Week 2, Box 2 and I Want My Baby Back

This week The Box arrived with little fanfare and stuffed to the brim with mostly salad greens. That's the way it is in the early weeks, you get garlic curls and salad greens. Nothing TOO exciting. I hope things ramp up soon because as much as I love the abundance of green on my plate and in my fridge, it's extremely difficult to keep everything from wilting away before we get the chance to eat it. Let's see what we got this week:

• Red Lettuce (Went to my grandfather)
• Escarole (Also went to my grandfather)
• Turnip Green Thinnings 
• Looseleaf Chinese Cabbage
• Tomatoes
• Garlic Curls
• Herb of The Week: Basil & Chocolate Mint

The basil and chocolate mint sound interesting. Mojito's anyone?

After putting everything lovingly away I turned my attention to the dreaded basket ingredients which The Husband had the pleasure of bringing home to me. I wondered, briefly, what was in store for me. Bison? Quail eggs? Some unknown spice from the far east ::cue belly dancing music::. After my success last week I felt a little bit more confident, until I opened it up.

Neither from Israel nor Artichokes

Jerusalem Artichokes, or sunchokes as they are sometimes less confusingly called, look like knobby potatoes, or perhaps tumor ridden turnips. Choose your imagery. Surprisingly, or un-surprisingly if you've been watching me cook with the weird veggies all year, these knobby ugly things, like most root vegetables, seem to have only 2 or 3 successful and suggested methods of preparation. You can roast them. You can boil and mash them. You can make them into chips or fries, or pancakes. Boring Boring Boring. Tubers are Boring. There isn't much I can say about that. However, the Sunchoke does have one unique trick that the other tubers do not. They take very well to being stir fried. Almost like a water-chestnut but more bendy. And although I find stir fry's to be as un-original a way to get rid of veg as making a salad, I realize I had not yet created one for you on this blog. Also, I found a recipe with some pretty interesting techniques. So who am I to resist. Let's get stir-crazy.