Winter CSA week 2: falafel and beet salad

Falafel over greens w/ tahini sauce & roasted beet salad on the side. When I ran a falafel stand in college I used this crazy inauthentic recipe (I think from Moosewood?) where you made a smooth, hummus-like paste from canned chickpeas and then bread it with egg & breadcrumbs before deep-frying. It was good, but after having my first restaurant falafel, I realized that it's a totally different texture. The "authentic" recipes I've found call for grinding up soaked, uncooked chickpeas along with the spices/garlic/onion, but the one time I tried that the falafels had an unpleasant "raw" taste to them. The solution I've arrived at is using fully soaked and cooked dried chickpeas, plus just enough water to hold it all together. This results in a nice, moist-but-bready texture that's crumbly enough to get that crunchy surface.

Winter CSA Week 2: Roasted carrot salad

Roasted carrot salad with cashews and tahini sauce. It's made of romaine & arugula, carrots roasted with cumin and cinnamon, toasted cashews, and lemon-tahini-yogurt-garlic sauce.

Winter CSA Week 2

Celeriac, cabbage, beets, frozen peppers, greens, onions, carrots, potatoes, and sweet potatoes

Winter CSA Week 1: Tagine with Chermoula

Root vegetable tagine over cous cous with chermoula and toasted almonds. Tagine is a delicious type of Moroccan curry, usually made with meat. I made mine with sweet potatoes, potatoes, and carrots, and seasoned it with garlic, onions, and tomato paste, cinnamon/cumin/coriander/black pepper/hot pepper, dried apricots, olives, and preserved lemon. The chermoula sauce is made with fresh coriander and parsley, olive oil, and lemon.

Winter CSA Week 1: Gardener's broth

Gardener's broth made from pureed onions, leeks, garlic, brussels sprouts, green beans, and peas, flavored with lemon, fresh coriander,crushed coriander seed.

Winter CSA Week 1: big salad

Big salad with chickpeas, avocado, red pepper, homemade croutons, and mustard dressing.

Winter CSA Week 1: Carrot-ginger soup

One of the first recipes I ever learned to make: Moosewood's carrot-ginger soup. To make it, sautee onions, garlic, and chopped cashews with salt, pepper, and a tiny bit of sugar, then add chopped carrots, veggie broth, and grated ginger and simmer til soft. Puree until smooth and then stir in some yogurt, buttermilk, or cream+lemon juice to make it creamy. 

Winter CSA week 1: Green risotto

Risotto with leeks, peas, broccoli, and green beans.

Winter CSA Week 1

After a very difficult two weeks of trying to shop for myself again, I signed up for a winter CSA and now all is well! Check these pretty roots:

tomato puree, salad greens, kale, leeks, potatoes, garlic, carrots, and sweet potatoes.

already made a root  veggie mash with fried eggs for dinner with a friend last night!

Halloween!