More Recipes

Dan and I decided to join a CSA that just started up in Waco, called Waco City Farm. We get tons of produce that was grown locally and organically every single week! We are even splitting our subscription (is that the right word?) with a friend because the amount of veggies we get is way more than we could eat in a week. (That has the added bonus of bringing the cost down to under $10 a week, which is ridiculously cheap for what we get.)

If you've never heard of CSAs, I recommend you check them out. There's usually at least a few in every city, and there are so many benefits - organic food (usually), supporting your community, eating in-season, reducing your carbon foot print, etc etc etc...not to mention it usually tastes delicious!

We got our first basket last week and it included mostly greens, since it's January and all. We got kale, swiss chard, bok choi, mustard greens, spinach, and turnips...as well as a few more things that I can't think of right now.

All these new things forced me to frantically search through my cookbooks and online recipe sources to try and find meals that incorporated them. I was looking for things that would use mostly ingredients I already had, were somewhat easy to make, and hopefully both Dan and I would like. So far, I've found a couple, which I'll share below, but I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the mustard greens and turnips. Any suggestions?

Sweet Pepper Pasta Toss with Kale
This was our dinner one night, and then Dan's lunch and snack the next day. We both loved it, although I made a few changes. The dish is vegetarian as written, but I added in a pound of sweet Italian sausage to make it more meatatarian. I also drizzled quite a bit of olive oil over it at the end to give it some more flavor. Oh and finally, I used green peppers due to the fact that they were ONE FOURTH the price of red and orange peppers.

Tuna Salad with Swiss Chard
Obviously, Dan got nowhere near this one, but I liked it enough that I wanted to include it on here. I've been eating this for lunch the last few days and honestly I've been looking forward to lunchtime every morning because of it. As long as you like tuna, make this!

I also have two more recipes that in no way relate to my CSA, but are still yummy:

Indian Tandoori Chicken
Spicy. Healthy. Unique. And goes oh so well with my favorite Naan bread. We made this last week when we had friends over for dinner, and I kid you not that when I saw them recently, Faith said "I'm still dreaming about that Indian food you made last week!"

Classic Spanish Sangria
I'm posting this recipe because it was a special request from my friend Kelly. I usually make this in the summer, but after Kelly reminded me of it, I decided I want to make it soon. Maybe when I drink it, I'll remember our warm days in Spain, sitting outside in the plaza for hours, just watching everyone go by... This recipe is about the closest I could find to the sangria we drank in Salamanca. When I make it, I pretty much follow this except I also add club soda right before I serve it - maybe a cup or so. Some people use Sprite or 7Up, which would also work. I also add a lot more fruit - it's my favorite part! Oh and you might want to cut down on the rum a bit - traditional Spaniards like it rather potent.

Seriously, let me know if you have any other ideas for my CSA food! We have a new batch coming this Thursday so I need to get going!