Couscous Salad with Lemon Balm Vinaigrette

Another way I wanted to use my CSA lemon balm was in a vinaigrette. I discovered my local grocery store carried the larger Middle Eastern (I think sometimes called Israeli) couscous, so I thought I'd try making a cold couscous salad. It came out decently well, but lacked a little flavor. I cooked the couscous in 1 cup wine + 1/2 cup blush wine, but I don't think it added much flavor. It also ended up being too much liquid - I followed the cooking directions, but I think next time will do 1 1/4 cups water with 1 cup dry couscous. The vinaigrette could've had more flavor, so increased the vinegar, brown sugar, salt, and garlic in the recipe below. I also only had the bottom of my green onions, the tops would've added some flavor, too.You can probably use the typical small couscous for this recipe, too. Photos!

Pretty CSA carrots - I used five for the couscous

Carrots peeled - ready to cut!

Carrot circles, about 1/8-1/4 inch thick

Lemon balm leaves

Chopped lemon balm

Chives!

Lemon balm vinaigrette!

Cooked carrots and onion

Couscous cooking up, I made my couscous in the same pot as the carrots and onion; you can see some orangy oil on top from this.

Steamy, ha

Couscous, ready for incorporation

Final dish!

 Couscous Salad with Lemon Balm Vinaigrette - makes ~3 meals, ~4-5 side dishes

• 1 cup dry couscous
• 1 cup carrot circles
• 2 green onions - divide bottoms from tops
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup golden raisins

for vinaigrette:

• 1/8 cup olive oil
• 3 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
• 2 tbsp lemon balm, chopped
• 1 tbsp chives, chopped
• 1 tsp seasoning (I used an all-purpose seasoning called Special Shit - no joke)
• 1/4 tsp salt

1. Prepare vinaigrette first, to allow flavors to mingle, could be made day before. Add olive oil, vinegar, and brown sugar to bowl or bottle and whisk (with whisk or fork) or shake. Add garlic, lemon balm, and chives to liquid. Add seasoning and salt and whisk or shake final mixture. Refrigerate if making ahead of time, or for other uses.
2. Cook carrots on low heat in butter while cutting onions. Add onion bases (the more onion-like part) and cook on low-med heat for 7-10 minutes, until translucent.
3. Meanwhile, prepare couscous as directed. Add carrot and onion to couscous, along with golden raisins and green onion tops, mix.
4. Add vinaigrette, stir, and refrigerate to chill.

Roasted Radishes

Once upon a time, I got some radishes in my CSA. I admit - I do not like radishes. When I was little, sometimes I'd take one out of the garden and draw on our white fences with it. It leaves a pretty pink mark. I do give radishes that; they are quite pretty. In any case, I looked for a way to eat these without being sad, and I found something! Roasting them is quick and simple, and they taste great. Success! I roughly followed this recipe from Bon Appetit, found with my Epicurious app. Here's what I did:

• Preheat oven to 400F (This ended up being a bit hot - I will do 375F next time)
• Use small radish quarters - mine were about the size of a quarter or golden dollar.
• I also used some summer squash - cut these into small circle or semi-circles.
• Spray baking sheet with olive oil lightly, arrange radishes, spray these as well.
• Don't add squash yet.
• If you don't have a mister, you can toss the radishes in a bowl with a little olive oil.
• Bake radishes for 7 minutes, stir them a bit to get different sides to brown, add squash, bake 7 more minutes.
• Add a little salt or seasoning! I used some green onions cooked in my lemon balm compound butter for a dressing - it was wonderful! I ate a few radishes before coating them, and they were great - many possibilities.

Here's the photos!

Little radishes - I probably had about a cup's worth

This one was the tiniest - so cute!

A few green onions to cook in the compound butter.

Radishes ready for roasting.

Squash!

I melted the compound butter on low.

Radishes halfway done, turned, squash added.

Sliced green onion cooking on low in the compound butter - amazing!

Roasted vegetables getting ready to be mixed with onions and butter.

Pretty!



And delicious :)

Lemon Balm Compound Butter

I have always wanted to try making compound butter, and when looking for ways to use my CSA lemon balm, it appeared as an option. It's fairly simple, so there's not a lot to say...my recipe is derived from two recipes I found online. I have so far used it for mashed potatoes, onions (which were added to radishes), and ravioli. It's a nice, easy thing to have around to give recipes an extra oomph. I don't know that the flavor of the lemon balm stood out against the garlic, but it did add visual interest.

Ingredients - makes ~4 tbsp

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 tbsp lemon balm
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder (I didn't have any fresh on hand, but this worked well)
• 1/8 tsp salt

Butter softening - I cut into pieces to help the process

Salt and garlic powder mixed in

Pretty lemon balm!

Leaves pulled off, ready to chop

This is how fine I chops things...might be a bit on the fine side.

Lemon blam mixed in! You could also do this in a food processor.



Put it in a little plastic container, and it can be used for a few days in the fridge, or frozen for the future!

"Ginger" Cashew Chicken

So it seems I almost forgot to post about this one! Based off of a recipe I found using Epicurious from Bon Appetit - Ginger-Cashew Chicken. I put ginger in quotes in the title of this post because I didn't use any ginger. I made a smaller version of the recipe, using what I did have on hand (no chicken broth, no dry mustard, added mushrooms), and it made two servings. It came out pretty well - the biggest surprise was that the slight cooking of my embarrassingly old cashews made them taste quite a bit fresher! If you are sensitive to saltiness I would suggest adding less soy sauce. Here is my ingredient list:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 5 green onions (dense bottom part, used tops for second part)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 chicken breast
• 3 celery stalks
• 1 cup oyster mushrooms
   
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1/8 cup water
• 1/8 cup wine (I used a semi-sweet rose blush, same as in this post)
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1/4 cup cashews
• tops of green onions
• 1/2 cup uncooked rice (cook while making the rest)

Here are most of my veggie ingredients - note that I separated out the base of the green onions from the tops

Sliced oyster mushrooms ready to go

Starting with the green onion bases

I added the mushrooms about halfway through the cooking time of the onions

Everything cooked up! Ready when chicken was just done to keep it juicy.

Here's the sauce...I thought this looked kind of cool :)

Everything - ready to eat!

On rice.



Very savory and tasty!

White Chocolate Orange Banana Bread

Whew - long title. But it's got a lot in it. Including walnuts, but I left that part out of the title. This is based off of "The Best Banana Bread You'll Ever Have" from A Cup of Jo, which I had found on Pinterest. Which I followed more closely in this post. However, I had a couple bananas about to spoil, and an orange I was being finicky about eating, and thought I'd just experiment a little bit. It came out fairly well, though was quite a bit more moist. The white chocolate chips seem to melt into the batter mroeso than chocolate ones, which is not so great. Changes (full recipe at end of post):

• Two bananas, one orange (zested orange and saved for later, peeled orange and put it in the blender
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 Tbsp vanilla (in place of lemon juice)
• 3 Tbsp rum (in place of bourbon)
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 325 F for 60 minutes

Creaming the sugar and butter, one of my favorite things :)

All the liquidy things.

Everything! You can see little bits of orange.

Ready to go - so I made the center not as high to make to top flatter.

...which was okay, and it worked, but doesn't look as good without the peak in the middle :)

See how the white chocolate kind of melted in?

Good stuff !

Here is my version of the recipe (which we will now call White Chocolate Orange Banana Bread, haha):

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 orange, peeled and blended
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons rum
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
• 1 cup (6 ounces) white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 325 F (for dark pan, 350 F for light pan or glass) and prepare loaf pan - I use the cooking spray with flour in it, otherwise grease and flour.
2. To prepare orange, zest (you can save this for other things, or add to the batter), peel, and puree in blender or food processor.
3. Mix dry ingredients in medium small bowl.
4. Cream butter and sugar in a medium bowl until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix thoroughly after each. Add the rest of the liquid ingredients (including banana and orange) and mix well.
5. Add flour mixture to wet ingredients, stir until just blended. Add walnuts and white chocolate, stir until they are distributed.
6. Pour batter into loaf pan, place in oven and back for 60 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
7. Cool, enjoy, and save in plastic wrap.