CSA Shares and Simple Navy Bean Soup

I just finished a wonderful lunch of left over navy bean soup that was whipped up yesterday and I'm still nibbling on the sweet and juicy pear from our last CSA box from Full Circle Farm.

And I'm mentally jumping for joy to hear that my sister in-law and brother in-law are signing up for a share from Full Circle Farm as well!

All this thinking about CSAs has me eagerly awaiting tomorrow's box.  I've been dreaming up what I will do with all that delicious produce since I finalized my selections this weekend.  I'm especially excited about getting a double order of eggplant this week - completely out of season, but something I've been craving for a few weeks now.  I want to make the simple oven roasted eggplant with anchovy that I found in my mother in-law's Silver Spoon cookbook and I want to try my hands at a recipe I came across online for eggplant "bacon" that gets marinated and then put on the dehydrator for a while.  It sounds very intriguing.  If I'm lucky enough to have any eggplant left (doubtful) I might make up a batch of Baba Ganoush to go with the Chipotle Garlic Hummus recipe I'm planning on making.  I found that recipe in the Tassajara Cookbook I've got checked out from the library (I really want a copy of this one for my collections!).  That would give us some good picnic foods for the weekend.  Something to take along for our outing to the Seattle Tilth Spring Plant Sale that we are going to with some friends.

For tonight though I'm roasting up some parsnips and cabbage for a veggie St. Patrick's Day dinner.  Yum!

Here's the Simple Navy Bean Soup recipe:

In the morning:

2 cups dry small white navy beans
8 cups water
1 Bay or Myrtle Leaf

Put all of the above in a slow cooker and cook for 6 hours on low setting.

When it's getting closer to dinner time:

2 carrots, sliced
2 stalks celery, diced
1-2 tsp earth balance or butter or olive oil

Saute all of the above in a large stock pot till slightly softened.  Add the beans and their broth, discarding the bay leaf.  Add smoked sea salt to taste (that's my secret ingredient!).  Bring to a simmer to blend flavors.  Right before serving stir in a 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley.

We served this with garlic bread  - the perfect thing to sop up the last of the bean broth in your bowl.  This soup tastes even better the next day!

Roasted Parsnips and Cabbage

This is my ultimate comfort food. I've done this dish with a wide variety and many combinations of root vegis, but this is my all time favorite. Mark and I make this a meal often enough - it's so simple and soooo delicious!

Roasted Parsnips and Cabbage

2+ pounds of parsnips, pealed and cut into chunks
1/2 head savoy cabbage (I've used other cabbages but this is the best)
olive oil to coat
sea salt to taste

Place all the ingredients in a covered baking dish and mix well. Cover and bake at 375-400 degrees for 20-30 minutes. Remove the cover and continue baking for another 30-40 minutes or until parsnips are very tender and cabbage has started to caramelize in the parsnip juices.

I've added carrots to this when I didn't have enough parsnips. I've also done it with rutabegas, parsnips, and carrots - when Mark said he wanted to try rutabegas since he'd never had them before. It was yummy too. But if I had my way it would be just parsnips and cabbage all the way!

Vegetables in Coconut Milk

This dish was inspired by a recipe from The Tropical Vegan Kitchen, a cookbook that has so many recipes in it that make me hungry, I will eventually have to get my own copy and give up the one from the library.
I was looking for a quick and simple recipe that used several ingredients I had in the house, including coconut milk and vegetables. The Thai-Style Spicy Mixed Vegetables in Coconut Milk over Rice on page 104 came close enough to give me a starting point for what turned out to be a very tasty dinner.

Here's how I made it:

1 1/2 cups coconut milk
3 kaffir lime leaves, shredded
2 inch chunk lemongrass, chopped roughly
1/4 cup red onion, finely chopped
1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons shoyu soysauce
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
pinch of salt

Place all of the above ingredients into a large pan and simmer gently for several minutes.

Add the following (or whatever combination of vegetables you have on hand):

1 1/2 cups frozen green bean pieces
3 cups of savoy cabbage, shredded
1 large carrot, shredded

Stir the vegetables into the coconut milk mixture, cover and let cook until the vegetables are done to your liking.

Serve over jasmine rice.

One thing that I would do in the future, that the recipe does not call for, is to pick out the shredded kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass chunks after they simmer in the coconut milk and before adding the vegetables. This would make the overall texture of the dish more pleasant.