned into veggie burgers later this week. I have just started cooking beans rather than using canned ones; this is a transition that I have resisted for a very long time. But my dear friend J. is extremely convincing and she finally wore me down with tales of BPA-lined cans and the ease of preparing the beans. Not surprisingly she was correct on both fronts. The whole process takes a lot of time but it extremely easy and the beans end up much tastier than they ever did when they came out of a can. Shocker.

On to the recipes! First up, the soup. The soup recipe is a mash up of a few different ones that I found on the web. It is creamy and hearty and really good. This amount of curry powder was just right for us but you can adjust it up and down to suit your tastes...or leave it out altogether!

Roasted Curried Butternut Squash Soup

1 large butternut squash
1 large onion
2 cloves garlic (I used the minced stuff in a jar)
2 teaspoons curry powder
3 to 4 cups vegetable stock
1 and 1/2 cups light coconut milk (either one can or 1 1/2 cups of So Delicious Unsweetened brand)
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. (We are drying our seeds and are going to try planting them!) Rub the cut surface with a little olive oil and place the squash, cut side down, on a cookie sheet that has been topped with parchment paper. Quarter the onion and place that on the cookie sheet as well. Roast the squash and onion at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes, until the squash is tender anywhere you push on it. Once you remove it from the over, turn it over and let it rest on the cookie sheet, cut side up, until it is cooled. Then scoop the "meat" out of the skin and place it in a bowl for later. Dice up the roasted onion and set it aside separately. (I did all of this this afternoon and set it aside for the evening. You could even do this the day before.) Heat about 1/2 tablespoon of oil in a large pot over medium heat. When hot, put the diced onion and garlic into the pot. Cook them until the garlic is cooked through, about 2 minutes. Now add the curry powder and cook for 4 to 5 minutes longer. Add in the squash, the salt, 3 cups of the vegetable broth and the coconut milk. Bring to a boil, reduce the head and simmer, uncovered, for about 20 minutes. If you have an immersion blender (on my wish list!) you can puree the soup in the pot, otherwise puree it in batches in your blender. Just ladle enough into the blender until it is no more than half full and let it run for a minute or so then pour the pureed amount into a bowl. Repeat this until all of the soup is pureed then return it to the pot to keep warm until serving.

Now onto the curried cashew cream. This, I admit, sounds really strange. I know that. But it is GOOD. This is one of those condiments that I make and then we find oodles of uses for over the ensuing days. It is also really easy to make! I got this recipe from VegNews magazine, which is a vegan magazine...but it has some really good recipes so I check it out every once in a while.

Curried Cashew Cream

3/4 cup raw cashews
2 teaspoons curry powder (the recipe calls for more than twice that amount, but we are content with this much)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup coconut milk (or unsweetened almond milk), warmed up

Just put the cashews in a blender or cuisinart and grind until they are a fine powder. Add the remaining three ingredients and blend until it is a nice creamy consistency. This is a lovely topping for the soup...you can dollop it on and then stir it in for a little extra dimension.

Time for the side dishes!

Roasted Broccoli

1 head broccoli
2 to 3 teaspoons minced garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt to taste
juice of half a small lemon
parmesan cheese if desired

Preheat the oven to 425. Toss the broccoli, garlic, oil and salt in a bowl and place in a roasting dish large enough to accommodate the broccoli in one layer. Roast for 20 minutes then top with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a sprinkling of cheese if desired.

Last but certainly not least are the kale chips. These are all the rage right now and for good reason. I can hardly believe that we only started eating kale a couple of years ago...my mom didn't know what to do with it so she never prepared it, but we use it in soups, we saute it, we roast it and we eat it in salad. It is delicious every way, and packed full of vitamins...how can you go wrong with that combo?

I have tried a bunch of different kale chip recipes and have learned that there are 2 important tricks that make all the difference between success and failure in the creation of a kale chip: first, the kale needs to be really well dried before it is tossed in oil and put in the oven. Wet kale just doesn't work. Second, you need to be prepared to watch these very very carefully. There is a very fine line between under cooked and burnt, so you just need to peek regularly. I have seen these cooked at every temperature between 200 degrees and 425, but I think the following recipe makes the best chips.

Kale Chips

1 head kale
olive oil
salt to taste
nutritional yeast (available in the bulk section of Whole Foods...but it is optional. If you use it, cut back on the salt a bit.)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Remove the kale from its stems and tear the leaves up into pieces about the size of a potato chip. Put the kale in a salad spinner and rinse well, then dry really really well. There shouldn't be any water clinging to the leaves. It doesn't need to be bone dry; if you let a 5 year old enthusiastically run it through a salad spinner for 3 minutes it will be dry enough! Now toss the kale with the olive oil and salt and place it in a single layer on the cookie sheet. If you are using the nutritional yeast, dust the kale lightly with the yeast now. Roast in the oven for about 20 minutes...some ovens take longer, some take a little less. Mine took about 27 minutes today and it was a wee bit overdone. The chips should still be green but should be crispy.

Whew! That was a recipe-heavy post. I hope you get a chance to try a few of them sometime...I am sure you will enjoy them!