Deceptively Delicious

(Photo by Scott Robinson via Flickr)

This fabulous recipe is a go to favorite for crazy week nights. I use flat breads or whole wheat pita bread to make these. You can substitute beet greens or kale or steamed chard for the spinach. It is from the book Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons. I found the recipe all typed up and pretty on-line at this great CSA website that has lots of other things to check out too.

Spinach and Mozzarella Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Chile Dipping Sauce

Sandwiches:

6 ounces fresh spinach (large stems removed)
2 fresh pieces of lavash bread, or 1 large split pita pocket
2 plum tomatoes, cut in half lengthwse, then sliced crosswise
2 ounces mozzarella cheese, grated (or sliced, if it's fresh mozzarella)

Chili Dipping Sauce:

1 teaspoon hot chili sauce
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons plain whole, low-fat, or nonfat yogurt, or nonfat sour cream
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

Make the dipping sauce: in small bowl, combine the chili sauce with the mayonnaise, yogurt, mustard, cider vinegar and garlic. Stir well.

Steam the spinach over high heat for 2 minutes. Let the spinach cool.

Lay one of the pieces of lavash or pita on your work surface, with a short side of the bread directly in front of you if you are using lavash. Lay half the tomatoes across the bread, about 3 inches from the side closest to you. Squeeze any excess water from the spinach, then lay half of it on the tomatoes. Sprinkle or lay half the mozzarella on top of the tomatoes and spinach. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Then roll the bread, starting with the side closest to you, as tightly as possible. Follow the same procedure for the second sandwich. (For pita pocket, fill in same order.)

Heat the olive oil in a large (preferably non-stick) skillet over medium heat. Place the two rolled sandwiches (or pita pocket) in the skillet, and place another skillet on top to weigh the sandwiches down. Cook the sandwiches for about 4 minutes or until they are golden brown, then turn them and cook the other side for 4 more minutes, checking the undersides frequently. Cut in half and serve with a small bowl of the dipping sauce.

(edited to add Lee's Kohlrabi recipe from the paper crop sheet!).

Soy Sauce Vegetables

(This resembles the little pickled side dishes served at Japanese cafes)

2 cups any firm vegetables-turnip, daikon, kohlrabi, carrots, beets and so on

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons sugar

mild soy sauce

Cut vegetables along the grain into julienne strips. Put them in a large jar with a lid. Add salt and sugar and shake well so that vegetables are coated. Let stand at room temperature for at least an hour or up to overnight.

Pour in enough soy sauce to cover vegetables. Press down to get rid of air pockets and let stand at room temperature for a day. Drain off soy sauce. (it can be reused for pickling or cooking). The vegetables will keep indefinitely in the refrigerator.

MAKES 2 CUPS

Recipe Maven Musings

Well, you all had great responses to my ravings, I mean musings last time. Thanks so much for your comments. Barbara Blackie sent me this link to a really great New York Times article that addresses almost the exact issue I was talking about last time: picky kid eaters. The highlight of the article, to me, was the point that little kids between ages 2-5 are prone to picky eating and that it's okay. From the article: "It’s an evolutionary response, researchers believe. Toddlers’ taste buds shut down at about the time they start walking, giving them more control over what they eat. “If we just went running out of the cave as little cave babies and stuck anything in our mouths, that would have been potentially very dangerous,” Dr. Cooke said." This makes a whole lot of sense to me and gives me hope that Abby will someday take a bite of chard and dig it. The article also does a mini-review of Deceptively Delicious written by Jerry Seinfeld's wife. This is another book that has mom's grinding up the good stuff to hide it from their kids. This method gets the "strong food" into the kids, but it doesn't teach them to like it or understand it.
Interestingly, the day after sending out the last cropsheet, I caught wind of the 2 Angry Moms movement. This is a documentary that follows two mothers as they attempt to change what's in their children's school lunches. The movie is wonderful and the idea of trying to change things here is even more wonderful. Even if you don't have children, your tax dollars pay for the crud that gets served to the children of our community. And, eventually, we'll all have to pay for the health care costs of the next generation from eating High Fructose Corn Syrup, Hydrogenated Fats and MSG (among other nasties). The sound bite that struck me the most from this movie is that the current generation of children are the first ever to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. Shocking. Now, if that isn't reason enough to start fighting for change locally, I don't know what is. To get involved and see the film, go to the Port Angeles Public Library Saturday October 27th at 3pm or Monday Oct. 29th at 6:30pm.

In Defense of Daikon

Recipe Maven Musings:
That long skinny albino carrot looking thing from last week’s share that is most likely still lurking in your crisper drawer or more likely ditched in the “take one, leave one” crate (there were a whole lot there on Friday!) is a daikon radish. Daikons seem to get a bit of a bad rap. They really are just long radishes and are quite good. I thought I’d give a few ideas as to how to use them so we won’t be as quick to give them to the people we split our shares with (uh, sorry Darek and Allison!).

Lorna J. Sass, author of Recipes from an Ecological Kitchen (which was later published in paperback as this) has this to say about daikon:

“Long prized in Japan. . . .raw daikon is said to aid in the digestions of oils. I prefer to eat it raw and enjoy to the fullest its radishlike bite. Just before serving, scrub daikon gently and then grate it. Toss it into a salad or serve it by itself in mounds, lightly sprinkled with umeboshi vinegar, lemon juice, or soy sauce. Alternatively, slice the daikon into ½-inch rounds and use as a “cracker” base for an interesting spread. Daikon cubes cook quickly and lose their bite: Add them to a stir-fry for the last 1 to 2 minutes of cooking.”
Recipe:
Former Port Angeles resident and farm member, Jen Zawacki was visiting last week and suggested using up the daikon in some fresh spring rolls.

Using the beet and daikon slaw (recipe below) as a starting point, some pretty yummy stuff happened!

Add some grated carrots (the beets and daikon could be grated too), some julienned cucumber and bell pepper to the slaw. Wrap in a spring roll skin (those almost clear, round wrappers. I’ve only found them at McPhee’s on 8^th and Race here in Port Angeles. Don’t use the kind of wrappers that are meant to be deep fried) with a few leaves of basil or mint or cilantro and some soaked bean threads. Roll them up and serve with your favorite peanut sauce or a thai sweet chili sauce (also found at McPhee’s and oh so tasty!). You could put baked tofu slices in there or cooked shrimp or chicken, mung bean sprouts and a squeeze or two of lime would be yummy too.
This is really a very easy meal to slap together and is a great way to use lots of veggies from the share.
If you’d like a good tutorial on how to put a Vietnamese Spring Roll together, this is a great website with pictures and everything:

Beet and Daikon Slaw -from Bill Maddex, member of Drumlin Community Farm (from Asparagus to Zucchini)

2 beets, peeled and cut into 1/8-inch julienne (matchsticks)

1 six-inch daikon radish, peeled and cut into 1/8-inch julienne

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

2 teaspoons canola oil

1 teaspoon unsalted rice vinegar

1 teaspoon sea salt

Combine all ingredients in a non-reactive bowl, cover and let stand at least 1/2 hour, season to taste and serve. Makes two servings.