CSA Box #1 Asian Dinner With Chicken

This summer we thought it might be fun to sign up for someone else's vegetables...through buying a CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) share. 

We'll have our own veggies, too, as the season goes along...heirloom potatoes, shallots, fin de Bagnol beans, lettuces, lima beans, tomatillos, French horticultural beans, baby patty pans, carrots....all depending on what we get to before the animals get to the veggie garden.....always a race against time (the raccoons know exactly which night the sweet corn is ready...the night before you're planning on picking it!).

Costa Farms

So, we chose the mini box from Costa Farms-not so many veggies at one time...to be picked up at Angus Meats.   Great idea to pair those two, don't you think?

What was in CSA box #1?

Today the first box was delivered.   We signed our name and popped the top to see what was included in the box.    Bok Choy, knobby green onions, lacinato kale, the honey from Honey House, rhubarb, fresh coriander (cilantro).    Well, that's a good starting point to turn and stare into the beautiful meat selection at Angus Meats and create a first meal or two.   An Asian dinner with chicken was the first thing that came to mind...so time to go for

it.   (I don't know what those teriyaki 'snack sticks' had to do with dinner....but the butcher was smart enough to hand one to John to eat in the car...so peacefulness reigned for the entire drive!).

Let's see if we can't put together a few ideas and create a fun dinner dish.

CSA Box #1 Dinner #1

I started with the chicken thighs--meaty, so they

won't dry out as we throw heat at them in a couple of ways.   I rubbed them with some of our Marianne's Kitchen Asian sesame ginger rub, let them rest a bit...then popped them in the oven to cook in all of that sesame ginger goodness.

In the meantime, I cracked open a bag of

'Marianne's Ginger Rice With Cranberries' and put some water on the stove (I didn't even use

stock....there would be enough flavors in the dish that the extra chicken or veggie stock wasn't really necessary).  I added the rice and the ginger spice packet....then I stood by the stove pondering what to do.   The ginger rice mix also contains a bag of dried cranberries....do I need them in this preparation?   I thought about pretty jeweled rice....and I went for it.   (The other option was to reward myself by eating the bag of dried cranberries while everything cooked...that would have been good, too!).

 

Once the chicken was roasted, I set it aside to be cool enough to handle.

Time to dig into the CSA box to see which tasty treats to put in this 'recipe'.   Bok choy, the nobby onions could be used 2 ways, the fresh coriander would garnish the top of the dish.   Oh, that honey bear was about the make a new friend, too.

I grabbed a sweet pepper from the fridge and was ready to go...washing the pepper, onions, bok choy.   In a deep saute pan, I heated some olive oil and then added large dice sweet pepper,  the white portions of a couple of the knobby onions--very finely sliced into rings, and one of the heads of bok choy--rinsed, with the rattie edges of the leaves cut off, then sliced diagonally into nice big chunks, too.    As those began to soften and brown slightly, I removed the

chicken from a couple of the thighs and chopped it into large pieces.  When the veggies were just about ready, I added some Ponzu and honey (they are now new best friends) to the veggies, stirred for a minute, then added the chicken pieces and gave it all one last whirl in the pan.

By then, the rice was cooked, so I removed the cover and fluffed it up a bit with a fork.   I had already diagonally-sliced the tops of the green onions and washed and dried some of the nicest stems from the cilantro to artfully arrange on the top.

Since the bowls I was using were pretty deep, I added a serving of the ginger rice with cranberries at the bottom, a layer of the veggies and chicken, another layer of ginger rice, and one more layer of chicken and veggies (to make it easier to get a bite of chicken, veggies, and rice all on one fork....and not have a ton of rice left in the bottom).   The diagonal green onions added a lot of color when sprinkled on the top, and the cilantro sprigs added another texture and flavor (this bunch had some tiny baby sprouts at the top....tender and delish).

 

Conclusion:  CSA Box #1 Dinner

All in all, an easy and successful dinner from the first CSA box of the season.   It combined ingredients on hand--a mix and a rub from our Marianne's Kitchen products, a sweet pepper, and a bottle of Ponzu, some of the contents of the CSA box plus chicken from our pick up point--Angus Meats.   We brought it all together in harmony...for a delicious dinner