G is for Green Bean

The Cooking Light Bulletin Board is my favorite place to gather recipes. I've been on the board for so long that I know who's tastes match mine and I can always count on someone there having an answer to a question. This recipe is one that I've been making for awhile, but I don't think I've ever shared it. It's simple. Green beans sauteed in garlic butter-how could that be bad? This week I took it a step further and added some garden fresh carrots and zucchini and made it Garlicky Veggies, and it was just as good. Because it's quick and delicious, it's perfect for a weeknight. And should you have any leftovers, they are fantastic folded into an omelet the next day. Frozen green beans do work well for this, but since garden fresh beans are available right now, do try to get your hands on some. Jewel's Garlicky Green Beans are worthy of their superstar status on the CLBB.
In other news, yesterday on one of my other blogs the template I was using punked out on me, so I needed to find a replacement. Of course, after I did one blog and tweaked it and got it looking just the way I wanted, I had to do the rest of them. I still like the way this one looks, so I won't be changing it yet...but I have thought about it! So take a peak at my other blogs if you haven't done so in a while- I think they turned out really well. (And please let me know if you catch a problem I've missed!)

S is for Sugar Snap Peas-Eating Locally

I meant to post about this yesterday, but the day got away from me very quickly. Saturday we had a long day, and is it crept closer to dinner time, Andy suggested that we go out for dinner. And while I was tempted for a brief minute, the fact was that I had fresh farmer's market produce, and I wanted to use it freshly plucked from the ground. So I pulled a flank steak from our local butcher, Maplewood Meats, and got to work. The steak received a simple rub of Penzey's Old World seasoning. I happen to consider Penzey's local as well, as its home is here in Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and since that's less than 200 miles away, I consider it local. The steak went on the grill along with the new potatoes. The potatoes and a few of the spring onions were tossed in a foil packet with some fresh rosemary from my garden, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

I also wanted to do something with half of the sugar snap peas. At first I had been thinking a stir fry with my oyster mushrooms, but I decided that since the kids were gobbling up the peas, a salad was more in order. I wanted to sweeten up the peas a little bit more, as I thought in their completely raw state they were slightly starchy. So I got out my steamer and steamed the peas for about 4 minutes, and then ran cold water over them to shock them. This worked perfectly, it brought out the sweetness and eliminated the starch, while still retaining the crunch of the raw snap peas. I tossed the barely cooked peas with a chopped yellow tomato, and the large cherry tomatoes. I drizzled these with a raspberry-walnut vinaigrette that the kids have been fond of lately, and everyone enjoyed it. The salad was perfect, the snap peas and the tomatoes played off each other perfectly with the vinaigrette. Both kids enjoyed the Sugar Snap Peas, and since I still have half of them, tonight I am going to get to that stir-fry and see how they like them cooked. Next year I guess I'll have to plant some peas as well.
It felt really good to eat locally, and to know that everything on the table was fresh and at its peak. There will be much more to come from the local farmer's markets, and I'm contemplating a drive out to our favorite produce stand to see if they have anything out there yet. We may get to that later today yet, if not... it will be later this week.

B Is For Broccoli

And you can read all about the new way to eat broccoli today over at Kids Cuisine, rather than repeat myself here. :-)

In other veggie news this morning, my garden is doing great! Last year my garden really limped along, but this year we added some compost from some very generous friends and it's really taken off. So far we've been enjoying radishes, and the romaine is just starting to be pickable, so there will be many lettuce salads in the near future. Last night we had tostadas for dinner, and Abigail was so excited to top hers with "delicious lettuce from the garden." Gotta love that. The cucumbers, melons, and zucchini plants all look amazing as well! I just hope we have enough critters in the area to do the pollinating. I'm also thrilled that it's June 6th- just 10 days away from the opening of the Farmer's Market!

When I cut the first tops off my radishes, I looked at those useless tops and thought it was a shame to put them in the garbage. So I grabbed a small bucket and a plastic bag and tucked them under my kitchen sink for produce scraps. I've been talking and talking about composting, and thought I should at least give it a try. I wanted to know how long I could put scraps in this bucket before it started really stinking up the kitchen. Well, it's been about 10 days now, and my bucket is full, and there is still no odor. I was told this would be the case, but didn't really believe it. This weekend Andy will be building a small bin for the backyard as I've started working on my second compost bucket and the stuff needs a place to go. What I've put in the compost has strictly been veggie and fruit scraps and coffee grounds. It's rather exciting to watch the compost bucket fill up rather than dump the scraps down the disposal or into the garbage.

Today begins the madness that is Abigail's dance recital week. It's a pretty big deal for us as it's her first, and we have pictures and dress rehearsals and my crazy husband has volunteered to do quite a bit of set up, so we'll see how the rest of the week goes. The last day of school is Friday, and I'm hoping to celebrate with a really good whole grain M&M cookie here, so stay tuned!

R is for Radish-Vegetable Wednesday

I've decided that going in order alphabetically doesn't make much sense for us. I'm working on a page where we can keep track and make sure that we hit every letter, and I'll be sure and link to it when it's ready. See, if I waited for R until we were there, it could be late July or August or even later and the radishes would not be what they are today. And that is sweet and wonderful. Yesterday I plucked the first handful of radishes out of my garden. There is something radically special about the first gleanings from the veggie patch. When I walked in the house with these gorgeous treasures, the kids got quite excited, and Abigail headed out to her garden and dutifully plucked one of her radishes.

The first words out of her mouth were "can I eat it?" Aha! She wants to eat a radish! Having not tried one yet myself, I did feel it fair to warn her that sometimes radishes can be "bitey", but then she cleaned it up, took a bite and declared it delicious. She savored that radish. We've had the perfect radish weather, as it's not been terribly hot, and these French Breakfast radishes have the tiniest bite, but mostly they are just sweet and crunchy. They're wonderful! And of course, needed to be used for dinner somehow. I turned to the current issue of Vegetarian Times which has several recipes I want to try and found a recipe for Couscous with Asparagus, Snow Peas, and Radishes. My Mom has an asparagus patch that is growing like crazy, so we headed over there for the daily picking, and the only thing I lacked was the snow peas. Chiding myself for not planting peas, we picked some up at the store and were in business.

This salad is light, refreshing and perfect for a hot summer day. As is, it is completely vegan, although a carnivore probably could add some diced chicken or shrimp to the salad for a more substantial meal. But it was excellent as is. Andy ate two helpings, and I really considered it. Abigail enjoyed it and said I could pack some in her lunch. The only abstainer was Zander who has a touch of a cold or something and didn't really eat anyways. Abigail also liked the asparagus in this salad, even though it was blanched, I told her it was raw and she ate it up. Do try this salad- it's the perfect declaration of spring. The only changes I made to this salad was to eliminate the mint (not a fan) and I added a drizzle of olive oil. You could certainly leave that off, but I really think it added something. The fresh herbs are key though- so don't be clever and try to use dried, the fresh herbs combined with the lemon juice really sparkle.

I also should mention that my friend Joe at Culinary in The Country also made a couscous salad yesterday and his looks fabulous as well- so check that out if you have a chance.

The Alpha-Veggie Challenge

This is the space where I will keep track of the vegetables we've tried to ensure that we don't miss any in the alphabet.

A- A is for Asparagus
B- B is for Broccoli
C- C is for Cucumber
D-
E-
F-
G-
H-
I-
J-
K-
L-
M-
N-
O-
P-
Q-
R- R is for Radish
S- S is for Sugar Snap Peas
T-
U-
V-
W-
X-
Y-
Z-

A Sure Way

To get my kids to eat their veggies. My kids love raw vegetables. Veggies and dip is one of Abigail's favorite snack. If I'm preparing dinner, and there is chopping of vegetables involved, I always have to give my kids a bit of the vegetables. Because of this, when I am cooking with something they really love, like red bell pepper, I actually pick up more pepper than I need, because I know they will happily gobble up half of it before it makes it to my pan. I'm okay with that. I love that they love their vegetables raw- they're full of nutrients and vitamins that way. And in fact, I've even thought about picking up a raw food cookbook for them, except that I don't think they'd welcome strangeness with their food. Things like vinaigrette's are to much for their little palates. Although last night Zander surprised me and gobbled up his salad at dinner time. I had made a salad of mixed spring greens, and usually both kids don't care so much for those little lettuces. Well, Zander inhaled it, even stopping to ask me what some of the leaves were called. Guess I should have planted a spring mix instead of just romaine. :-)

But what they do love is a good vegetable dip. They both love ranch dressing as a dipper, but Abigail's favorite is doubly good for her, and that is spinach dip. A simple dip made from sour cream, mayo, veggie soup mix, and spinach, she inhales it with vegetables, or even the occasional chip. I love that they're eating spinach up, and you know I always use a little more spinach than is called for to ensure that they're getting more of the good stuff. This time I also left out the can of water chestnuts called for and chopped up some artichoke heart bottoms instead. I really liked what that added to it. In the past I've also added a handful of feta cheese to change the flavor a bit, and that was also excellent. The add-ins are really endless. You could add some sun dried tomato paste for a new flavor profile and color, you cold add some freshly chopped herbs, or add some heat in the form of chipotle, smoked paprika, or aleppo pepper. Anyway you do it, Spinach Dip is a frequent flyer at our house.With that, I think I have pretty much decided that my regular Wednesday post is going to be devoted to vegetables. Some weeks it may be an update on our veggie challenge. Some weeks it may be a round-up of interesting veggie recipes from around the blogosphere. And some days, maybe it will be exploring something new from vegetarian or vegan cuisine. However it ends up, I hope you'll join me for my Veggie Exploration. It should be fun, and we are less than one month away to the farmer's market being open. This will be a fun growing season.

The Alpha-Veggie Challenge: A for Asparagus

This is proving to be very interesting. A few days back I had made the Asparagus-Pesto lasagna. Zander really liked it, Abigail thought it was okay- and neither of them knew it had asparagus in it. But they knew that Mom and Dad had asparagus in theirs. Then the other night I had picked up two bunches of asparagus and was prepping one to grill when Abigail walked in and said "Ewww...Asparagus!" I proceeded to remind her that she actually did like asparagus. Doesn't she remember that she likes to pick it fresh out of Grandma's garden and nibble it up. "Oh yeah...I guess I like asparagus not cooked." So I left out some stalks to peel the tough bottoms and leave raw for the kids. They both gobbled them up- dunked in a bit of ranch dressing. Both giving an enthusiastic thumbs up to raw asparagus.

Last night it was soup's turn. I looked to my "Veggie Evangelist" Alanna for inspiration and found a recipe for Easy-to-Elegant Asparagus Soup. I did make a few changes, but overall stuck with the integrity of her soup. The first change I made was to use less celery, and instead I added some chopped mushrooms to sweat with the onion and celery. I also added a pinch of dried thyme to the sweating veggies. Later on, when it came time to add the sour cream, I opted to use half & half instead because Zander doesn't like sour cream, and I wasn't sure if he would taste it. And finally, instead of the vinegar, I used a splash of lemon juice because I loooove lemon with asparagus. On the grown-ups portion of soup I also added some fresh lemon zest. I scooped it all into bowls and topped the soup with some homemade croutons for added kid appeal.

When the kids came to the table they commented on the soup- which was oddly served up as a side dish - that never happens here. So I told them I wanted to talk about my green soup on my blog and wanted to know what they thought of it. First tastes they both burst into "yum!". Zander then proceeded to gobble his up and ate most of his soup. Abigail ate a few bites and then turned her attention to her plate and the waiting goodness there. After they were finished with dinner, I confessed that it was actually asparagus soup- and they both were happy to learn that they liked asparagus soup. Abigail did tell me in all honesty that it's not her favorite, and she would eat it again, but would prefer her asparagus raw next time.

So far I have learned that if I don't come out and tell them asparagus is in something, they will at least taste it. And I guess if I want to hide veggies, I can probably get away with it for a little while, but eventually I think they'll both figure it out. I have one more asparagus preparation for them to try- and this one is going to be obvious. There will be no getting around the fact that they are going to try and eat asparagus. Will it work? Stay tuned.

Tomorrow, Michael's Chicken always puts my husband into a delirious coma. I'll share how I make it so that it is the epitome of roasted chicken perfection.