Side dish

Sesame Snow Peas

April 26, 2011 by Terri · 1 Comment

The spring peas are coming in! They are tender and delicious at this time of year. This is a really quick and easy side dish. I served it with a roasted chicken from the deli because I was lazy the other night but it would be great with most anything. Just five ingredients in this quick dish: snow peas (snap peas would be delicious too), 1 baby leek (or 1/2 a small onion), 1 stalk green garlic (or 1 bulb garlic minced), sesame oil, honey. That's it! The honey is optional but mine needed a little bit of a hint of sweetness to counter the sesame flavor. I used the leftovers the next day in some fresh thai spring rolls and they were great. Try it if you have any leftovers! Ingredients: 1 pound snow or snap pea pods, trimmed 1 baby leek or 1/2 small onion, diced 1 stalk green garlic or 1 bulb garlic, minced 1 tsp sesame oil 1 tsp honey Spray skillet with cooking spray and heat over medium heat. Add leek, garlic, and pea pods to pan. Stir fry for 5 minutes or so until … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Side dish, Vegetarian Tagged With: CSA, Organic, Sesame, Snow Peas, Urban Recipe

Green Garlic Dressing

March 1, 2011 by Terri · 2 Comments

It's green garlic season! Have you ever tried green garlic? I had never even heard of green garlic until I started getting it in my CSA box. I love garlic and it's appalling I was missing out on something so amazing as green garlic. What is it? Green garlic is simply immature garlic and looks similar to a scallion or green onion with a purple tinge near the root end. It tastes like garlic but with a much milder flavor. It is usually only available in the spring and is all over the farmer's markets at this time of year. I did see it at Whole Foods the other day when I was there as well. I use green garlic in all sort of things at this time of year but my favorite is Green Garlic Dressing. It is simple to whip up in a food processor. I love it in a green salad or better yet a pasta salad. So good! Isn't it a lovely light green color? Green Garlic Dressing: 1-3 stems of green garlic (Depends on how strong you want the garlic flavor to be. I use 3 for pasta salad, 2 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Salads, Side dish, Vegetarian Tagged With: Couscous, CSA, Green Garlic, Spinach, Tomato, Urban Recipe

Rosemary Shrimp Skewers

February 11, 2011 by Terri · 1 Comment

This is the easiest recipe I have posted so far! It is amazing how delicious and flavorful these shrimp are with such simple ingredients. My inspiration for this recipe came from my mom and a co-worker. When is was a teenager my mom made blackened shrimp swimming in a saucepan of butter and seafood magic spice. They were great but necessarily an occasional treat. Then a co-worker was telling me how his wife used rosemary branches AS the skewers for shrimp and grilled them. I thought that was brilliant. I made the grilled shrimp with rosemary as the skewer and thought they were great; but it occurred to me that the Cajun shrimp my mom made and the rosemary could work together to be AMAZING! I was right. So. These shrimp are super easy and amazingly delicious for the effort; which is almost nothing. You can serve them as an appetizer course or as a main. You will be surprised how easy they are. First take the 4 ingredients: Shrimp, melted butter, Fresh Rosemary … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Main Dish, Side dish

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

October 15, 2010 by Terri · 2 Comments

Not the greatest picture, I know, but the fries were fantastic! Last week in our CSA share we got a few sweet potatoes. What better opportunity to make some sweet potato fries? These are an easy side dish to serve with burgers or sandwiches. I chose to bake them for a healthier treat rather than high calorie deep frying. The trick to crisping up sweet potato fries is to cut them small, about 1/4 inch or smaller. If you try to have large fries, they will end up mushy. Ingredients: 2 Medium Sweet Potatoes 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil Salt & Pepper to taste 1/2 Teaspoon Sweet Paprika Prepare a baking sheet by covering it with foil. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Peel potatoes. Slice into 1/4 inch or smaller fry strips. Place fries into a ziploc bag with salt, pepper and paprika. Seal and shake bag to distribute spices. Add olive oil to bag. Seal and shake again to cover fries with a light coating of oil. If they seem too dry add a bit more oil. Place fries in … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Side dish, Vegetarian Tagged With: CSA, Sweet Potato, Sweet Potato Fries

Ratatouille

September 8, 2010 by Terri · 2 Comments

This past Christmas I put Mastering the Art of French Cooking on my wish list. I really enjoyed the movie Julie & Julia and thought it would be fun to try my hand at some of the French techniques. I LOVE this cookbook. Everything I've made in it so far is unbelievably fussy and taken forever to cook. Everything I've cooked in it has also been unbelievably delicious and worth the effort. This year we've been having a Julia night once a month or so. It's been fun to try my hand at making fancy food. We've had friends over a few times to enjoy a recipe or two from the cookbook and watch the movie. Don't be surprised to see more Julia recipes popping up over time. For a while now I've been eyeing the Ratatouille recipe and planning to make it when I received eggplant from my CSA share. Well, this week's share seemed made to order for ratatouille! I used the tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini from this week and the parsley from last week. I only needed a few other ingredients and I had … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Main Dish, Pasta, Side dish, Vegetarian Tagged With: CSA, Eggplant, Onion, Parsley, Pasta, Ratatouille, Tomato, Vegetarian, Zucchini

Whiskey Glazed Carrots

August 16, 2010 by Terri · Leave a Comment

Oh MY are these good! Diet friendly they aren't, but they are quite tasty. After getting a giant bag of carrots from our CSA two weeks in a row, one of which we were traveling, we had a serious glut of carrots in the refrigerator. I have to admit I'm not a huge fan of carrots. I will eat them but they are definitely one of my least favorite vegetables. Luckily my son likes them pretty well and they are actually one of the few veggies he will eat without complaint. Even so, this was a serious pile of carrots to deal with and space in our apartment-sized refrigerator is limited. Something had to be done! I found this recipe on The Pioneer Woman a while back and tucked it away into my "make someday" folder. It was perfect as I had a glut of carrots and we got chives this week too which she calls for as a garnish. It was fate, I'm quite sure. If you've ever made anything from Pioneer Woman I'm sure you know she is not afraid of butter. The original recipe had a whole stick of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Side dish, Vegetarian Tagged With: Carrots, Chives, CSA, Whiskey

Thai Shrimp and Corn Cakes (Kao Pood Tod) with Chili Dipping Sauce

August 4, 2010 by Terri · 19 Comments

A few years back I took a cooking class at Sur La Table on Thai cooking taught by Chat Mingkwan. I loved thai food but had never been brave enough to try any recipes on my own. It all seemed so exotic and complicated! I had a great time at the class and it was a great introduction to the flavors and ingredients of thai cuisine and where to buy them. Here in San Francisco we are lucky enough to have several large Asian markets with any ingredient I might need. I didn't realize how lucky I was until I tried to cook these same recipes in Denver and had a hard time finding the ingredients and Asian markets at all for that matter. This recipe doesn't have that many unusual ingredients, the hardest to find one is probably shrimp base. This ingredient can be left out if you can't find it, it just adds a "punch" of shrimp flavor to the dish. This is the perfect recipe to make right now at the height of the summer corn season. Sweet summer corn makes the dish that much better. I made it … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Main Dish, Side dish Tagged With: Corn, CSA, Shrimp, Shrimp corn cakes, Thai, Thai dipping sauce

Mashed Garlic Parsley Root Potatoes

July 26, 2010 by Terri · Leave a Comment

This is an overdue recipe that I made a week or so ago. The first time we got Hamburg Parsley in our CSA share I didn't know quite what to do with it. So I chopped up the roots over the course of the week and hid them in pasta sauce and the like. It was very tasty but not exactly highlighting the vegetable at all. This time I was determined to make something so we could really taste the parsely root. I'd heard they are good mashed along with potatoes and decided to try that. The result was easy and absolutely delicious. I chopped up the parsley root, yukon gold potatoes, peeled some garlic and threw the whole lot into a pot of boiling water until tender. Mashed it all together and it was divine. Even my son who HATES potatoes admitted they weren't horrible (high praise from him concerning something with potatoes). My husband and I loved them, I may never make boring plain mashed potatoes again! Ingredients: 3 parsley roots(Hamburg Parsley), peeled and chopped 3 big yukon gold … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Side dish, Vegetarian Tagged With: CSA, Parsley, Parsley Root

Easy Bread and Butter Refrigerator Pickles

July 20, 2010 by Terri · 4 Comments

Bread & Butter pickles have always been my favorite. My mom used to make them when I was a kid and stack jars of them in refrigerator in the summer. Once I started getting cucumbers in our CSA share I knew I had to try my hand at making them. Last summer I tried several different recipes I found around the Internet and kept tweaking them to get them just right. I don't like them too sweet, most of the commercial brands out there are just loaded with sugar and other sweeteners. I also tried some of the low-sugar commercial brands but they just taste like chemicals to me. I was also looking for an easy recipe and I wanted the pickles to be ready to eat quickly. Most pickle recipes you have to make the pickles and then let them sit for a week or longer before they are ready to eat. I came across a microwave pickle recipe and tried it as it promised quick and easy pickles ready to eat in an hour. I was skeptical to say the least but I tried it. Wow, were they yummy! They still needed … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Side dish, Vegetarian Tagged With: CSA, cucumbers, Pickles

Israeli Couscous with Beet Greens and Parsley Root

July 9, 2010 by Terri · 1 Comment

Remember how I told you not to throw away those beet greens? This recipe is a great side dish to serve with grilled meat or as a vegetarian dish all on it's own. I used Israeli Couscous which is a much bigger size of pasta than the regular couscous you may have used previously. I prefer the larger grains in this dish but regular couscous would work just as well if that's all you can find. From my CSA share I used the beet greens & stems and one parsley root in this dish. Any cooking green could easily be substituted into this very versatile dish. Israeli Couscous with Beet Greens & Parsley Root To prepare the couscous: 1 tablespoon Olive Oil 1 1/3 cups israeli couscous 1 3/4 cups very hot water In a medium saucepan saute the couscous in the olive oil over medium heat until lightly browned (about 5 minutes). Add water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and cook, covered, for 12 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. While couscous is cooking … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Pasta, Side dish, Vegetarian Tagged With: Beet Greens, Chard, Couscous, CSA, Parsley Root