Spring CSA Week 7

 Herbs are never a bad thing. I was so happy when I opened my box this week to find cilantro, chives, and basil. I even traded my joi choi for more cilantro. We go through cilantro pretty fast these days. Tonight, we're having taco salad again and I was thinking about making more chimichurri sauce for a mixed grill dinner that we're having on Wednesday. It makes a great marinade, too. I'm hoping to use the basil in a sauce, possibly for eggplant on Thursday. It looks like I have plenty of carrots and greens for salads and braising. The cucumber always goes great in salad but it isn't bad for dressings and appetizers, either. I'll probably end up freezing the chives for another day and I'm not sure if the what the greens are in the share, they look like arugula, but they might be from a root vegetable or a mustard green.

Steak Tips with Chimichurri, Radish Greens, and Salad

The good thing about this dinner was it used up a lot of our share for the week. The bad thing is that using up the CSA vegetables early in the week means we have to work down our winter stock of frozen (non-CSA and comparatively bland) vegetables. I'll be glad when they are gone!

This menu consists of steak tips, seasoned with salt and pepper, left to rest at room temperature for about an hour, and then grilled, topped with my Cilantro, Lime, and Cherry Pepper Chimichurri. It also included a "salad bar" so that everyone in the family could build their own from the radishes, toasted nuts, carrots, cucumbers, cranberries, lettuce and goat cheese that I laid out. I made a Citrus-Balsamic dressing based on this, but I also added the juice of about 1/2 of a Meyer Lemon. I didn't think I would like it once I tasted it, and the acidity was definitely off, probably the fault of the orange, which is why I had to add lemon juice. Actually, once it was on the salad with the cranberries and the goat cheese it was quite good. The other item on the plate was sauteed radish greens. Finally. I know I've been talking about doing this for weeks! Everyone but me liked them, I found the flavor fine, but they were slightly tough for my tastes. I think kale is tough too, just to be fair.

Sauteed Radish Greens:
greens and stalks of two bunches of young radishes (I'd cut closer to the leaves for older bunches)
1 clove garlic, sliced thin
2 green onions, sliced
salt
pepper
olive oil
1 tbsp water

Heat olive oil in skillet, add garlic and sautee for 2-3 minutes over medium heat. Add greens, salt, and pepper. If the greens seem tough, add a small amount of water to lightly steam. When the leaves are wilted, removed from heat and serve.