Chickpea Salad with Toasted Spices and Yogurt Dressing

The first box of the season is always met with anticipation and excitement. I can count on beautiful, purple scallions making an appearance in the first few Angelic Organics boxes. I love the bright burst of color they add to a dish. This salad teases and tantalizes three of your senses – The sounds of the toasted spices sizzling and popping in the pan. The fragrance of the spices and ghee as they collide with the chickpeas. And then, there’s the taste – creamy and cool yogurt, warm and nutty spices and chickpeas. What better way to make use of those gorgeous, purple scallions?

Chickpea Salad with Toasted Spices and Yogurt Dressing
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ingredients
1 tablespoon ghee or olive oil
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 (1 5 ounce) cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
3/4 cup thick Greek yogurt
1-1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 scallions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint
kosher salt
fresh black pepper

first
In a small bowl, combine yogurt, lemon juice, scallions, cilantro and mint. Set aside. Rinse and drain chickpeas and place in a large bowl. Set aside.

next
In a pan over medium, heat ghee or olive oil. Add mustard seeds and coo for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add cumin, fennel and red pepper flake. Continue to stir until spices are fragrant and the mustard seeds start to pop, approximately 30 seconds to 1 minute. Immediately remove from heat.

Be careful! The hot mustard seeds can sputter and jump, and the cumin seeds can go from toasted to burnt in a flash.

last
Pour warm spices and ghee over chickpeas and stir. Add yogurt dressing, salt and pepper. Stir to combine. Adjust seasonings to taste and serve warm or room temperature.

Tex-Mex Cornbread Skillet

If you’re looking for a hearty, warm, satisfying winter meal that you can eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner, look no further than Tex-Mex Cornbread Skillet made with ground beef from the Cedar Valley Sustainable Farm share. I used Beth’s recipe from this month’s newsletter as a jumping off point. It comes together fast and really is as good as it looks and sounds.

Click here to download and print a pdf of this recipe:

Tex-Mex Cornbread Skillet

Basil Green Goddess Dressing

Another triple play! – a creamy green goddess dressing, made with basil rather than the traditional tarragon, flavored with garlic, scallions and lemon juice tops fresh, crisp lettuce. This versatile dressing is the perfect consistency for dipping fresh vegetables or using as a condiment on sandwiches. Whisk in a little water, and it’s the right consistency for an all-purpose salad dressing.

This recipe is from Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa at Home. I am a huge fan of her books, her Food Network show and her recipes and I can’t recommend them enough. Her cooking is simple, delicious and approachable. Try this recipe and you’ll see for yourself. Enjoy!

Click here to download and print a pdf of this recipe:

Basil Green Goddess Dressing

Roasted Radishes with Soy Glaze & Scallions

In the past, radishes always got the best of me. We’d get a bunch in our box and I’d do my best that week to use up all of our veggies. Next box would arrive with another bunch of radishes and lo and behold, there’s that other bunch still in the bottom of the crisper. Part of the problem is that I don’t have a huge repertoire of radish recipes, and unlike my Dad, I can’t just pop them in my mouth raw like candy. But, then along came this recipe for roasted radishes and it uses two to three bunches! Perfect for when I get a little behind...

Surprisingly this is one of the few (if not the only) savory recipe on this site that doesn’t use salt & pepper as seasoning. The soy sauce provides just the right amount of salty flavor and the radishes retain enough of their peppery bite to stand in for black pepper.

I have also recently discovered a use for raw radishes that I absolutely love. This morning, I toasted some pumpernickel bread, let it cool and then spread on a thin layer of cream cheese, some chopped fresh chives, a layer of thinly sliced radishes and a crack or two of fresh black pepper. Mmmm. Now you (and I!) won’t have any excuses for leftover radishes. This is the first time in my 2+ years as a shareholder where I wish I had gotten more radishes this week...

Click here to download and print a pdf of this recipe:

Roasted Radishes with Soy Glaze & Scallions

Mediterranean Couscous with Zucchini, Chickpeas & Feta

This is the perfect recipe to kick off the new season — it uses three ingredients from this week’s box: zucchini/summer squash, scallions and parsley. If only we had gotten some of the famous Angelic Organics garlic, this would have been a home run, bases loaded! But a triple play recipe isn’t bad either. The couscous and squash soak up a lot of flavor, so don’t be shy with the seasonings – lots of garlic, lemon, salt and pepper. I really like the extra kick of color that the beautiful purple scallions add.

This salad can be served cold or at room temperature. It’s a great dish to bring to potlucks or picnics and also makes a healthy, satisfying packed lunch.

Click here to download and print a pdf of this recipe:

Mediterranean Couscous with Zucchini, Chickpeas & Feta

Book ’n Cook | Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook

As promised, I tested the Lee Bros.’ recipe for pickled scallions. Even though I’m not very familiar with pickling or canning (although I hope to change that over the course of this summer), the process went smoothly by simply following the recipe’s thorough directions. The pickled scallions turned out well – slightly tart and the pickling takes the edge off the scallion’s allium flavor. You could chop them and add the pickled scallions to egg salad. You could slice them and top a roast beef sandwich. Or simply add them to an antipasti platter along with other pickled vegetables, olives, salami and cheese.

As for the book, I think the Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, by Matt and Ted Lee, is worth the read just for the Pickles, Relishes and Preserves sections. A few recipes that might appeal to fellow shareholders: Jerusalem Artichoke Relish, Hot Pepper Jelly and Pickled Corn. But the rest of the book is also valuable and a great read. The pages are peppered with anecdotes, back stories and, of course, classic Southern recipes.

Click here to download and print a pdf of this recipe:

Pickled Scallions
Adapted from
Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt and Ted Lee