Thursday, August 1, 2013

When you participate in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project, you get lots of vegetables. Mucho mucho. Some with names you have never heard of, e.g., verdolaga. The CSA process demands creativity. My husband, for example, made a pesto from garlic scapes*, the stem-leafy part of garlic.

I had the following CSA loot to work with: cabbage, carrots, celery, scallions, red onion, wilted green leafy things,* and soon-to-wilt cilantro. I also had leftover salsa. A quick scan of the refrigerator shelves revealed a jar of artichoke bruschetta. I decided: why not combine the joys of salsa & slaw, and ooo-la-la it with artichoke dressing?

Traditionally, a slaw consists of lots of cabbage and some carrots. I used a peeler to peel the entire carrot into slivers. The cabbage I sliced super fine, perhaps a millimeter in depth, but the length was long, possibly six inches. I added the pre-made salsa (onions, peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, and jalapeno -- also diced). On the theory that you can't have too much cilantro, I chopped up more. I used one teaspoon of the artichoke bruschetta along with a splash of olive oil to dress it all. And of course, I added more salt. I love salt as much as life itself.

I was tempted to add a sliced plum, but it's akin to coaching a monkey to ride a bicycle on a tightrope --- adding one more thing will send the whole thing crashing. And I have to eat my mistakes, unlike those celebrity chefs on TV.

I scooped up my slaw with Garden of Eatin Blue Chips, which I prefer because they contain 2 g fiber per serving. So I can justify chips and salsa as a nutritional supplement.

*Garlic Scapes

**The leafy things wilted because I didn't know what to do. I threw those into a vegetable broth project, together with onions, celery, and carrots.