2016 CSA Week 1: In the Kitchen

Hello fellow CSA members!
Are you enjoying your share this week?!? I sure hope so. I always love the first week... heavy on strawberries and excitement at another opportunity to eat healthier in our house.

I spent a while considering asparagus recipes and -- stick with me -- I was inspired by this VEGAN recipe (I'll tell you upfront that I substituted the meat substitute with actual meat... but more on that later):

Beefy Asparagus Stir-Fry
from Isa Does It: Amazingly Easy, Wildly Delicious Vegan Recipes for Every Day of the Week, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, page 172
serves 4. total time: 30 min. active time: 30 min.

For the sauce:
1/2 cup vegetable broth, chilled
2 teaspoons organic cornstarch
6 tablespoons soy sauce
1 to 2 tablespoons sriracha (for your preference of spiciness)
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons agave nectar
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh Thai basil or regular basil

For everything else:
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
1 pound seitan, cut into thin strips
Several pinches of freshly ground black pepper
1 cup thinly sliced shallots
8 ounces asparagus
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup toasted cashews
1 cup bean sprouts

For serving:
Cooked jasmine rice
Extra fresh mint and/or basil

Prepare the Sauce:
You can do this while everything else is cooking or do it beforehand. Mix together the broth and cornstarch until well dissolved. Add the soy sauce, sriracha, lime juice and agave and mix well, then mix in the mint and basil. Set aside.

Prepare everything else:
Preheat a large, heavy pan over medium-high heat and add 2 teaspoons of the sesame oil. Saute the seitan in the oil, along with a few pinches of black pepper, until seared on both sides, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer to a plate and set aside.

Saute the shallots in the pan with 2 more teaspoons of the oil and a pinch of salt until browned, about 5 minutes. Add the asparagus and 1 more teaspoon of the oil. Toss often for about 3 minutes, or until they are bright green. You want them to have some snap to them, so be careful not to overcook (although if you do, no biggie, just remember for next time).

Push the veggies to the side, and add the ginger and garlic to a clear spot. Drizzle the remaining 1 teaspoon oil into the pan and toss for about 15 seconds, just until fragrant, and then toss it together with the veggies.

Add the seitan back to the pan. Now add the sauce and turn up the heat to bring it to a boil. It should thicken and reduce in about 3 minutes. Once thick, add the cashews and bean sprouts and toss to coat. Serve immediately over rice, topped with fresh herbs if desired.

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Doesn't that sound absolutely delicious?!? I thought so. But there's not a huge seitan selection in London. (I bought seitan once and it ruined in the back of my fridge before I used it. I actually would like to taste it someday.) AND while that sounds delicious, it also sounds like a lot of work. So here's what I did:

My apologies if raw meat grosses you
out, but I just thought this was a beautiful
steak.

I retrieved a Sustainable Harvest Farm beef flank steak (thanks to the winter meat share) from my freezer, let it thaw and sliced it in thin strips. Since flank steak can sometimes be a tougher cut of meat, I marinated it in (store-bought, bottled) teriyaki sauce for a few hours. I chopped/cut/sliced (pick your word) the asparagus, as well as some zucchini and carrots. I sautéed the veggies (carrots first, then added in asparagus, and finally zucchini) in oil, ginger and garlic. Then I put those aside and added the meat to the skillet. After the meat was seared I added the veggies back in and tossed in some teriyaki sauce. All while my handy-dandy rice cooker (seriously, if you don't have a rice cooker with a slow-cook function, make that investment as quickly as you possibly can) took care of the jasmine rice for me.

 

My disclaimer: Isa may have cooked hers in 30 minutes, but it took me a solid hour start to finish. Also, I understand what I made could barely even be called loosely inspired by hers but I hadn't even thought of it until I saw the recipe in her book.

Not a lot of points for presentation,
but this was the final product.

The results: I LOVED it. I really enjoy Asian-inspired food, so I was pumped for this. I had no idea how Johnie would react. We decided he would rate my kitchen experiments this season by broccoli stalks since that is a vegetable he actually likes, one stalk (I never want to eat this again) to five stalks (I genuinely love this vegetable now). He gave this dish a three broccoli stalk rating. Didn't hate it, didn't love it, wouldn't mind eating it again. That's success in my book.

A couple closing notes: Stir fries are generally an easy way to use some of the veggies in your share - throw in the ones you like (or maybe one or two you don't like), along with your meat or meat-substitute of choice, and a complicated or easy seasoning/glaze. This dish could have taken on many different flavors.

If you try Isa's actual recipe, I'd love to know how it turned out for you. And I'd love to know how you used your share this week! Comment below, or send me an email (amyrosekarr@gmail.com).