Cooley Family Farm

This was bit of an experiment based on other quick recipes that I like. I was in a hurry to get dinner for the kids so I didn’t want to spend a lot of time. Kevin had recently brought in some of the thin spears of broccoli that he had picked, not the full heads. This worked out great! And everyone love it.

Step 1
Wash and rinse the broccoli (no need to remove the small leaves). If you can, use the small spears.

Step 2
Add some coconut oil to a skillet on medium heat. Once the oil has melted add the broccoli and put a lid on the skillet.

Step 3
After about 5 minutes or so open the pan and stir the broccoli so it doesn’t get burned on one side.

Step 4
Continue to cook and stir as needed until the broccoli is tender. Add some course salt, fresh ground pepper and serve.

We found this to be very addicting. For the small batch that I made here it took about 15 minutes or so from start to finish. You can use this as a stand alone side dish or add it to pasta or fettuccine.

Enjoy!
Tracy

This is super fast and easy. Start a pot of water boiling. While you are waiting for the water to boil just wash your peas and pull the strands off. When the water comes to a full boil put the peas in. This only takes about 1 or 2 minutes. You will see the peas turn a very pretty bright green. Put the peas in a strainer and rinse with COLD water. This stops them from further cooking and preserves the pretty color. The picture below is a batch of sugar snap peas right after they have been rinsed and before I put any dressing on them.

I like them best just like this. And if you are in a hurry you can stop here and serve them. The dressing is pretty quick to make as well, so if you want to add some extra flavors you can drizzle the dressing on.

Ginger Dressing

1 T. olive oil
1 1/2 t. rice vinegar
1/2 t. ginger
1/4 t. pepper

Blend the ingredients well and drizzle over the peas. It doesn’t take much, just a little bit to add some extra flavor to the peas.

Enjoy!
Tracy

I posted this recipe last year, but wanted to post it again so it’s at the top of the list while green garlic is in season!

The green garlic is milder than dried garlic. If you love garlic you will love this recipe. We made some whole wheat pasta and tossed it with a little butter and added the pesto. It was great. The pesto also tasted wonderful on the veggies. I was out of french bread but I have a feeling it would make fantastic garlic bread as well.

I made a full batch of the pesto which yielded about 1 1/2 cups. A little can go a long way so next time I plan to cut the recipe in half. What I’m posting below is the full recipe, so be sure you want a lot of pesto if you make it as is.

5-6 shoots of green garlic, trimmed of tough dark green parts and cut into 2 inch pieces
2 oz. Parmesan Cheese, cut into small cubes
3/4 t. coarse salt
1/2 t. pepper
1/2 C. extra-virgin olive oil

Put everything except olive oil into a food processor or blender. Process until it is fairly smooth. You may need to stop and scrape the sides a couple of times.

Next pour in the olive oil until you get everything is pretty smooth. If needed scrape sides again during this process.

You can be flexible with the ingredients too. I used about 1/2 Grana Padano and 1/2 Parmesan for the cheese. I also was about out of olive oil so I ended up using 1/4 cup olive oil and 1/4 cup plain sesame oil (not toasted). It was still great and no one knew I altered it. Also… it is very common to use pine nuts when making pesto. I prefer mine without but you could put some pine nuts in as well.

Best of all this is simple to make and you can be creative when spicing up a meal.

Tracy