A Special Delivery

Last week at the Chicago Dietetic Assocation's monthly meeting, I entered a raffle for Irv & Shelly's Fresh Picks, a local organic delivery service.  Guess what!?! I won!  After reading more about their service on their website, I was super stoked!  Fresh Picks delivers a wide-variety of  local organic produce, meat, eggs, and dairy from sustainable farmers that they know and trust, which I love!  Makes me feel good about eating this food!

The raffle prize was a Fresh Picks Box.  Here's the description from their website: 

What is a Fresh Picks Box? 
The Fresh Picks Box is filled with the best local in-season produce of the week, and can be customized according to your individual needs and preferences. You choose the size and frequency and can add additional items to get the healthy foods you need.

Here are some pictures of my lovely produce:

Look how big the bag was !

This is what I received:  spinach, ramps, sorrel, nettles, watercress, asparagus, crimini mushrooms, potatoes, and maybe parsley.   It looks like parsley but it's not on my list that came with it.  I have to admit, that I had to look up ramps, nettles, and sorrel!  I'm super excited to use all these ingredients, especially the ones that are new to me.  

Thanks Irv & Shelley's Fresh Picks!! This was a great prize to win!  

Well onto my first dish with using my ingredients!

Whole Wheat Rigatoni with Ramps, Crimini Mushrooms, and Goat Cheese Sauce

I googled ramps recipes and came across a recipe on a blog called: A Good Appetite. I made some modifications, but followed the basics of this recipe. 

First I want to show you the picture of my ramps: 

Apparently, they are wild leeks.  They were so great in this dish. I used them all in this dish so I'm hoping I can find some more! I know they have a short season. 

Ingredients:

• 3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup half and half
• 3-4 oz of goat cheese (eyeballed a little less than half of an 8 oz pkg)
• 1/2 lb of whole wheat rigatoni (~4 cups)
• olive oil
• 6-7 ramps (cut the leaf part off, tear into lg pieces and set aside; chop the rest-bulb and stems into small pieces)
• 1-2 cups spinach
• 5-6 crimini mushrooms
• salt and pepper 
• parmesan

Directions: 

First make the sauce, so it's ready. I did this while my pasta water was boiling. 

1. In a small pot, combine the garlic and half and half and bring to a simmer (med heat).
2.  Let it simmer for a couple minutes to let it reduce a bit. 
3. Whisk in the goat cheese until its melted and smoothly combined.  
4. Set aside. (I took it off the heat and covered)

Now the veggies and pasta!

1. Heat a large skillet with a "once around the pot" of olive oil, on med-low heat. 
2. Add the pasta to the boiling water, then start the veggies right after so they are ready together. 
3. Add the ramps and mushrooms to the large skillet.
4. Once the mushrooms are tender, add the ramp leaves and toss until covered with oil and start to wilt slightly (takes about a min). 
5. Add the spinach to the skillet.  
6. Before you drain the pasta, set aside some of the water for the sauce. Then drain the pasta. 
7. Pour the pasta over the veggies and add the goat cheese sauce.  If it thickened too much, add some of the pasta water to thin it out. 
8. Top with grated parmesan!

The finished dish: 

My bowl: 

Hillary came over for dinner and we both loved this dish!  I'm so excited for my leftovers I'll be having for lunch tomorrow:) I got to use 3 ingredients from my produce delivery (mushrooms, ramps, and spinach) and I loved them!  I would say my first experience cooking with ramps was a definite success.