Roasted and Mayo-Free Potato Salad

This potato salad is a winner for those folks who don't like mayo.  Full of flavor from stone-ground mustard, garlic and coriander seeds, made creamy by Greek-style yogurt, and garnished with parsley and thinly sliced green onions, it's really the anecdote to boring old potato salad.  

Rice with Pineapple and Beans

Tim and I bought a fresh pineapple last week, and after eating most of it straight, my tongue was going a little numb from the acid.  I decided I needed to cook the remaining fruit a little to tone it down, and thought I might mix it with some beans and rice.  (As an aside, I thought I was buying black beans, but somehow ended up with red kidney beans... oh well.)

  I sorta made the dish up, loosely based on some recipes I found online:

-In a small pot, saute a couple cloves of garlic (minced) and some chopped onion in a pan, add 1 cup of rice and then 1.5 cups of chicken stock- cook until rice is done

- Meanwhile, in a frying pan, saute a couple cloves of minced garlic, 2 or 3 chopped green onions, a couple minced hot peppers (I think I used 3 or 4 birds' eye chilis) and about a teaspoon each of cumin and coriander until fragrant.  

- Throw 1.5 cups of chopped pineapple (and any juices that accumulated) and a 15 ounce can of rinsed beans into the frying pan heat up and carmelize a little bit.

-  Mix the rice and bean mixture, add salt and pepper to taste

- Top with lime juice to taste and lots of coarsely chopped cilantro.

- Eat!

Pretty good!  Tangy, sweet, spicy, earthy.  You could probably make it healthier with brown rice, but that's hard to find here. 

Vegetable Cream Cheese

I had a bunch of leftover cream cheese after the baby shower... I decided to jazz it up a little bit for Sunday bagel brunch. Loosely based on this Ina Garten recipe, I beat the following veggies into 2 8-ounce blocks of cream cheese:

• about 1/4 cup of finely shredded carrot
• 4 tablespoons minced chives
• 1 large or 2 regular green onions, minced
• 2 tablespoons minced dill
• a squeeze of lemon juice
• a sprinkle of black pepper

So good... Amy said it tastes like it came from a NYC deli. I think that's a pretty good compliment!

Tofu and Veggie Fried Rice

We made way too much pilaf for Sunday's Armenian-style horovatz, so I decided to make fried rice with all of the leftovers, also incorporating the leftover beet greens and stems. Feeling a little sluggish after a weekend of drinking and meat-eating, I decided to do a non-traditional spicy tofu and veggie fried rice with a little egg, loosely based on a couple fried rice recipes from Jaden Hair at Steamy Kitchen. My recipe after the jump!

Eggplant Feta Salad Toasts

Sometimes I feel like Deb from Smitten Kitchen has a secret view into my refrigerator. She always seems to put together dishes that use exactly what I have that week from the CSA. Maybe she gets a photo of my fridge contents every week, a la Mark Menjivar's 'You Are What You Eat'? I guess I shouldn't be too surprised since that's the nature of eating seasonally, but still... mind reader! Refrigerator looker! Anywho... this roasted eggplant salad with feta and green onion is super easy and pretty delicious. Try it!

Spanakopita and Greek Salad

I love me some spinach pie. And yet, until today, I'd never made it. This recipe from Closet Cooking (whose recipes I always end up clicking on on Tastespotting and Foodgawker), was simple, easy and delicious. Plus it used up many of the veggies I bought from Star Hollow Farm last week: spinach, dill, green onion, parsley.If you wanted to make some self-contained empanada-sized spanakopita, or even little appetizer sized spanakopita, I think you could easily modify the recipe- just cut the phyllo into long strips and roll tablespoons of filling up.

Served with a Greek salad with this easy red wine vinaigrette.

Crispy Ginger Lime Chicken Thighs

Sorry for the lapse in posting! I've been in Hawaii (Kona and Waikiki), snacking on kalua pig, plate lunches, sushi, poke, malasadas, Kona coffee and lots of beer... mmmm.
Tonight, in our post-travel stupor, we easily pulled this ginger, curry, lime chicken dish together- very easy and very tasty. Served with whole wheat couscous cooked in veggie broth and topped with lime, raisins, cilantro, green onions and parsley.

Carrot, Parsnip and Scallion Fritters on Arugula Salad with Goat Cheese Dressing

This was a total clean-out-the-fridge recipe, but it worked pretty well. I think the fritters themselves wouldn't be much to write home about, but the addition of the tangy, lemony, oniony goat cheese dressing (I added some minced scallions to the dressing in addition to the parsley) and the spicy arugula made the dish.
Pretty healthy, too!

Lemon Chicken

Chuck, the chef de cuisine for this particular chicken recipe, says "It's easy to make and tastes good, but nothing special. Not a 'wow'"

I'd say it's a decent week day main dish that uses pantry staples.

Mushroom and Gruyere Tart

This mushroom and gruyere tart came together really quickly and was pretty tasty served alongside a salad...

It used the last sheet of puff pastry I had hanging around in the fridge, as well as a couple other odds and ends. Very cheesy... Tim was worried about the mushroominess of it, but he ended up liking it a lot- he ate 2 pieces.

Sesame/Peanut Noodles with Tatsoi, Snow Peas and Yellow Pepper

I modified this simple Rachael Ray sesame noodles recipe to my liking, and it was really good!

- served it warm, not cold

- made the sauce as directed, but added some fresh orange juice to brighten it up

- used whole wheat spaghetti

- for veggies, I used raw shredded carrots, cilantro, scallions, yellow pepper slices, as well as snow peas and tatsoi (this week's CSA prize), both of which I blanched in the pasta water very briefly

Beef and Nectarine Stir Fry

I got some nectarines in my CSA last week, and wanted to use them in a savory way, rather than in a dessert. This stir fry recipe came from Jaden at Steamy Kitchen; she blogs about a lot of simple Asian recipes. I made a couple modifications: used 3 green onions instead of the red onion, 2 nectarines instead of just one (it didn't seem like enough).

I liked the combination of the sweet/tart nectarines and the beef (and how easy the recipe is). However, Tim and I agreed that we would add some heat to this if we were to make it again. Maybe red pepper flakes in with the beef?