Salad of random green stuff

The kids and I picked up the CSA today from Gorman Farm.  It's a fun reading, counting, and measuring lesson, though we try to go earlier, so we don't irritate commuters with ChaseKBH's spelling and lack of understanding about what half a pound feels like.  Today we ended up going later than is ideal, but we had a blast picking out our items.  Of great interest was three pounds of cucumbers, which are to become pickles.  ChaseKBH is adamant that we only make cute pickles, not grossie or ugly pickles.  I have no idea why he cares so much about the appearance of the pickles.

There was a bonus table at the CSA today, but we ended up not taking anything, as we are behind having done so much traveling.  We did trade our squash for a second head of lettuce, as squash is just not well enough liked in this house for the quantities of a mid-Atlantic harvest.  We also got a beautiful bounty of garlic that I'm looking forward to using extensively.  

It was way, way too hot to cook for real.  I cheated and microwaved some corn on the cob (the almost-four year old doesn't really care), and pan-sauteed some frozen chicken breasts, and made a big salad with random green stuff.  It seemed to be a hit, though the husband believed the dressing was too acidic.  We're out of olive oil, but the oils used seemed to work well.  The salad might have been a bit overdressed, but eh, proportions are easy to fudge a bit.  As for the verdict, well, the almost-four-year-old ate a bit of chicken, a bite of leaves with nothing on them, some cucumbers, and a lot of corn.  The one year old ate corn, leftover pasta, and some cucumber.  The grownups finished a large bowl of salad.

Random Leaves Salad

I suspect that the same thing could be done with pretty much anything that's green and can be eaten raw.

Ingredients:

1 large head red or green leaf lettuce (we used red), washed and torn into bite sized pieces

2 giant handfuls of basil, stemmed, washed and large leaves torn into bite sized pieces

3 giant handfuls of parsley, stemmed and washed

2 teaspoons salt, divided

1/2 cup oil (I used grapeseed, canola, and about a 1/8 of a cup of truffle oil)

2 cloves of garlic

Juice of one large juicy lemon

1 teaspoon pepper

1 cup roughly torn basil

Method:

- Rinse leaves, dry well (spin in a salad spinner), and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt.  Set aside.

- Add 1/8 cup oil, garlic, lemon, salt, pepper, and basil to a blender.  Pulverize.

- Slowly drizzle in remaining oil until desired consistency is achieved.

- Taste.

- Drizzle in oil and/or lemon as needed to balance.

- Toss leaves with the dressing, set rest aside for another day.

- Top with grilled or pan sauteed protein if desired.

Caprese Pasta

This is an easy, quick dinner that's perfect for August's tomatoes.  If you're in a real hurry there's no need to cut or chiffonade anything, just tear and toss - the heat will get everything to mix a bit, and you can always squish with a spatula.  I made this with fresh linguine - the Wegman's house brand - but it can be made with any pasta type or shape.  My kid likes long noodles, so I tend to use those, but I think this would be great with penne or similar short pasta.  If I was feeling adventurous, I would make my own pasta and serve with that, but the refrigerator case is a great substitute.  Balsamic would be nice here, however, I wasn't thrilled with the brown visual, so I used lemon juice as the acid.  This is a one dish weeknight meal or a nice pasta course for a longer meal (reduce serving size).  A nice green salad would complement this well.  My husband thought I should serve it with steak.  I'm not sure why, except he likes steak.

Ingredients:
3 servings pasta of your choice, cooked.  Here, I used a 13 ounce package of fresh linguine - part of it was reserved for plain buttered noodles, so about 9-10 ounces were used here
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves of very fresh garlic, cut in half
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half
1 large bunch basil, stems removed, chiffonaded (this just means cutting finely into ribbons)
8 ounces fresh mozzarella balls, cut in half (or not)
Juice of one half lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Cook pasta according to package directions.  Aim for al dente.
Place 2 tablespoons of olive oil in large saucepan or frying pan (not cast iron) over medium low heat.
Add garlic and toss to coat with oil.
Cook garlic over medium low heat until it becomes soft.
Increase heat to medium.
Toss in tomato halves and basil.  Stir.  Cook about 2 minutes until heated through and tomatoes are very soft.  Basil should still be bright green.
Toss in mozzarella balls and lemon.  Cook another 30 seconds to 1 minute, until the mozzarella starts to just ooze.
Taste.
Add salt and pepper to taste.  This will need a bit of salt.
Remove from heat.
Warm serving bowl - either in the microwave or by pouring in boiling water and pouring out.
Add pasta to serving bowl. 
Pour over tomato mixture.  Toss.
Serve immediately.