Crispy broccoli

 I love me some roasted veggies.  This week we got a wonderful 2 lb bag of broccoli in our CSA, and I knew that it was going to get roasted.  Thanks to my girl Deb at Smitten Kitchen, I knew exactly what I needed to do, and it did not dissapoint! You can find the recipe here: https://smittenkitchen.com/2015/04/crispy-broccoli-with-lemon-and-garlic/

First cut up the broccoli into smaller florets, and peel the stems and cut into 1/2 inch chunks. Toss it up with salt, pepper, garlic, lemon zest and and couple of tbs of olive oil and throw it on a sheet pan and roast the heck out of it at 425°F for 20-30 minutes.  Stir it up after 20 min and then check it every 5 minutes after that until it's the amount of crispy you like. Mine was good after 5 more minutes.  Hard not to eat the whole pan when it comes out!

some pics!

stir it all up!

put it on the sheet pan:

Roast it up!

Ugly delicious....

Chicken Soba Salad

This Chicken Soba Salad is adapted from this recipe published  in Cooking Light in May 2004.  It's a nice dinner on a hot summer night.  From the CSA I used some carrots, purple cabbage and red onion.  If you've got cooked chicken on hand, it comes together pretty quickly!

Ingredients

• 8 oz shredded cooked chicken breast (see note).
• 1 tbs rice vinegar
• 1 tbs toasted sesame oil
• 2 tbs soy sauce
• 1 tbs mirin
• 1 tsp siracha or chili-garlic paste
• 2 cups of a mixture of grated carrot, shredded cabbage or broccoli slaw (see notes)
• 1/3 cup minced red onion
• 1/4-1/2 cup chopped thai basil (can also use italian)
• 1 tbs chopped mint (optional)
• 2 cups cooked soba noodles (one 4 oz bundle)
• 1 tbs chopped dry roasted peanuts
• lime wedges (optional)

Instructions:
Whisk together the dressing ingredients (rice vinegar through siracha), pour over shredded chicken and toss to coat.  Let stand at least 5 minutes.

Add the carrot/cabbage slaw mixture, red onion, basil and mint to the chicken, toss to mix.

Cook the soba noodles according to package directions, drain and rinse with cold water.  Toss with the chicken and vegetable mixture.  Divide between two bowls, sprinkle with peanuts, garnish with lime wedges if desired and serve

 Notes:
The original recipe called for poached chicken breast, but I've used grilled chicken or leftover rotisserie chicken.  Now I use sous vide chicken breast I cooked at 150°F for 2 hours.

I will use a mixture of carrots and cabbage (more cabbage than carrots) or a bag of broccoli slaw.

Some pictures!
The cabbage and shredded carrot ready to go in:

All the veggies tossed together:

Time for dinner!

Dudley is exhausted from begging for chicken:

Broccoli Melts

We had a pound of broccoli in this week's box, and I've been looking for other ways to use it beyond steaming and roasting. I came across this recipe for Broccoli Melts from Smitten Kitchen, and I thought it looked like it had potential.  It also looked pretty easy, though it would be better if I read the directions more carefully before starting. What do I mean by that?  Well, it's nice if you realize you need three garlic cloves chopped and ready to go before you start heating the oil to sauté the broccoli.  Stuff like that happened to me a couple of times when making this.

First you make a steamed/sauteed chopped broccoli mixture she calls "Broccoli Rubble".  I used a little less olive oil in the sauté, and also I didn't have any romano cheese so I used parmesan instead. For the melts, I used bread from Cheesecakes by Alex, which is located in downtown Greensboro.  If you're confused by that, head down to the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market and on Saturdays they have a booth with no cheesecake (that's all at the store downtown) but they do have lots of delicious baked goods, including loves of Italian bread made with semolina flour that are delicious. This bread also make great avocado toast and BLT's.

Didn't take any pics while I was cooking it (there are plenty at the Smitten Kitchen site!),  But I did take a picture of the final product:

And it was great!  I'll make this again with the rest of the sauteed broccoli.

Week 5 CSA Share beauty shot

I've been remiss about posting what we get each week, so here you go Iain:

What's in this week's basket?

• The triumphant return of SALAD MIX! (0.5 lbs)
• Kale (0.5 lbs)
• 1 bunch mustard greens
• 2 bell peppers (I got a green and a red)
• Eggplant (1 lb)
• Okra (2/3 lb)
• 1 head garlic
• Broccoli (1lb)
• Sweet potatoes (2 lbs)

Chopped and washed the greens, but didn't make anything with the basket tonight.  I can tell you to look for a sauerkraut post soon, though!