Kohlrabi Slaw

Our Open Oak Farmers recommended making a slaw recipe from the Washington Post out of the kohlrabi included in our CSA bag this week.  My aunt, who was visiting, graciously volunteered to grate all of the vegetables as we rushed to get dinner made before my children had swimming lessons.  And of course, I didn't have several of the dressing ingredients recommended in the original recipe (I was so glad that my mom and aunt, who are both great cooks, acknowledged that they make spur of the moment substitutions in the kitchen all the time), but the dressing turned out nicely.  I think this might now be my favorite way to eat kohlrabi.

Kohlrabi Slaw (adapted from a recipe by Cynthia A. Brown)

1 green kohlrabi and 1 purple kohlrabi shredded (from Open Oak CSA)
2 carrots shredded (from Open Oak CSA)
15 stems parsley chopped (from Open Oak CSA)
3 green onions chopped (from Open Oak CSA)
1 T toasted sesame oil
4 T balsamic vinegar
1 T honey
1 t chili powder
1 t ginger powder 

Grate vegetables and place together in a bowl.  Separately combine the dressing ingredients and then mix together. 

Pesto Twist with Gnocchi

We've been talking about how handy it would be if there was a website where you could type in the ingredients in your house and it would produce menu ideas for the whole week.  In absence of that, I typed in a search for "basil and beets and kale" which produced several interesting recipe ideas.  I was particularly intrigued by this recipe on Moderate Oven website for Kale & Beet Green Pesto.

It seemed like the perfect way to use some of the kale, beet greens, and garlic scapes from our Open Oak Farm CSA.  I liked the idea of blanching the greens before blending them.  I made a couple of modifications to the recipe (not toasting the walnuts and adding a handful of parsley).  It is simple but delicious. The adventurous eaters in our house ate the pesto over store-bought whole wheat gnocchi (and the non-adventurous eater had the gnocchi with Parmesan Cheese but he liked helping with the food processor).  The greens had just a fabulous color!

A few days after preparing this, I also made a small batch of basil and garlic scrapes pesto and added it in with the leftovers.  The two types of pesto went really well together.  And I was inspired to make my own gnocchi.  This is a recipe that I have tried many times over the last 15 years.  The first time I made it, they were delicious.  However, the next several times that I tried the recipe the gnocchi were just terrible.  Fortunately, this time I had success!

Potato Gnocchi from The Compassionate Cook
4 c potatoes peeled, cubed, and boiled
2 c white flour
1/2 t salt
2 T olive oil.

Boil potatoes and then drain off the water.  Dry mash the potatoes, then add in flour, salt and olive oil.   Boil a large pot of water.  Kneed dough until well mixed using extra flour if necessary.  Divide dough into 4 portions.  Kneed each a bit more and then roll into a 1-inch diameter "snake."  Cut into approximately 1-inch pieces.  Drop gnocchi into boiling water.  Once they float to the suface, boil them for 2 minutes.  Remove from the water and drain.  

Serve with fresh pesto.  It tastes like summer!