Grilled Bok Choy (A story of a picky eater reformed by the farm share)

I'm throwing the farm share on the grill this summer, starting with Bok Choy. This easy and versatile side dish of tender stems and smoky crispy leaves is great with fish or chicken.

In honor of my formerly picky eater's 17th birthday, I thought I'd share a story about picky kids and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm shares. 

Ten years ago we set off on our first CSA adventure filled with loads of idealism (farmers! local food!) and a smattering of technical skills. Our kids really didn't have a say in the decision, but being resilient military kids they were used to going with the flow, living in a variety of settings and being offered a variety of foods. 

The kids were not big on a lot of vegetables, however. Sure, my daughter would eat raw broccoli stems for a snack and my son (a carb and cheese lover) would eat the occasional baby carrot under duress, but mostly they'd eat corn or potatoes. [One glaring exception was Yakisoba.] When a box full of vegetables comes into the house, and then another and another and another every week, though, you have to figure something out or you'll end up wasting food.

I hate wasting food. It's a waste of my money and our farmers' time. If the food came to us all packaged it would be an even bigger environmental waste, but in this case my compost bin doesn't complain.

After the massively steep learning curve of the first year farm share I picked up a few tricks [and shared some of them in a post written during the slow winter months]:

• Make familiar foods with additional vegetables added.
• Perform Vegetable Triage to identify and use what is most perishable first.
• Think outside the salad bowl.

Every season some new-to-me vegetable will throw me for a loop, but eventually I find a way [or fake one, our motto Peary high] to love it. Or at least tolerate it. I've had plenty of failures, some shown on my FB page, but the one that is family legend is Grilled Radicchio. I tried some recipe years ago and we hated it. [Like, straight into the compost bin don't even pretend to eat it for the kids'  sake hated it.] The only Good Thing about grilled radicchio became the story.

When you take your kids to the pediatrician they'll get asked "what fruits and vegetables won't you eat?" I'm sure it's a roundabout way to gauge a child's nutritional status. My kids will always answer without hesitation "Grilled Radicchio!". This usually shuts down that line of questioning. I can only assume it's because a kid who has an opinion on grilled radicchio has probably been exposed to more than just baby carrots, corn, and potatoes.

When I picked up the first farm share the other day I was delighted to see strawberries, spinach and salad mix and unsurprised to see additional greens. It's Spring, after all. I decided to grill some bok choy partly because I had the grill out for tilapia and salad turnips and partly to try and change our family's perception of grilled leaves. I loved how the edges of the leaves got all crispy like kale chips, and was pleased at how tender the stems became so quickly. I kept the seasoning simple--a splash of soy sauce--because we ate it with fish and rice, but I think you could go in a variety of directions. Maybe some lemon pepper seasoning, or hot sauce, or a balsamic vinegar reduction.

For more recipes using bok choy, please see my Bok Choy Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other ideas using greens, please see my Greens board on Pinterest.

Easy Artichoke Arugula Pesto Burrata Pasta

A fast-to-fix vegetarian pasta dish using farm share greens, marinated artichokes, and creamy burrata cheese. Putting up pesto is one way I keep from being overwhelmed when the farm share greens are in abundance.

I forgot to take finished, plated, photos of this dish. I also had the grill going and it just slipped my mind. I debated sharing this recipe today, seeing how it's the first day of the the farm share season and I had the potential for new and returning readers arriving on the blog and did I want to start off with less than my best foot forward?

I decided that I did. Hope you understand!

The idea that you don't have to Eat All The Greens in a Week was a revelation to me when I adjusted to eating from a CSA, and putting some items up for later use is one of the ways I feed my family from our seasonal farm share year round. We're starting our 10th year enjoying the fruits of CSA farmers' labors, and recipes like this are one the tips and tricks for farm share success. For other tips, please check out this post. 

When we get a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box filled with assorted greens I am emphatically not looking to throw them all into salads. There are only so many salads we can eat in a week. Instead, I'm looking to turn anything not expressly salad-like into a recipe ingredient, and I give myself bonus points if it becomes a long-storing ingredient. I've shared a concept recipe for incorporating farm share greens into pasta dishes here, which is a terrific quick use for a bunch of greens. If you've got a bit of time to do some prep work, though, you'll be reaping the benefits for months by putting up some of your greens as pesto.

Arugula pesto fits the long-storing ingredient category--typically we're getting arugula in the farm share side by side with a bag of salad greens and other cooking greens. It's useful to be able to put up a batch of pesto. I store mine in the freezer in half pint jars, with a splash of olive oil on top, using these terrific lids (Amazon affiliate link). I don't just want to share how I put up this stuff, though--I want to show you how I use what I put up.

This pasta dish is my second version of a fast burrata pasta meal. The first one, that I've made three times now [unheard of in my family] uses meat and winter squash so it will debut in the Fall. Oh, so worth the wait. I wanted a vegetarian and summer-friendly version, good for a quick supper, so I took the burrata pasta concept and here we are. Adding in artichokes just elevates a simple pasta dish into a snazzier one, though we are in danger of the kids becoming artichoke fans and eating all the leftovers. The same thing happened to us with take out Indian food, and now my picky eater tells me the spaghetti sauce needs more eggplant. Educated palates. Harrumph.

Burrata cheese was new to me, and my spellcheck keeps trying to change it to burrito. When I first bought it I thought it was just like fresh mozzarella and was sorely disappointed when the creamy center oozed all over my pizza dough. Once I embraced the gooey center I came to appreciate it for what it is (creamy), not for what it's not (solid). I've found burrata cheese at the fancy cheese counter of my local Kroger. It's pricey but perishable, which means whenever I see it marked half off/quick sale I pick it up. [Yes, I cruise the fancy cheese counter looking for magical markdown stickers--I'm married, I don't cruise bars anymore.] I know we'll enjoy burrata pasta dishes so it's worth the splurge--at half price at least.

For other recipes using arugula, please see my Arugula Recipes Collection. For other recipes using marinated artichokes, you're looking for the Recipes Using Veggies In Jars Collection. These are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for ideas when you're facing an unfamiliar ingredient. You can also find me sharing ideas via my Pinterest boards and my FB page. Want to know how to Use This Blog? Click here.

Green Garlic Hummus with Green Garbanzo Beans

Freshly harvested mild green garlic and green garbanzo beans make a colorful and flavorful dip.

We are all hungry. My spouse is bike commuting these days and comes home starved. My kids get home from these last weeks of school and are starved. I think about making dinner and get peckish. Having an easy appetizer on hand, one that is protein-packed like hummus, is such a time- and appetite-saver for us all. I'm not worried about mindless snacking when I know what went into the dip.

Sometimes I'm buying the giant vats of Sabra from Costco to get our hummus fix. Sometimes I'm looking around at the contents of our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box for hummus ideas. I've done quite a few for the blog--here are some of them:

In the spring we sometimes get fresh green garlic in the farm share. I like to play with it and try new things--I grow my own garlic but I've never harvested it as green garlic. Susan of Luna Cafe has a Fresh Primer on Green Garlic and Garlic Scapes--check it out here. [The garlic scapes, however, are something very worth harvesting--here's what a brand new baby scape looked like on my tallest plant the other day]. 

This hummus marks my first foray into green garbanzo beans. I saw some at my local spice shop and couldn't resist. I had no clue that spice shops existed before I moved to Dayton, and now I'm aware of 3--although I primarily shop at Spice Paradise where I got these beans. You can also make this with regular dry or canned chick peas. Whatever's easiest.

Green garbanzo beans and green garlic seemed like a good idea--so I made a hummus. We enjoy hummus with carrots, pita chips, pretzel chips, and even piled up in a plate with other summer eats for an easy dinner.

For other recipes using garlic, please see my Garlic Recipe Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. Want to know how to Use This Blog? Click here. For other vegetable appetizers, please see my Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks Pinterest board. To see what's up in the garden, feel free to check out my FB page. And, for more clickable collages of recipe suggestions like the hummus above, click here.