Spring Salad with Creamy Lemon Fennel Dressing

Visit the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market this Sunday from 10 am - 2 pm at the corner of Agate and 19th Ave for a wide selection of fresh produce from Camas Swale Farm and pastured meat and poultry from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm. 

Camas Swale has a eye popping selection of crunchy spring vegetables -- cucumbers, snap peas, fennel bulb, and turnips -- to layer on a bed of their purple tipped butterhead lettuce. For salad dressing, I usually make a miso vinaigrette, sometimes with tahini for more creaminess. But for an extra decadent treat I decided to whip up a creamy lemon and fennel frond dressing based on this recipe.

This creamy salad was the perfect accompaniment to Turkish stuffed flatbreads called pide, made with Fair Valley Farm ground lamb. And once people started drizzling the dressing on their plates, they found it also went well with roasted cauliflower, garlic scapes, and chickpeas, or just eaten with a spoon.

Creamy Lemon Fennel Dressing

adapted from CreamTea's food52 recipe

1 lemon
2 tablespoons crème fraîche or sour cream
Fine sea salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon mild honey
1-2 tablespoons minced fennel fronds
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Grate the lemon with a zester and set zest aside. Halve lemon and juice one of the halves.

Whisk crème fraîche or sour cream, lemon juice, zest, salt, and honey together until smooth.

While whisking, add olive oil in a thin stream until blended.

Add fennel fronds and whisk again to incorporate. Taste and adjust seasoning (salt, lemon juice, honey) as needed.

Serve the dressing over a salad of crunchy spring vegetables and butterhead lettuce.

Gado Gado and Chicken Satay

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market, you can expect to find pastured meat and eggs from Fair Valley Farm, fresh cut flower bouquets from Tiger Lily Art Company, and fresh produce from Camas Swale Farm including:

strawberries (make some fresh fruit crepes)
last of the snap peas
carrots
beets (try this quinoa and beet salad with roasted kale)
potatoes (make some gado gado below)
summer squashes
onions (make this addictive cumin lamb with seared onions and Fair Valley Farm lamb)
salad mix
chard (why not bake a chard and bacon tart with Fair Valley Farm bacon)
kale
herbs

When we were in Bali a few weeks ago, we took at cooking class at a restaurant in Ubud, Cafe Wayan, where we made (clockwise from top left) eggplant with sambal balado, chicken satay with peanut sauce, chicken curry in coconut milk, and a Balinese grilled fish salad.  

It all tasted wonderfully exotic, but in fact many of the ingredients were ones we have in our kitchen, and the flavors came from how they were combined, often in complex ground pastes, or cooked in unexpected ways. For example, the peanut sauce for the chicken satay, unlike our regular peanut sauce for noodles, was made by grinding fried peanuts with garlic and some tomato and then simmering in a pan with water. 

Last week we recreated this recipe at home, along with another Indonesia dish called gado gado, a composed salad of boiled and fresh vegetables that is also served with peanut sauce. We made a trip to Sunrise Market for small peanuts, kecap manis (a sweet soy sauce), palm sugar, and prawn crackers (little discs that puff up when fried and are traditionally served with gado gado).   

All the vegetables we sourced from the Fairmount Farmers Market, including fingerling potatoes, green beans, cabbage, cucumbers, and carrots. Almost anything could go into gado gado, so it is the perfect farmers market dish for any season, and once you've made a big batch of peanut sauce, the rest of the recipe scales easily for a crowd.

We served ours with hard boiled eggs and fried tempe, with chicken satay skewers on the side. It was a wonderful meal for reminiscing about our recent trip and my husband's family's years spent in Indonesia long ago.  

Gado Gado

peanut sauce (recipe follows)
lightly steamed cabbage leaves
boiled little potatoes
blanched green beans
fresh cucumbers and carrots
other steamed or fresh vegetables of your choice
cilantro
hard boiled eggs
tempe or tofu, sliced into thin strips and fried
prawn crisps and sambal oelek for serving

Prepare all of the vegetables, the hard boiled eggs, and the fried tempe or tofu. Serve with peanut sauce, fried prawn crisps, and sambal oelek.

Peanut Sauce (Bumbu Kacang) 

from Cafe Wayan (for four servings of gado gado)

100 ml water
100 g small peanuts (often called Spanish peanuts)
canola oil as needed for frying the peanuts
1 slice tomato
1 clove garlic
1 Tbsp palm sugar (or use white sugar)
a pinch of salt
1 Tbsp kecap manis (sweet soy sauce, or use regular soy sauce and 1 tsp sugar)
1 tsp tamarind paste or lime juice to taste

If using fresh, small peanuts, fry them in a small amount of canola oil until they harden and become fragrant. Drain on paper towels and season with a pinch of salt. Grind all of the ingredients together with a mortar and pestle or in a food processor. Place in a pan with 1/4 cup water and simmer over medium heat for 10-15 minutes, stirring to prevent sticking. Then add 1 Tbsp kecap manis and 1 tsp of tamarind paste. Combine, taste, and if needed add more salt, sugar, tamarind paste, or lime juice.

Chicken Satay (Sate Ayam)

from Cafe Wayan (serves four as an appetizer) 

1/2 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1 inch cubes
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 Tbsp oil such as canola
3 Tbsp kecap manis (sweet soy sauce, or use regular 3 Tbsp soy sauce and 1 Tbsp sugar)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
mild chili
salt and pepper

Mix the ingredients thoroughly. It's best if you can marinate the chicken for several hours or up to a day. Thread the chicken cubes onto skewers and grill until cooked. Serve with peanut sauce.

Bibim Guksu with Summer Squash and Sesame Turnips

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market, you will find fresh cut flower arrangements from Tiger Lily Art Company and lots of fresh produce from Camas Swale Farm including:

beets (cook in a hash with spinach or pack into foil bundles for the grill)

turnips (delicious cooked in brown butter or in the bibim gusko below)

radishes (try smashed in chili oil) 

carrots

potatoes

summer squash and zucchini (make a gratin or stir fry for bibim gusko below)

cucumbers

sugar snap peas

kale (try kale Florentine for brunch)

lettuce

cabbage (make some homemade kimchi for bibim guksu below)

Since recovering from a bout of food poisoning while traveling in Asia, I've had a strong craving for kimchi. Perhaps it's nostalgia for all the delicious Asian food we'd sampled, or a subliminal need for probiotic bacteria, but when I read this description of a cold Korean noodle dish bibim gusku (literally "mixed noodles") I immediately wanted to try it. One of my favorite dishes to cook for the family is bibim bap ("mixed rice"), and here was a summery version with similar flavors and formulation.

A little internet searching revealed that a more traditional version of bibim gusku would use thin white wheat noodles (Somyeon) and incorporate chopped kimchi into the sauce. I love the flavor of buckwheat soba noodles, so I used these, and I kept the kimchi separate to maintain one of the virtues of bibim family meals: everyone is happy when they can customize the spicing and toppings to their preference.

This dish lends itself to improvising with your Farmers Market finds. In a pan Asian mash up, I made a quick side of Fuchsia Dunlop's Chinese sweet and sour summer squash and gave julienned hot pink turnips a Japanese-inspired treatment after the kinpira gobo (stir fried burdock) from Elin England's Eating Close to Home. Served along with some crunchy sliced cucumbers and Gryffindor carrots, a boiled egg, and some briny kimchi, this was a perfect summer meal that will be a regular on our dinner rotation. 

Bibim Guksu

serves four

noodles
300 g (3 circular packets) of soba noodles
Cook in salted boiling water until barely cooked through (about 5 minutes), then immediately rinse under cold water until entirely cooled. Toss with a drizzle of sesame oil to help prevent the strands from congealing. 

sauce
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp rice vinegar
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp honey
1 tsp Korean gochujang paste for a mild, kid-friendly sauce, or more as desired 
1 Tbsp sesame seeds
Mix together all the ingredients. Taste and adjust flavorings as desired.

sweet and sour summer squash
2 zucchini
salt
2 Tbsp cooking oil
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp Chinkiang vinegar
Quarter the summer squash lengthwise, and slice thinly. Toss with 1/2 tsp salt, mix well and set aside for 30 minutes or so to sweat. When you are ready to cook, squeeze the slices to get rid of excess water. Heat a wok over a high flame. Add the oil, then the garlic, and stir-fry for a few seconds until you smell its fragrance. Add the squash and stir-fry until they are hot and just cooked, but still a little crisp. Add the sugar and vinegar, with salt to taste, stir a couple of times, then tip on to a dish and serve.

julienned sesame turnips with edamame beans
3 large or 4 small turnips, washed, topped, and tailed
1 Tbsp canola oil
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sweet mirin or rice wine plus a pinch of sugar
1/2 cup fresh or frozen edamame beans
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp sesame seeds
red pepper flakes to taste

Slice the turnips and cut the slices into matchsticks. Mix together the soy sauce and mirin. Heat a skillet or wok over high heat and add the oil. When it is hot, add the julienned turnips. Stir fry for a couple minutes until a few start to brown. Add the soy sauce mixture and the edamame beans and continue cooking over high heat, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has completely reduced to a glaze. Remove from heat, drizzle with sesame oil and sprinkle with sesame seeds and red pepper flakes.

additional toppings
4 eggs cooked for six minutes in boiling water and immediately cooled for jammy yokes
julienned carrots and cucumbers
kimchi

Before serving, toss the noodles with the sauce (or leave the noodles undressed for very picky eaters), adding sauce a little at a time until the noodles seem lightly coated. Let people serve themselves their preferred toppings and mix the noodles with the toppings on their plates. 

Zucchini Flatbreads with Gazpacho

Summer's bounty is reaching its peak right now, so come to the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market tomorrow for ripe summer produce from Good Food Easy at Sweetwater Farm, pastured meats from Fair Valley Farm, and beautiful fresh cut flower bouquets from Tiger Lily Art Company.

At the height of our last heat wave, I made a delicious summer meal of zucchini flatbreads with chilled gazpacho. For the soup, I used Sweetwater Farm tomatoes, cucumbers  and lipstick peppers, following this New York Times recipe, which uses plenty of olive oil added slowly to the blender so that it emulsifies into a smooth juice (I was lazy and didn't strain the soup at the end, and it was still delicious).  

The zucchini flatbreads were inspired by a recipe for Turkish Kablaki Lahmacun that my sister shared from Rebecca Seal's Istanbul: Recipes from the Heart of Turkey. Zucchinis are sliced thin with a vegetable peeler and tossed with olive oil, green onions, and aleppo pepper, and then piled on flatbread dough with crumbled feta cheese. Again, I was lazy and rather than making the flatbread dough, I used some flour tortillas. And to avoid turning on the oven, I cooked the onions and zucchini on the stovetop and then finished the tortillas under the broiler of our toaster oven. It was a delicious meal that will become a summer standard.

Zucchini Flatbreads

Adapted from Rebecca Seal's Istanbul: Recipes from the Heart of Turkey

makes four tortillas

2 small zucchini
4 green onions or 1 small onion or shallot
2 tsp aleppo pepper (or use a combination of sweet paprika and cayenne)
2 Tbsp olive oil
pinch of salt
1/2 cup crumbled feta or cotija cheese
4 flour tortillas

1. Trim the tips off the zucchini and then use a vegetable peeler to cut them into long slices lengthwise. Mix the zucchini in a bowl with 1 Tbsp olive oil, a pinch of salt, and the aleppo pepper. Trim the green onions and slice (or peel and dice the onion or shallot). 

2. Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add 1 Tbsp olive oil and the onions and cook until they become glassy. Add the zucchini and continue cooking until the zucchini is just cooked through. Remove from the heat.

3. Pile a quarter of the zucchini mixture on each of the tortillas and top with a quarter of the cheese. Cook the tortillas under the broiler of a toaster oven or regular oven until the cheese is melted and the tortillas toasted, being careful not to burn them (in the toaster oven they were each done after about four minutes). Serve at once.

Best Gazpacho

Adapted from the New York Times

About 2 pounds ripe red tomatoes, cored and roughly cut into chunks
1 Italian frying (cubanelle) pepper or another long, light green pepper, such as Anaheim, cored, seeded and roughly cut into chunks
1 cucumber, about 8 inches long, peeled and roughly cut into chunks
1 small mild onion (white or red), peeled and roughly cut into chunks (optional)
1 clove garlic (optional)
2 teaspoons sherry vinegar, more to taste
Salt
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil, more to taste, plus more for drizzling


1. Combine tomatoes, pepper, cucumber, onion and garlic in a blender or, if using a hand blender, in a deep bowl. (If necessary, work in batches.) Blend at high speed until very smooth, at least 2 minutes, pausing occasionally to scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula.

2. With the motor running, add the vinegar and 2 teaspoons salt. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil. The mixture will turn bright orange or dark pink and become smooth and emulsified, like a salad dressing. If it still seems watery, drizzle in more olive oil until texture is creamy.

3. Strain the mixture through a strainer or a food mill, pushing all the liquid through with a spatula or the back of a ladle. Discard the solids. (The straining is optional). Transfer to a large pitcher (preferably glass) and chill until very cold, at least 6 hours or overnight.

4. Before serving, adjust the seasonings with salt and vinegar. If soup is very thick, stir in a few tablespoons ice water. Serve in glasses, over ice if desired. A few drops of olive oil on top are a nice touch.

Miso Tofu Salad with an Egg on Top

If you get to the Fairmount Farmers Market early this Sunday, you might be lucky enough to pick up some of Fair Valley Farm's pasture raised eggs. 

If you also pick up an bunch of greens, some basil, a cucumber, some baby potatoes, and a handful of these Japanese eggplants from Sweetwater Farm, then you'll have the fixings for a satisfying dinner salad, perfect for these hot days.

I baked sliced eggplant and tofu in a miso marinade in my toaster oven, to avoid heating the kitchen. Over a bed of chopped kale and basil leaves, I layered on the eggplant and tofu with baby potatoes, cucumber spears, and a six-minute egg, and drizzled it all with the sweet and spicy dipping sauce left over from last week's chicken recipe. A delicious farm to table dinner, without generating much heat.

Miso Tofu Salad with an Egg on Top

makes four dinner salads

Miso marinate
1 tablespoon white miso
1/4 cup hot water
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Salad
4 Japanese eggplants, sliced on the diagonal into 1 inch slices
1 block firm tofu, sliced into 8 slabs and pre-frozen or pressed to remove liquid
1 bunch kale or lettuce
~16 basil leaves
1 large or 2 small cucumbers
16 baby potatoes
4 eggs

For the sweet and hot dipping sauce (1/2 recipe):
1/4 cup rice or cider vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoons dried red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon fish sauce

1. Prepare the miso marinade by whisking together all of the ingredients directly in a toaster oven pan or small baking dish. Dip both sides of the eggplant slices and tofu slabs into the marinate and let soak for at least 30 minutes at room temperature or for a day in the refrigerator. Bake at 350 degrees in a toaster oven or stove for 30 to 40 minutes until the eggplants are sift and have started to char and the tofu is dry and firm. Slice the tofu into strips and reserve.

2. Prepare the dipping sauce. In a small saucepan, heat the vinegar to a boil. Add the sugar, stirring until it dissolves, then lower the heat to a simmer for 5 minutes. In the meantime, pound or mash the garlic and salt into a paste in a mortar or on a cutting board with the side of your knife. Stir the red pepper flakes into the sauce. When the vinegar and sugar mixture is done simmering, stir in the garlic paste and fish sauce and let the sauce cool to room temperature. 

3. Prepare the remaining salad ingredients. Boil the baby potatoes until cooked, about 15 minutes, then drain and reserve. For the eggs, set a small pot of water to boil and the carefully lower in each egg with a slotted spoon. Lower the heat and cook for 6 minutes for eggs with yokes that are still a little runny, or up to 10 minutes for firm yokes. Transfer to a bowl with ice water to cool and peel gently. Peel the cucumber if desired and cut into spears. Rinse the kale leaves, remove the stems with your hands or a knife, and chop into small pieces. Rinse the basil leaves, tear into pieces and mix with the kale leaves.

4. Assemble the salads. On four plates, distribute the kale and basil leaves. Layer on eggplant slices, tofu strips, baby potatoes, cucumber spears, and an egg. Drizzle with a little of the dipping sauce and serve with more sauce on the side. Enjoy.

Wheatberry Kisir

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market you can look forward to the following offerings from Sweetwater Farm and Fair Valley Farm:

• tomato sale ($1.95/lb; $18/10 lbs; $30/20 lbs), with an abundance of varieties including: early girl, big beef, beeefsteak, brandywine, san marzano, Japanese black trifele, new girl, ponderosa del oro, principe, borghese, rebeleski, red pear piriform, sun gold, celebrity, mt. fresh, orange blossom, paragon, polbig, qualit, taxi, and valley girl (feast on salads and make a few batches of sauce for the winter)
• peppers both sweet and spicy, including: ace, ancho, anthoi romanian, carmen, conchos, czech black, el jefe, flavor burst, italia, jalafuego, lipstick, melrose, numex joe, parker, red rocket, sahauro, serrano del sol, tiburon and yankee bell
• baby lettuce salad mix and lots of greens
• Japanese and globe eggplants (delicious in a hearty pasta sauce)
• zucchini and summer squash (make refrigerator pickles)
• green beans, yellow wax beans, and romanos
• cucumbers (combine with tomatoes in gazpacho)
• a variety of potatoes 
• sweet white onions, garlic, fennel, and leeks (make a leek and bean soup)
• fresh herbs, including basil, cilantro, dill, thyme, oregano, and sage
• tomato sauce and pesto
• naturally fermented pickles
• homemade jams
• a selection of dried beans and grains from Camas Country Mill
• pastured chicken
• pastured pork: bacon, pork chops, shoulder roasts, ham roasts, spare ribs, ground sausage and ground pork (try ma po doufo)
• pastured lamb: ground, stew meat, leg roast, rib chops, loin chops

With the glut of summer tomatoes, you can't have enough ways to incorporate fresh tomatoes into a meal, in soups, salads, tarts, pastas, and grain dishes. My sister, who developed a taste for Turkish food while living in Berlin, recently taught me how to make kisir, a parsley-packed, harissa-spiked salad made with very fine bulgur. Since bulgur is a form of wheat grain (parboiled and dried), I experimented with giving the same treatment to whole wheat berries from Camas Country Mill. And I let some fresh tomatoes and cucumbers sneak in for a complete bowl of grains, fruits, and vegetables. This makes a delicious accompaniment to lamb burgers or roast chicken. 

Wheat Berry Kisir


3/4 cup wheat berries 


2 Tbsp harissa
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup olive oil 
1 small onion
1 tsp ground cumin 
2 bunches parsley
juice from 1 1/2 lemons
3 Tbsp pomegranate molasses 
salt
1 cucumber 
1 pint cherry tomatoes or 2 large tomatoes






1. Cook the wheat berries by simmering them in 2 cups of salted water over low heat until tender but still firm, about 90 minutes. When they are tender, drain them if necessary, transfer them to a serving bowl, and stir in the harissa and tomato paste. 


2. Peel and dice the onion. Heat a skillet over medium heat, add the olive oil, and then add the diced onions. Cook until they are thoroughly cooked through but do not let them brown. Add the cumin and cook for one more minute. Then pour the spiced onion oil over the wheat berries and mix.


3. In a food processor, chop the parsley leaves until quite fine. Scrape them into the bowl with the wheat berries and stir. Stir in the pomegranate molasses and lemon. Taste and add more lemon juice, salt, or harissa as desired.


4. Peel the cucumber and chop it into lengthwise into quarters or sixths and then widthwise into 1/4 inch pieces. Halve or quarter the cherry tomatoes or chop the large tomatoes into 1/2 inch pieces. Fold the cucumbers and tomatoes into the dressed wheatberries. Serve at room temperature.


Note: to make an authentic kisir, hydrate 1 1/2 cups fine bulgur with 1 1/2 cups boiling water. Then  proceed with the recipe above as written for the cooked wheat berries. And exclude the tomatoes and cucumbers if you are feeling like a stickler.

Cumin Scented Lamb Burgers

Enjoy summer's bounty at this Sunday's Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market. You can look forward to the following from Sweetwater Farm and Fair Valley Farm:

• blueberries, peaches and plums (bake a galette)
• green beans, yellow wax beans, and romanos (make a salad, see below)
• eggplants, zucchini, summer squash, and peppers (delicious grilled)
• cucumbers (for tzatziki, see below)
• potatoes including new potatoes, yellow yukon gold, red norland, and all blue
• many colors of tomatoes (make gazpacho)
• fennel and fresh herbs, including basil and parsley
• cabbage and greens, including bietola (try this saag paneer salad)
• carrots, beets, and radishes (try some sauteed radishes)
• broccoli and cauliflower
• onions and garlic
• tomato sauce and pesto
• pickles, kimchi, and sauerkraut
• homemade jams
• fresh eggs
• Scottish oats (make some Swedish oatmeal pancakes)
• a selection of dried beans and grains from Camas Country Mill
• pastured chicken
• pastured pork: bacon, ground pork, pork chops, shoulder roasts, ham roasts, spare ribs, and the best sausage for hash
• pastured lamb: ground, stew meat, leg roast, rib chops, loin chops

When we made lamb burgers last week, using Fair Valley Farm's ground lamb, it finally felted like we had settled into summer. We had farm fresh cucumbers for a refreshing tziziki and a green bean salad, similar to one I served here, with almonds and dried apricots. The meat was delicious and didn't need any augmentation, but I added in some ground cumin for a hind of Middle Eastern flavors and we ate it with a dollop of harissa on top of Eugene City Bakery's ciabatta. No need to shop anywhere but the corner of 19th and Agate for a delicious local feast.

Lamb Burgers

1 lb ground lamb
1 tsp ground cumin
~1/2 tsp salt and generous grinding of black pepper

With your hands, incorporate the spices into the meat but avoid over-mixing. Shape into four patties. Grill or cook in a hot skillet about 5 minutes per side until just cooked through. Serve with harissa and tziziki.

Tziziki

1 cucumber
1/2 cup yogurt (whole milk or Greek)
pinch of salt
~8 fresh mint leaves

Peel the cucumber and trim off the ends. Cut it lengthwise into quarters or sixths, then slice widthwise. Combine the cucumber chunks with the yogurt, salt, and torn fresh mint leaves. You could also use fresh cilantro or parsley and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Green Bean Salad with Almonds and Dried Apricots

1/2 pound green beans
1/4 cup whole almonds
8 dried apricots
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp sherry vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

1. Set a pot of salted water to boil. Trim the stems off the beans. Toast the almonds in a dry skillet until fragrant and then chop or break into pieces with a meat pounder. Chop the dried apricots.

2. When the water is boiling, cook them for about 4 minutes until they are bright green but still crisp enough so that they don't sag when you hold them horizontally. While the beans are cooking, whisk together the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper in your serving bowl. Drain the beans and toss them in the vinaigrette. Garnish with the almond and apricot pieces. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Market Start and Fresh Spring Rolls

The much anticipated start of the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market's third season is almost here. Plan to visit the corner of 19th and Agate on Sunday July 8th between 10 AM and 2:30 PM. 

You can look forward to delicious food from SLO Farm and Sweetwater Farm. Both farms' produce is grown in our immediate community and their offerings include diverse and thoughtfully curated varietals of fruits and vegetables as well as homemade fermented foods. SLO Farm grows a wide array of specialty organic fruits and this year will offer pastured meats. They accept WIC and Farm Direct Nutrition Program Checks.

This Sunday you can expect to find:

• cherries (try in a salsa for salmon)
• snap peas (add crunch to a wheatberry salad)
• many varieties of greens (for salads)
• squash (for salad toppings)
• cabbage (try Pad Thai)
• carrots (make veggie sushi or spring rolls)
• potatoes (whip up a frittata)
• turnips (try these with browned butter)
• onions, garlic greens and garlic scapes
• apple sauce (perfect for latkes)
• tomato sauce and pesto (make pizza)
• pickles and sauerkraut
• kimchi (make this addictive fried rice)
• jams (great dessert crepe fillings)

For an abundance of fresh spring vegetables, here's a recipe for fresh spring rolls. All you need are spring roll rice paper wrappers available at any Asian market (I used square ones like these), narrow rice stick noodles, and a selection of fresh vegetables. 

We made lemongrass-marinated fried tofu for a filling. The kids loved assembling the rolls, while sneaking nibbles of chopped vegetables and fresh herbs. We can't wait to make them again with our fresh, local ingredients from our favorite farmers.

Fresh Spring Rolls

makes about 12 spring rolls

lemongrass tofu
1 package (12 ounce) extra firm tofu
1 stalk lemongrass
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
~1/4 cup canola oil

1. Remove the rough outer leaves of the lemon grass, trim off the base, and chop finely. Combine with the soy sauce and sugar. Slice the tofu into 8 half inch thick slices, arrange in a shallow pan, and pour over marinate. Cover and let refrigerate for at least an hour or overnight. 

2. Heat a large skillet over medium high and when hot, coat the bottom generously with canola oil. When the oil glistens with heat, carefully place the tofu slices, from which you've wiped the lemongrass pieces, into the oil (they will spatter). Let them cook undisturbed at least five minutes until they are very crispy. Then flip them with conviction and cook the second side until crispy. Transfer to a paper towel. When cooled, cut each slab into 8 pieces. As an alternative to frying, one could bake the tofu.

black bean dipping sauce
2 Tbsp minced ginger
1 Tbsp canola oil
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
1/4 cup boiled water
1 tsp rice wine vinegar
crushed peanuts

Heat a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the oil and saute the minced ginger for a couple of minutes. Add the hoisin and water and let simmer and thicken for about 5 minutes. If the consistency is not thick enough for your liking, add a 1/4 tsp corn starch. Stir in the vinegar and remove from heat. Pour into a bowl and top with crushed peanuts.

spring rolls
1 package spring roll rice paper wrappers
~3 ounces thin rice stick noodles
a selection of the following fillings or whatever looks good at the farmers market:
lettuce leaves
shredded carrots
julienned cucumbers
sliced radishes
bean sprouts
mint leaves
cilantro leaves

1. Soak the rice stick noodles in boiled water for about five minutes, until they are soft, and then drain and reserve. Prepare all of the other fillings and arrange in easy access. 

2. Fill a shallow pan with boiled water and submerge a rice paper wrapper in it. Let soak for about 5 seconds (or longer as the water cools down) until the wrapper is transparent and pliable. Drape the softened wrapper over a clean cutting board. Fill a strip in the center with desired fillings, starting with lettuce and rice stick noodles, and then roll it up like a small burrito. Repeat until the fillings are used or nibbled up. Enjoy the spring rolls with the dipping sauce and sriracha.