Monday, April 27, 2009



Our first CSA shipment comes in on June 18th... which seems like forever away! I'm ready to cook up some awesome local veggies now! So I woke up absurdly early on Saturday morning, tossed my fancy little canvas shopping bag into my purse and set off for the Union Square Greenmarket.

Many veggies were bought, but none brought me quite as much joy as the pricey little bundle of ramps I picked up.


Ramps, for those who haven't been introduced to these yummy little stalks of April goodness, are wild leeks. Their season is short, their collection is labor-intensive, and their flavor is incomparable. Well... that's not true, it's definitely comparable, but definitely awesome. They're sort of like a combination of garlic and onions, and are delicious either pickled or lightly sauteed and added to pretty much anything. On Sunday morning, I sauteed a single ramp in some butter, scrambled in a couple of Knoll Crest Farm eggs and then melted some goat cheese into the whole mess. Verdict? Om nom nom times a million!

Sometimes, though, you just need a big bowl of pasta. Tonight for dinner, I was inspired by What I Like's ramp spaghetti recipe. I don't really dig mint so much, so I left it out and instead tossed in a bit of the young garlic I'd picked up on Saturday. Here's the sauce cooking:

Hello, butter and olive oil! I love you!

This dish is insanely easy to put together. I just added some cooked spaghetti, stirred it around, poached an egg and plopped it atop the tangle of noodles and added salt and pepper. After a good fork-pokin', the bright yellow yolk oozed out into the pasta, making a rich and gooey sauce for the garlicky pile of spaghetti and ramps. And about ten minutes after I'd started cooking, I was getting comfy on the couch with my big plate of tasty carbs. Cheaper than takeout, and about a zillion times more exciting!


Tonight, I'll be making a spinach frittata to bring to work for lunch this week. It sounds like a great way to use up some of the massive - and cheap! - bag of spinach I picked up this weekend, as well as some of last week's leftover goat cheese and this week's dozen eggs. I'll let you know how it goes...

1 comment:

  1. oh my gosh that looks soooo yummy. i love anything with a poached egg on it. i've never had ramps but now i want to try them.

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