Member Diary #18 – Lionsdwarf

Hey gang,

NYC had me pretty busy this week, so I wasn’t the Julia Child you may have hoped for. Last week I used most of my share to make corn chowder. I attached a copy of the recipe. I also attached a copy of lentils recipe because I accidentally scanned it first and figured why not include??

Note: I reduced the jalapeno in the corn chowder recipe. I followed the recipe and thought it was way too spicy and overpowered the dish, and I like spicy food. I’d suggest starting with only half a seeded jalapeno and adding more if necessary.

That was last week. Now for this week:

I have a half monty share, which includes vegetables, orchard and eggs. A pic of the whole share is attached.

I’m a B Week half share. A friend of mine has an A Week half share, so we’ve made an arrangement to both pick up on A & B weeks and split each share. As two single guys who cook mostly for ourselves, it’s much more manageable to deal with half a delivery than a full one. So my portion of the share looks more like this:

As shown, this delivery included peaches, plums, cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes, good old fashioned nameless round tomatoes (they probably do have a name, I just don’t know it), corn, potatoes, green bell peppers, Kirby cucumbers, regular cucumbers, red potatoes, white potatoes and romaine lettuce. And eggs. Love those bright-yolk farm eggs.

On this blog most people write about how they cooked and consumed their share, which is fantastic, but it’s also worth pointing out the aesthetic and artistic value of each bulbous potato or rosy cherry tomato. My friend came over and with my share sprawled on the kitchen table, our creativity took rein.

Is it a Calder-esque veggie arrangement? A battle between divided fruit factions? You decide?

As I mentioned, I didn’t get down to any fancy schmancy cooking this week, in fact, I ended up eating most of my share in “as-is” form. It’s quick and easy, and because everything is so fresh, it’s delicious.

You know what I did with the Kirby cucumbers? I ate them—cucumber a la cucumber.

You know what I did with the cherry tomatoes? I ate them like berries.

Plums and peaches? I ate them like plums and peaches.

The corn: you know what to do with really fresh, super sweet corn? You eat it. Raw. It doesn’t hurt to boil briefly, but if you don’t have the time and your corn is quality, there’s no need. You eat it. And you can share it with whomever, even a prop bird.

All this raw consumption—perhaps it’s kind of hardcore. I didn’t consume the whole share straight, no chaser. Raw onion anyone? No thanks.

I decided to make a single dish that would use the remainder of the share. And that was…..Salad Niçoise. Simple and delicious.

I’d already hard-boiled some of my eggs, so all that was left was boiling the potatoes and some veggie chopping. Easy enough.

When boiling potatoes I like to salt the water and toss in an onion for a little extra flavor. The final result is, well, boiled potatoes.

The salad is simple:

Tuna – I used a can of tuna from Trader Joe’s, but if you’re going to be Julia Child about it (suggested), you can grill or (for grill-less NYC dwellers) sear a piece of tuna.

Eggs – hard-boiled and quartered or sliced

Potatoes – cubed

Tomatoes – cubed

Carrot – I had some already shredded in the fridge so I threw them in, but not a standard Niçoise ingredient

Kalamata olives – pitted and roughly chopped

Anchovies – I think these kind of make the dish, but if you’re not a huge fan you could exclude

Lettuce – chopped

Dijon/Vinaigrette dressing: (I eyeball the proportions and adjust to taste. If you make it in a big jar, you can keep adding more of this/that to adjust the flavor, and it keeps in the fridge so it won’t go to waste)

Cider vinegar

Balsamic vinegar

Raspberry vinegar

Safflower oil (I use safflower or walnut oil as opposed to olive, which I think competes w/ the flavors of the vinegars)

Dijon mustard

Sugar

Crushed garlic (optional)

Top with fresh ground black pepper and serve with red or white wine. Bon apetit!

So I believe I’ve covered all the bases. But you ask, “what about the green peppers???” Well, they’re in a drawer in my fridge with all the other green peppers from the last 3 weeks of pick-up.

I don’t like green bell peppers.

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