CSA Love: Week 1 Recipe Recap

I cooked an unbelievable amount of food this week. I can't stand letting food spoil or go to waste, so my fridge full of CSA veggies was like a time bomb to motivate my kitchen creativity. Here's what I came up with this week:

Green chile
I based the dish loosely on this recipe, but altered the quantities based on what I had on hand. I also threw in some cubed potato, since I had one that needed eating. It came out pretty well!

I'itois onion pancakes
I've talked about these before, made from a Chinese scallion pancake recipe on La Fuji Mama's blog. I made a couple dozen for the freezer (and helped myself to several during the week). They are so amazingly good.

They also make for a decadent little lunch when cut up in bite sized wedges and paired with fried egg and a soy/tahini/chili sauce.

Rustic butternut squash and caramelized onion tartlettes

I like these, though I left out the goat cheese since I didn't have any on hand. As a result the flavor was perhaps on the subtle side, and I would consider increasing the onion the next time.

Toasted butternut squash seeds

Swiss chard sauteed with sunflower seeds and chili-garlic sauce
Based on a Jacques Pepin recipe suggested by my Uncle. I thought this had a really nice flavor, but to be honest, I've got a bit of a textural issue with cooked greens. I knew this going into it, but I was hoping to overcome it. Not so much.

Braising mix gratin

The Whole Foods website promised that this recipe (meant for swiss chard) would make anyone love greens. While the flavor, again, was fine, the prominent texture here was still that of cooked leafy greens, and I suspect that I'm not the only one out there that has this particular food texture issue. But fear not! I haven't given up on greens yet, and thanks to a comment from Farmgirl Fare Susan, I have an idea of how to enjoy the flavor of greens, without having their texture be the overwhelming focus of the dish.

While waiting for the gratin to cook, I roasted the last of the radishes with a bit of olive oil and salt in my toaster oven. So yummy.

Banana nut muffins

Ok, these have nothing to do with my CSA veggies, but I did have a couple over-ripe bananas that I didn't want to waste, so I made these based on this recipe, but subbed walnuts for coconut. I cut the sugar slightly, but would reduce it even more the next time. Great texture though, and it's always nice to have a bunch of muffins in the freezer for when guests are in town.