Whole Grain Rice Salad

I missed last year's cherry season.  I don't know how it happened, but it came and went before I even realized it had happened.  This year I overcompensated with a mixed flat of sweet and sour cherries.  What I did with them is another post for another day, but I set aside a few to make the Whole Grain Rice Salad from Super Natural Every Day.

I had to make a few adjustments based on what I had on hand.  There was no baby spinach, but there was... either Swiss chard or beet greens, I can't even be sure.  Pecans had to take the place of walnuts, which I didn't have.  I opted for feta over goat cheese, and for the all-important grain base, I chose wild rice.  The salad was fine, but honestly, not exciting to me.  I can't exactly place why.  I'm sure, though, that it wasn't the dressing.  I had some of the leftover dressing on a green salad, and it made that green salad worth eating.  I'm not typically a fan, but the cherry dressing was such a unique flavor, it seemed to make it worthwhile.

So the bottom line here is that I can't judge too harshly having made so many substitutions, but it's unlikely that I'll try this salad again.  The dressing, however, is one I'll come back to.

Shaved Fennel Salad

The Shaved Fennel Salad from Super Natural Every Day is my new favorite twist on the cucumber salad I've made for the past few years.  Like many who have the book, I've gravitated toward recipes with beautiful photos, and this salad has none.  When Heidi posted it on her website, complete with photos to remedy the fact that it's photo-less in the book, I took notice and mentally filed it away to make.  Whenever we start getting new goodies from the CSA again, I like to search the sites I love for recipes I haven't tried, and I rediscovered this one.  The recipe instructs you to let the sliced zucchini sit to absorb the lemon juice and dill for 20 minutes to an hour, which I found to be too little time.  (The first time I made this, I let it sit in the fridge for 2 days out of necessity, and the second time I actually followed the instructions with poor results.)  The lemony salad is a great match for the arugula, but does not work at all with regular lettuce.

The salad also made a lovely accompaniment to the Rye Soda Bread and Dill Butter from the same book, which we took on a picnic to Duke Farms (a lovely picnic for a lovely place).

CSA 2012: Weeks 4 & 5

Weeks 4 and 5 went by pretty quickly.  I didn't have time to post week 4 before week 5 had also passed!

Week 4:

PYO herbs only.  Strawberries might be done for the season.

Beets and chard... since the beet greens are similar to chard, it's like a 2 for 1.  Mom gets beets and I get greens.

Zucchini yay!

6 pieces of broccoli is always so exciting to me - broccoli is my favorite!  I'm lucky my mom shares with me!

Arugula - super tasty.  (I got to take this too.)

And finally... 8 heads of lettuce... surprise!  I guess that hailstorm a few weeks ago wasn't too bad after all - the lettuce never stops.

Week 5:

Mom forgot to snap a photo of the board, which she says was just herbs this week, and the zucchini (4 pieces).

Soooo sick of lettuce... 8 more heads!

Choice group 1:  Kale, collards, radicchio, dandelion.  We got (I think) 3 bunches of kale and one of collards - mom kept one bunch of the kale.

Choice group 2: Chinese cabbage, Swiss chard, beets, and scallions.  We got one of each and I brought home a bunch of scallions, one bunch of Swiss chard, and the greens from the beets.

Week 6 and 7 are going to be particularly exciting, because I get to go pick up my own share! I can't wait!