Today's box was packed full of yummy treats. The Surprise Me ingredient from Greenling was one of my favorite fun vegetables. Dragon Tongue Beans!
The tender and superbly delicious 7-inch pods are whiteish yellow, with amazing purple streaks!
They taste similar to a long green bean but with a slightly spicier kick. I couldn't wait to throw them into a yummy dish.
I also had a beautiful acorn squash in my box today that I simply couldn't resist using. So I decided to go for a veggie pasta bowl and use up the rest of my fresh pasta from last week since there was some awesome kale papardelle in the box for this week's fresh pasta selection.
The dragon beans are a great veggie for kids. Tonight I had my daughter assisting me in the kitchen and she was delighted to watch the beans steam from purple to all ivory. The stripes steam straight off the beans like magic.
She was enthralled with the color changing beans and a great help to me in the kitchen tonight.
When we first got the beans she was also excited to look them up on wikipedia to learn all about them. She had never seen or eaten dragon beans before so tonight's QuickFire challenge was not only a super fun yummy treat but also an educational one for her.
While the beans were steaming we sliced open the acorn squash and a butternut squash from the Greenling box. I had her scoop out the seeds and then we steamed the squash in the microwave.
I used to only roast squash (and still roast for certain recipes) but the microwave is a great easy solution for quick and easy steaming of these veggies.
I fill a shallow pasta bowl with a half-inch of water and set the squash halves on the sides of the bowl. Pop it in the microwave for ten minutes and it's perfectly cooked every time! Works great for spaghetti squash too.
We scooped out the steamed squash into the bowl and added the cooked pasta and topped with the steamed dragon beans.
My daughter commented how the beans were the same shade as the pasta and tried to analyze the water the beans steamed in to figure out where the purple went to.
The water was a dark brown so she decided all of the purple "burned off". Tomorrow night we'll do some research and see what chemical reaction really happened to cause the color change.
To finish the dish I took the last of my tomatoes, an onion and a bell pepper from last week and make a quick red sauce to add to the beans and pasta.
I topped the quick red sauce with some fresh grated parmesan cheese and ta-da! Dinner is served :)
This challenge got me an A+ from my daughter, and I give her an A+ for her excellent help in the kitchen tonight.
A super yummy fun treat for both of us. Thanks Greenling for making dinner tonight both easy and educational.
Looking forward to Top Chef tonight. Seeing as how both Texas chefs were not shown in last week's episode it's about time the producers let this great state represent!
I'll be tweeting along as the episode airs and playing along to the Top Chef Texas drinking game. I have my bottle of wine ready and my newly designated Top Chef drinking glass lined up and ready to go. "Everything's Bigger in Texas" :P
1 comment:
As always, this sounds so good! You have more variety in your leftovers than I do after I go shopping! It helps that you're way more creative with the ingredients than I am too!
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