Week 4: spring greens, spinach, red leaf lettuce, green onions, cilantro, bok choy

I am one of those people for whom cilantro tasted like soap. But I kept reading that if you persevere, you may/might overcome that. It is a kind of genetic thing apparently and maybe related to sense of smell…a bit of a mystery.

I wanted so much to like cilantro and finally…whether it was some very fresh cilantro or just time and continual trying…I LOVE cilantro. I love the smell and the taste and now can hardly get enough of it…even store bought…funny!

This week, I had my second bunch of fresh cilantro. Also fresh green onions and a few pecorina sweet tomatoes (largish and sweet cherry tomatoes) from my local hydroponic place – I made salsa. I also added 1/2 a can of Hatch hot, diced, green chiles, the juice of a lime, cumin, sea salt and pepper. All blitzed in the food processor to a medium-small chunky stage.

Oh, my! THE best salsa of my entire 56…almost 57 years of life. Here we go again. I will now never be happy with store-bought salsa.

My neighbor, Nancy, gave me a ride to pick up Wild Thing the day before week 4’s produce was ready. On the way to town, I was telling her of Swallow Creek Farm and she was interested so I stopped on the way back from Thursday’s pickup to show and share. Nancy told me that she and Mike enjoy a big chef’s salad so they were happy to have some of the greens and lettuce. The vision of a wonderful chef’s salad… it started a craving for one of my own.

That weekend, I bought Black Forest Ham, sliced extra thick and some sharp cheddar.

Dressing… gotta be Ranch…or at least ranch-ish. I ended up making a dressing somewhere between Ranch and Green Goddess.

A little mayo (HOMEMADE!!!…***), some Greek yogurt, a wee bit of sour cream, spring green pesto, anchovy paste, sea salt, fresh ground pepper and some buttermilk. Perfect. I dressed spring greens, red leaf and spinach with this all week.

In addition to salsa and dressing, I made all of the past week’s items from this week’s local bounty. I have been pleasantly surprised at how well the greens are keeping through the week.

I have used Oxo salad spinners for some years…a huge one at the house and a smaller one in the motorhome. The small one has been pressed into service in the house since I subscibed to the CSA and I also bought 2 new produce keepers: the green keeper has a humidity dial to allow setting the best humidity for whatever is being stored. I’ve been keeping spring greens and red leaf lettuce in it and they are staying fresh the entire week.

Sadly…this herb keeper is empty at the moment, but it has done yeoman duty at keeping the cilantro fresh and green…even store bought cilantro.

It can be a challenge to eat the weekly bounty but so far, I have been able to use or process and freeze or share…everything – and am very much enjoying eating from the garden.

***I thought I’d posted a link of the video about making mayo with an immersion blender but I can’t find that I have so I guess I just thought about posting it. ( mayo video) This takes about 5 minutes start to finish and most of the time is putting the ingredients in the jar. After making it in the immersion blender jar and then scooping it into a mason jar, I finally woke up and now make it right in the mason jar. In the motorhome, I have a version of the ‘Magic Bullet’ blender and I use it. I did have one failure in the motorhome but that was with grocery store (vs fresh) eggs. I reduced the oil a bit and tried again with success.

Here is another ‘trick’…while mayonaisse is traditionally egg yolk, acid (vinegar or lemon juice) and oil….it turns out that you CAN make a low fat version with egg whites instead of egg yolks. My preference is for a reduced fat combo, i.e. instead of two egg yolks or two egg whites, I use 1 whole egg. Here is the ratio that works for me:

1 egg (room temperature!)
4 tsp acid (lemon juice or vinegar. I use lemon juice or rice vinegar or white wine vinegar)
1/2 tsp sea salt (I use Celtic gray fine ground)
1 tsp smooth dijon mustard (I use Amy’s organic Dijon)
slightly more than 1/2 cup oil (I use sunflower oil – you can use canola or olive oil or a mix…your taste preference)

SRSLY…if you read jarred mayo labels and think about what you have to do to give fresh eggs and oil, etc. shelf life…ewww – you might want to give making your own mayo a whirl :)!