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I say “salad” as this doesn’t have near the ratio of parsley to grains as a standard tabbouleh would have. Still, the ingredient list matches up. So far I’ve only made it using the Red Quinoa available from Trader Joe’s. Gives it a nice, hearty color.

As for the preserved lemons, this is something I’ve gotten into ever since a friend with a too-small kitchen unloaded a large mason jar of them on me. I’ve since made my own following this guide. It’s really remarkably easy and they give lots of dishes a remarkably tasty flavor. Jennifer loves them.

• 1 cup uncooked quinoa, cooked per usual or package instructions and cooled. I use my rice cooker.
• 2 plum tomatoes, seeded and diced
• 2 persian cukes, diced
• 1/2 cup minced red onion
• 1 packed cup of flat-leaf parsley, minced
• 2 T minced fresh mint
• 1/2 a preserved lemon (maybe 2-3 oz?)
• 2 T fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 good olive oil
• a couple of grinds of pepper

Toss the first five ingredients together. Blend the rest of the ingredients separately in a food processor or with an immersion blender. Pour dressing over salad and toss again.

The quality of the potatoes from our farm share this year has been outstanding, especially the waxy, creamy red potatoes. Perfect for potato salads. We prefer vinegar based salads vs. mayonnaise, so I generally use a combination of mustard, vinegar, oil, dill, etc. Yesterday I had a beauty of an anaheim chile on hand and some fresh parsley, so I decided to try tossing the potatoes with a chimichurri sauce, which is a kind of Argentinian green sauce usually served with grilled meat. It was simply the best potato salad I’ve ever eaten.

The following set of criteria is what jjzach & I use for the purposes of clam chowder quality evaluation. This system was devised in partnership with our friends, Kelly & Erika, on the back of a napkin about a year ago.

• Thicknocity – the viscosity/thickness of the chowder. Is it brothy? Creamy?
• Aroma – does it give off an appealing scent?
• Clam Content – This can hopefully be gauged by a good stir. Quality of the clams would also fall under this criterion.
• Temperature – When served, it can be too hot as well as too cold
• Flavor Balance – aka, predominant flavor. Is there one? Does it drown out everything else?
• Seasoning – aka, “Zip”
• Potato Quality - chunk size, peel on or off (this could be good or bad), mushy or firm
• Absence of Grit - clams live in sandy muck. Proper cleaning is required. Some tasters find a modicum of grit acceptable and see it as a sign of homemade-ness.
• X-Factor - the unexpected!
• Digestibility - how do you feel afterwards? How about 45 minutes into the ride home in the backseat?

These are mostly subjective measurements, of course. Some folks, for example, like their chowder thick and creamy and might rate highly a variation in which their spoon stands up in the cup. Needless to say, others would give that a very low Thicknocity score.

Something about the smallish, red “bunching” onions that came in our farm share said, “cook me in the crockpot with some chicken”, so I improvised a sweet, garlicky dish that we ended up taking over to some friends’ for a “potluck”.

One of the shareholders in our CSA contributed this recipe to the newsletter. I haven’t made it yet, but wanted to save it somewhere outside of my inbox. Our shares have included large quantities of greens, so I’m always looking for ways to use them up.

Tonight I got to attend a “lecture” and book signing by Michael Pollan at the West Roxbury branch of the BPL. I’m a major fanboy so this was a pretty big treat. He spoke for about 30 minutes and then answered some questions. Unfortunately, questions had to be submitted on index cards prior to the talk–which, btw, seems like a guaranteed method for increasing the triviality of the questions–and I somehow didn’t get an index card. I tried asking while he signed my copy of In Defense of Food, but I quickly got swarmed and shooed away by the hovering organizers for holding up the line. Here’s what I would like to have asked:

My town, Lexington, MA, has just recently entered in agreement to purchase Busa Farm a family farm consisting of several acres. This land has been productive farmland for 300+ years. The town is now going to begin a long process to decide what to do with this land (with some restrictions due to the money for the purchase coming from CPA funds). In your experience what are the most effective arguments we can use to convince the town and town government that local farmland is more valuable and will provide more benefit to the town than the competing interests, such as ball fields, playgrounds and affordable housing?

So that’s what I really wanted to hear Pollan respond to, but oh well. And, yeah, I’ve spent the past few weeks going to town meetings and trying to help organize a group to save this farm. That’s going to be a later, longer post though.

I had some leftover meatballs from making this on Sunday night.

Meatballs were according to the recipe except I’m limited to the meat we get from our CSA so mine were made with Lamb & Pork.

The basis of this recipe came from something in the Boston Globe Mag a few weeks ago. I tweaked in two basic ways:

1. I didn’t have any Chinese 5-spice powder so I improvised my own
2. I did it in the crockpot because it was a weekday and I don’t have four hours to cook on Monday nights.

It’s taken me awhile to warm up to kohlrabi. I’ve cooked it a few times in the past year, always because it’s been part of the farm share. If there is such a thing as a mental “image” of what something tastes like, I still don’t really have one for kohlrabi, but I now have a favorite way to prepare it.