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Category: Herbs

  • Tabbouleh Salad

    Tabbouleh is a simple salad using lots of chopped vegetables, lots and lots of parsley-usually mint and bulgur wheat. That is all tossed with lemon and or lime and olive oil for a bright salad that stays fresh for days and travels well.

    Tabbouleh Salad

    • 1 cup dry bulghur wheat
    • 1 1/4 cup boiling water
    • 1 1/2 tsp salt
    • 1/4 cup lemon and or lime juice
    • 1/4 cup olive oil
    • 1/2 cup chopped onions or scallions
    • 2 or 3 cloves of garlic chopped
    • 1 cup chopped packed parsley
    • optional additions; mint, garbanzo beans, feta cheese, any fresh vegetables chopped bite sized like cucumber, carrots, tomatoes.

    1. Combine the bulghur wheat with boiling water and salt and let that sit for a half hour or so then add the lemon juice, garlic and onions, oil and mint if you are using it. Refrigerate at least 2 or 3 hours or even overnight. It mellows and blends and rounds out all the sharp flavors. So letting it sit and mellow is important.

    2. Just before serving add the parsley and whatever vegetables you like. Be really generous with the parsley and vegetables. You should have more vegetables than bulghur.

    3. Toss it all up and add feta cheese if you like. I usually add more lemon juice and a little more salt and sometimes olive oil. Taste it-it should be bright and vibrant tasting.

    Feel free to riff on the vegetables you add. This is a great salad for cleaning out the refrigerator and using what you like and not being tied to a rigid formula or recipe.

    Happy eating.
    Mo

     

     

  • Herb Packed Cucumber (or Zucchini) Salad

    This is a great summer salad when cucumbers and zucchini are crisp and tender and herbs are abundant.

    You can use either zucchini or cucumbers here and any soft herbs-mint, basil, tarragon, parsley, chives, dill, cilantro. I like to mix and match what I have.

    Herb Packed Cucumber Salad

    • 1 pound of cucumbers or zucchini sliced thin. I love my mandoline for this but you can use a knife
    • 1 small onion sliced thin
    • juice of one lime
    • 1/2 teaspoon honey, agave or sugar
    • 1/4 cup sour cream or yogurt, you can use any dairy free options too if you like
    • 1 tablespoon olive oil (I forgot this in the photo)
    • 1/2 -1 cup chopped soft herbs. I had chives, mint and parsley today

    Place cucumber (or zucchini) in a colander with a pinch of salt and leave it to drain for about 1/2 hour. Put the sliced onion, lime juice, agave and a pinch of salt in a bowl to marinate while the cucumbers drain.

    After 1/2 hour put everything (add herbs, sour cream and a little olive oil) in a serving dish and mix it up really well. 

    Taste and see if it needs more salt, sweetener (for balance) or lime and enjoy!

     

     

     

     

  • Basil Pesto

    Summer is in full swing and we have lots of basil, that means it’s time to make some pesto.

    Making it couldn’t be easier. You just need a few ingredients and most of them are pretty much optional. Don’t like garlic? Leave it out. Don’t have any nuts? OK it will be delicious without them. Want it vegan? Leave out the cheese or use a vegan option. Have extra herbs like mint or tarragon or any other soft herb? Add them! It will make it more interesting.

    This recipe is for a fairly small batch. You can easily scale this up if you have more basil or other herbs. I gave a span of amounts in the recipe, so start with the small amount and taste and add more as needed.

    Start by grabbing your bunch of basil.

    • This bunch is about 4 cups loosely packed basil, like I said, scale this up or down as needed and taste!
    • 2 to 4 cloves garlic, peeled
    • 1 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
    • 1/4 to 1/2 cup grated Parmigiana (optional)
    • 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts, almonds, or walnuts (optional)
    • 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

    You’ll notice I didn’t add salt or pepper. I used Parmigiana cheese and it was plenty salty. Taste and see if you need salt or not.

    Strip the basil leaves off the stem. The soft stem on the top are ok to leave.

    Combine basil, garlic, nuts, lemon, and the cheese in a food processor. Pulse to combine. Add the oil and purée until smooth. Taste and add more salt, lemon or oil if needed.

    This made a little more than a cup which was plenty for a pound of pasta.  If you have any leftover you can put it in a Ziplock bag or ice cube tray and freeze it for winter or add it to any salad, roasted or grilled vegetables or any grain dish. Pesto makes everything better.

    I didn’t freeze my leftover pesto. I slathered on a few sandwiches.

    Yay summer. Have a great week. I’ll see you at pickup.

    Mo

  • Garlic Chives vs Onion Chives

    Every week we try to provide an herb choice with your CSA share. I think that herbs are an easy way to elevate a so-so dish to a ‘wow’ dish, so I really love that herbs are included in our CSA shares.

    This week two of the herb choices are garlic chives and the more common onion chives.

    In the photo below garlic chives are on the left. They are larger and have flat leaves and taste mildly of garlic and onions. The onion chives are on the right and are tube shaped and hollow and have a mild onion flavor and are very tender.

    Garlic chives can be eaten raw but also hold up to cooking and are very similar in texture to leeks when they are cooked-kind of melting into a dish. Onion chives are almost always used fresh and raw and are bright and have a slight ‘snap’ when you bite them.

    Lots of Asian dishes use garlic chives, they are great tossed last minute in soups or any sauteed meat, egg or vegetable dish.

    I grilled some asparagus the other day and heated up some butter with garlic chives while the asparagus was cooking.

    This simple side dish was totally the star of our meal.

    If you haven’t tried garlic chives maybe grab some this week and give them a try and let us know how you like them.

    Have a great week and I’ll see you at pickup.

    Mo

     

  • Sage Brown Butter

    I am a huge fan of herb butters. Herb butters are a simple way to brighten up everyday dishes. You can add them to mashed or steamed potatoes, drizzle some on pasta or ravioli, top mushrooms, beans, or corn to uplift almost any ho-hum dish into something special.

    Sage brown butter only takes a few minutes to make and keeps for at least a couple weeks in the refrigerator so make some and keep it on hand.

    All you need is

     

    • 4 ounces (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter
    • 1 clove garlic, crushed and chopped (optional)
    • 1/4 cup (about) coarsely chopped fresh sage leaves
    • Salt and pepper

    Take the leaves off the sage and chop them.

    Put the butter in a sauce pan over medium heat and let it melt

    The butter will start to foam, bubble, and pop, this is good! Eventually these bubbles will just sort of sink to the bottom of the pan and start to brown and it will start to smell nutty and yummy. Add the sage and garlic now, if you are using garlic. It will bubble a little and smell amazing.

    Leave it to simmer on a medium heat for 3 or 4 minutes, but don’t let it get too dark. Take it off the heat if it is getting too dark.

    When the butter is brown and clear and stops bubbling t’s done. Take it off the heat and add salt and pepper and taste it to see if it needs more.

    At this point your kitchen will smell so good you won’t need me to tell you what to use this on, you will want to put it on everything!

    Try some on eggs too.

    Have great week. See you at pickup.

    Mo

     

     

  • Cucumber and Herb Cocktail

    I love a well crafted cocktail. I especially love cocktails using fresh ingredients like herbs and flowers and vegetables. Before the pandemic I almost never made cocktails at home, maybe a gin and tonic or a margarita. I do love to order them when we go out. During the pandemic when we weren’t going anywhere I started making cocktails at home.

    This is a fun drink. It’s pretty much a gussied up gin and tonic. You can personalize this with what you have and what you like. I used Thai basil leaves here. You could use mint or thyme or lemon verbena, Italian basil,  maybe tarragon, or mix of any of herbs you like. I also used agave as a sweetener instead of sugar. I have been using agave more and more in my cooking. It taste like sugar and mixes easily into dishes without having to dissolve like sugar does. You can leave the sweetener out too. The tonic has a little bit of sweetness to it.

    This amount makes one drink, multiply as needed.

    • 1 1/2 oz gin (1 1/2 oz equals 3 Tbsp)
    • 6 slices cucumber
    • 1/4 medium lime (sliced)
    • 4 oz tonic water
    • a small fist full of any herb you like-I can tell you mint, basil, thyme are all good. 
    • 1 Tbsp sweetener, agave, honey, sugar  (optional)

    Instructions

    • Add mint, cucumber, lime, gin, and agave or (equivalent if using) to a pint glass and muddle (smash up) everything I used a fork.

    • Pour the whole mixture into a glass filled with ice and top with tonic water or strain it and top it with tonic, I strained mine. I don’t strain it when I use thyme, you do what you want. .
    • Stir, let set for a few minutes for the flavors to enhance and enjoy.

    These go down really easy. Have a great week. See you at pickup.

    Mo

  • Fried Beans with Sorrel and Green Garlic

    I love sorrel. I love sorrel with eggs. I love sorrel mixed in with any sautéed greens or added to a salad. It brings a bright flavor, more mild and more interesting than lemon.

    I followed this David Lebovitz recipe pretty much to the letter except I used green garlic instead of green onions. I’ll copy the recipe at the end of this post.

    What makes this dish special is frying the cooked beans. Frying them makes them crispy on the outside and creamy inside and just a little chewy and very satisfying. The sorrel brightens the dish and the green garlic rounds it out.

    This is all you need to make this; some beans (I cooked my beans, I’m sure you could use canned) a bunch of sorrel and I added pea shoots too, and some green garlic or onions and lemon.

    The recipe as written sounds a little complicated, but all you are really doing is frying the beans in oil and butter, the butter browns the beans so if you use only oil they won’t brown as much.

    Then sauté some greens and garlic or onions and mix them together and add a squeeze of lemon.  You really don’t need a recipe.

    We ate ours with an egg and some crushed almonds and feta and fresh mint.

    Have a great week. See you at pickup.

    Mo

    Fried Beans with Feta, Sorrel, and Sumac
    Four to six servings
    Adapted from Plenty (Ebury) by Yotam Ottolenghi

    Yotam’s original recipe says to soak the beans in a generous amount of water with 2 tablespoons of baking soda. Some bean purists scoff at using baking soda in the water, but for those who live in areas where the water is full of minerals (such as Paris), I add a large pinch to the cooking water, as the locals do. The beans should be cooked just until tender, but not cooked to mush. The cooking time for them will vary but don’t let the water
    foam up when you do! For the spring onions, I used cébette (which often goes by
    various names in France), which you can see pictured in the Herbed Ricotta Tart
    recipe. Scallions, green garlic, or a similar spring onion can be used. In the post, I
    mention some possible substitutions for the sumac and sorrel.

    1 pound (450g) large dried white beans
    optional: pinch of baking soda
    8 spring onions or scallions sliced lengthwise into 3-inch (7 cm) batons
    1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
    7 ounces (200g) sorrel, cut into 1-inch (2 cm) ribbons, plus a little extra for garnish,
    cut in very thin strips
    1/2 teaspoon sea salt, plus more for seasoning
    1 1/2 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lemon juice
    5 ounces (150g) feta cheese
    2 teaspoons sumac
    handful of fresh herbs such as chervil, dill, mint, or flat-leaf parsley
    For frying the beans:
    1/4 cup (60ml) olive oil
    4 tablespoons (60g) butter (see Note)

    1. Rinse the beans and sort to remove any foreign objects.
    2. Put in a large pot, cover with plenty of water, and let stand overnight.
    3. The next day, add a pinch of baking soda to the water (if you live in a hard water
    area), and simmer the beans until just tender. The cooking time may be as little as
    30 minutes, or over an hour, depending on the beans. Add additional water if
    necessary.
    4. Once cooked, drain well and toss them in a bit of olive oil, which will prevent the
    skin of the beans from flaking, and bit of salt.

  • About Sorrel and Sorrel Scrambled Eggs

    Sorrel is a perennial herb with a bright lemon-green-vegetable flavor, if that makes sense. It is really hard to describe….lemon spinach maybe, but more tender than spinach. The leaves are very tender and sort of melt into whatever dish you use them in. They don’t look like much, looks are deceiving. The flavor packs a gentle punch unlike any herb I can think of.

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    I tell people to use it like you would basil; add sorrel to tomato sauce, or top pizza, make sorrel pesto or just add it to any salad. A handful of sorrel added to this super green pasta dish would be great! It brings a really bright unexpected note to anything.

    It goes especially well with eggs and cheese dishes like omelettes or quiches, or anything creamy and rich.

    If you haven’t ever had sorrel start with sauteing a handful of sorrel into some scrambled eggs. Once you taste it you will think of a million ways to use it.

    You know how to scramble eggs, I know. Sorrel isn’t very photogenic, neither are scrambled eggs. I took a few pictures anyway to  show you how sorrel turns brown-green when cooked. I don’t think it is a bad thing, just know what to expect.

    I use a handful of sorrel for every two eggs. I like to put a little spoonful of sour cream into my scrambled eggs right at the end of cooking, you don’t have to do that.

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    Absolutely delightful. Yes I said delightful. Delightful, not pretty.

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    I hope you try using sorrel. I think you’ll love it.

    See you at pickup.

    Mo

  • Green Salad with Herb Buttermilk Dressing

    I love a big fat satisfying salad. I love to make full meals with just my CSA share.

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    I have made this twice this week for dinner and all we added was bread and cheese one day, the other day we had it with leftover grilled lamb.

    I slightly adapted this recipe to use what I had.  Here are the ingredients I used.

    1/2 cup buttermilk
    1/2 cup mayonnaise
    2 teaspoon  red wine vinegar
    2 teaspoon whole grain mustard
    a generous 1/2 cup of mixed fresh minced herbs like chives, dill, basil, garlic scapes, or mint
    1/4 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
    freshly ground black pepper
    1 pound blanched snap or snow peas, green beans or edamame or fava beans
    1 head Boston or Romaine lettuce or salad greens mixed

    1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Prepare an ice bath in a separate bowl.

    2. Drop whatever peas or beans you are using in the boiling water and cook until tender-crisp, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the peas or beans with a slotted spoon and drop in the ice water to cool them quickly. As soon as they are cool, remove them from the ice water and let them drain.

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    3. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, mayonnaise and what ever herbs you are using,  along with the vinegar, mustard, 1/4 teaspoon salt and black pepper. Taste, and add extra salt, if it needs it.

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    4. Put the lettuce leaves in a salad bowl. Pat the peas dry with a towel and add them to the bowl.

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    Pour half the dressing over the salad and mix thoroughly add more dressing if it needs it. I served the extra dressing on the side and we dipped the grilled food into the dressing, it was that good.

    Summer is here and we are starting to get warm season vegetables so enjoy the lettuce we are getting before it gets too hot and it is gone.

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    Have a great week and I’ll see you at pickup.

    Mo

     

  • Basil Bunches and Making and Freezing Pesto

    Fall is here and it is time to start saying goodbye to Summer crops. The shorter days signal crops like tomatoes, peppers and eggplant to stop blooming and to concentrate on ripening the fruit that is set on the plants. Wyatt says the pepper plants will probably finish this year before we even get a frost, a first for Red Wagon.

    Basil plants are notorious for wanting to bloom and go to seed. We relentlessly  ‘tip’ every single plant almost daily to keep the plants from blooming and to ensure a long basil season for our Farm. But, alas, nature wins the battle and the basil plants bloom.

    This week we will be cutting the basil plants down and will be giving basil bunches as a choice.

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    I wanted to give you a heads up so you can have a plan for what to do with all that basil.

    This basil is a little tougher and a little more pungent than the early basil tips you got a couple months ago in the small Ziploc bags.  It’s beautiful and delicious, just a little different.

    I like to make pesto and freeze it. I love to add pesto to Winter roasted vegetables. It brightens up meals and makes me happy thinking of the Summer bounty.

    Below is a basic pesto recipe. You can use any nuts you have, or leave them out all together. Same with cheese, add it or leave it out. Sometimes I  blend only the basil and olive oil and simply freeze it that way leaving me lots of flavor options.

    Another heads up; These mature plants make a deep green-darker pesto than pesto made with young early spring plants-something about how the older plants have more chlorophyll now.

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    For every 2 cups of basil leaves you will need;

    2 cups fresh basil leaves (no stems).
    2 tablespoons pine nuts or walnuts or any nuts or no nuts
    2 large cloves garlic
    2 tablespoons olive oil
    2 tablespoons Parmesan-optional
    a squirt of lemon just is optional too and salt if you aren’t using cheese, the cheese is usually salty enough for me. Taste your pesto and season accordingly.

    PREPARATION

    Basic Pesto
    Step 1
    Remove basil leaves and measure how much you have so you can multiply ingredients according to the recipe. I like to toast my nuts and garlic, you don’t have to but I think it tames and blends the flavors.
    Step 2
    Put the nuts (toasted or not) and garlic-if using- in a food processor and pulse a few times then add the basil and pulse a few times-with the machine running slowly dribble in the oil and process until
    the mixture is smooth.
    Step 3
    Add the cheese if you are using it, and process very briefly, just long enough to combine.
    Store in refrigerator for up to a week,  or freezer for up to 9 months.

    Mine is going in the freezer. I like to freeze it flat in a Ziploc so I can break off pieces as I need it and reseal the bag.

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    See you at pick-up.

    Mo