CSA Week 5: Residing in the Cabbage Patch

Here is what came in the box this week:

-1 greenhouse cucumber

-1 zucchini

-1 bunch of radishes

-2 kohlrabi

-2 heads of cabbage

-1 large bok choy

-1 head of red leaf lettuce

-1 head of romaine lettuce

-1 bunch of curly kale

-1 bunch of beet greens

We are now starting to get into the classic farm stand veggies between the zucchini and cucumbers but are still living in the land of leafy greens for another couple of weeks.  Salads are in full effect in our house and I'm sure that we are really going to miss the lettuce once it's gone.  I actually gave away the beet greens and kohlrabi bulbs to a friend of ours because I knew it was going to be a busy week and I figured let them go to good use in someone elses kitchen instead of going to waste.  We are starting to hit the limit with the bok choy since every week we have been getting these huge stalks that are really good but come on, how much bok choy can you really consume so I knew I was going to have to get creative on this one.  I was browsing through my recipe binders that I keep and I came across Hazel Sy's recipes for the Pork and Cabbage Pan Fried Dumplings (scroll down to the bottom of the link for the recipe) that I had made back in the winter that were really good and pretty easy to make.  Instead of using the napa cabbage that the recipe called for, I used chopped up bok choy instead and the substitution worked perfectly.  Hazel gives you a helpful YouTube video as well on her blog demonstrating how to put the dumplings all together and after 2 attempts at the dumplings, I've learned that my brother Andrew has much more of a knack for folding the dumplings then I do so he came in very handy during the Yankee's rain delay on Sunday.  Once we were finished stuffing and folding the dumplings we made a bunch of them to have for lunch and then froze the rest of them for another meal to have later on.  This is a good project to tackle when you have a few hour time block in your kitchen and it is always easier to do when you have a few people around so it's a good weekend activity when your friends and family are over so that way you can set it up assembly style and everyone can get in on the action.   We bought our dumpling wrappers at the Asian grocery on Whitney Avenue in New Haven which has a great selection of Asian sauces and pantry staples but if you are in a bind and don't have time to take foodie field trips like we do, you can also use wonton wrappers from the grocery store.  Here are a few pics showing the filling process along the way as well as the finished product.

filling goes into the center of the dumpling

fold the dumpling in half so all of the sides meet

fold the ends of the dumplings in into a triangle (this is where things started to get dicey for me)

fold the triangle ends over to the sides to seal everything up



ready to be cooked or frozen



the finished product about to be consumed

* you can also make a vegetarian version of the dumplings by omitting the ground pork and adding more amounts of the called for veggies as well as some shredded carrots and zucchini

The heads of cabbage came right in time for 4th of July weekend so what better to bring to a picnic then a big bowl of freshly made coleslaw.  I used a barefoot contessa recipe for my coleslaw and gave my food processor a nice workout so there was very little chopping involved.  I also threw in a shredded up granny smith apple to give it some more crunch as well as a handful of golden raisins since they were in the pantry.  It was a good addition to all of my outdoor summer lunches that I got to enjoy on the deck this week during my days off!

a classic summer lunch

And finally since it wouldn't be a CSA blog post with another use for kale, here is this week's addition.  I sauteed up a bunch of the kale leaves with some garlic and olive oil and then made a pizza on the grill with them along with some mozzarella and oil cured black olives that I had left over from my orzo salad last week that turned out to be really good.  By the time the summer is over I'm going to have a  whole book of kale recipes to add to my cooking repertoire.  Next week, the kale chips are going to make an appearance.