Oi Muchim (Spicy Cucumbers)

From CSA member Ellice Lee!

One of my favorite things about Summer is eating crunchy, fresh veggies—and especially if they're spicy and a tad bit sweet! This recipe is a quick go-to. It takes about 15 min to prep and 15 min of marinating and then it's ready to serve. Tastes even better on Day 2, so you can always make this a day ahead of time.

Ingredients (Serves 4 to 6)
11⁄2 pounds (680 g) Korean, English hothouse, or Persian cucumbers
1⁄4 pound (115 g, or about 1 large bunch) Chinese garlic chives, cut into 1 1⁄2-inch (4 cm) pieces (or substitute green onions!)
1 cup (100 g) thinly sliced sweet white onion
2 tablespoons gochugaru (Korean hot pepper flakes—make sure you use the flakes, not the powder, or else it will be REALLY spicy)
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar (non or lightly seasoned)
2 teaspoons packed brown sugar (or honey, agave)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
11⁄2 teaspoons kosher salt

Directions

Cut the cucumbers into 2-inch (5 cm) pieces, then cut each of those pieces in fours.

Place the cucumbers in a large mixing bowl, then add the garlic chives, onion, gochugaru, rice wine vinegar, sweetener of choice, sesame oil, sesame seeds, and salt.
Mix everything together well with your hands, then pack it into a nonreactive storage container, such as glass or plastic.

You can eat this right away, but it tastes better if left to sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. This will last 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator.

This recipe has been adapted from Sohui Kim's Korean Home Cooking.

Pair a Potato with a Spice Blend

Member Chris Phillips recently read a curious headline about a personal smell museum opening in Los Angeles. That got me daydreaming and Googling. I found there are bunches of fairs and trade shows and even libraries dedicated to fragrances.

My nosy nose won’t be able to make it to any of these for a while, but this was a reminder to explore my own scent museum of sorts right here: the spice blends in my kitchen drawer. I have garlicky-green smelling Green Goddess and sweet gingery Five Spice powder. 

As the nights get longer and we zoom past the end of peak summer vegetables, grab any spice blend to spark up your supper. Potatoes will be a reliable part of our CSA baskets over the next weeks and will surely be part of the winter shares too.

How about roasting potatoes in a warming garam masala? Or top a baked potato with plain yogurt and za’atar. I like to peel, cube and roast sweet potatoes with the Turkish blend from Penzeys which stars bracing sumac and cumin. If you’re cooking for kids and want to explore simpler spice blends, seasoned salt could be a way to start.

The Atlantic ran some recipes for CSA-inspired dishes including these potatoes roasted with garam masala. If you’re curious about moving beyond Mrs. Dash and learning more about the spice blend trend, check out this article in Eater too. 

Be generous with your spice blends - pour them out in your potatoes and use them up. They will fill your kitchen with amazing fragrances plus spice taste better when they are used up quickly. 

Spiced Chickpea Stew with Coconut and Tumeric

From member Cara McAteer: The return of chilly weather this weekend brought to mind a fast and easy recipe from the New York Times cooking page for a chickpea stew that I had in heavy rotation last fall. Several ingredients from this week’s share will go nicely in it. I got onions this week and also young ginger which I think will be even better than regular ginger root in this stew. The bunch of kale that I received will be the greens. The recipe calls for red pepper flakes but the hot peppers from my share will make a more flavorful substitute. Instead of garnishing with mint as the recipe calls for, I will garnish with the cilantro from my share. To make this a heartier meal, I usually serve it over quinoa.

INGREDIENTS

¼ cup olive oil, plus more for serving
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 (2-inch) piece ginger, finely chopped
Kosher salt and black pepper
1 ½ teaspoons ground turmeric, plus more for serving
1 teaspoon red-pepper flakes, plus more for serving
2 (15-ounce) cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 (15-ounce) cans full-fat coconut milk
2 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 bunch Swiss chard, kale or collard greens, stems removed, torn into bite-size pieces
1 cup mint leaves, for serving
Yogurt, for serving (optional)
Toasted pita, lavash or other flatbread, for serving (optional)

PREPARATION

Heat 1/4 cup oil in a large pot over medium. Add garlic, onion and ginger. Season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally until onion is translucent and starts to brown a little at the edges, 3 to 5 minutes.

Add 1 1/2 teaspoons turmeric, 1 teaspoon red-pepper flakes, and the chickpeas, and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, so the chickpeas sizzle and fry a bit in the spices and oil, until they’ve started to break down and get a little browned and crisp, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove about a cup of chickpeas and set aside for garnish.

Using a wooden spoon or spatula, further crush the remaining chickpeas slightly to release their starchy insides. (This will help thicken the stew.) Add coconut milk and stock, and season with salt and pepper.

Bring to a simmer, scraping up any bits that have formed on the bottom of the pot. Cook, stirring occasionally, until stew has thickened, 30 to 35 minutes. (Taste a chickpea or two, not just the liquid, to make sure they have simmered long enough to be as delicious as possible.) If after 30 to 35 minutes, you want the stew a bit thicker, keep simmering until you've reached your desired consistency.

Add greens and stir, making sure they’re submerged in the liquid. Cook until they wilt and soften, 3 to 7 minutes, depending on what you’re using. (Swiss chard and spinach will wilt and soften much faster than kale or collard greens.) Season again with salt and pepper.

Divide among bowls and top with mint, reserved chickpeas, a sprinkle of red-pepper flakes and a good drizzle of olive oil. Serve alongside yogurt and toasted pita if using; dust the yogurt with turmeric if you'd like.

Don’t Be Befuddled By Beets

Member Chris Phillips is here to help with beets as well! Get inspired with the below -

Our fall shares will include beets. Novelist Tom Robbins calls beets “the most intense of vegetables.” Perhaps because many of us don’t eat beets all that often, we don’t have a go-to approach for getting them on the dinner table or in the salad bowl. Beets can be confounding. 

I suggest simply roasting them. The Kitchn has a simple guide to wrapping beets in foil and roasting them. If you’re not afraid of a little beet “blood” (it is almost Halloween after all), you could just thinly slice your beets and toss them in a salad or use them as dippers for hummus.

Don’t throw away the green tops of your beets. You can cook down beet greens as you would kale. I like to eat sauteed beet greens on top of toast with some ricotta. 
I can’t resist leaving you with a bit more of Tom Robbins on beets: “The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized . . .” I love that even as we slide past the peak of vegetable season in the northeast, these rubies are waiting for us.

Let Your Leeks Take Center Stage

Member Chris Phillips is here to help answer the question “what to do with all these leeks?”-

I have a bad habit: I’m a leek collector. I buy them or find them in my CSA box and I don’t use them up right away. I dream of spending a quiet hour making potato leek soup, but I never quite find them time. I wonder if I can carmelize leeks and blend them into cream cheese to make a great dip or spread but I never do that either.

Instead my lonely leeks sit idle at the bottom of the crisper drawer until my husband reminds me to use it or lose it. Leeks do keep well in the crisper, but this time why not make the leeks the very first think you use from this week’s CSA basket?

Try Molly O’Neil’s super straightforward recipe for braised leeks. I find this recipe to be a revelation. Wait till you smell the leeks braised in wine! Leeks are usually character actors, so it feels adventurous to put them on center stage at least one every autumn. 

If we’re lucky enough to still find some tomatoes in our CSA baskets or at the market this week, you might also like this recipe for Cod With Leeks and Tomatoes from Martha Stewart’s old Everyday Food recipe. I’ve made this tens of times and it’s one of my favorite fish dishes - great for a work-from-home weeknight or elegant enough for an autumnal outdoor socially distant dinner with neighbors.