Kohlrabi, radish, and fennel salad

Well, we're getting well into the CSA season now, which means I'm branching out into new and unusual things. I've decided to try to make more of the CSA newsletter recipes this year, and I've got two new books - The Chicago Homegrown Cookbook and Preserve It! - which should help me to cope with the bounty from Wisconsin.

Today's recipe comes from the CSA newsletter: kohlrabi, radish, and fennel salad. All three of these veggies were in my CSA this week, and I was glad to have the recipe, because these three things are not always easy to figure out something to do with.

First, you shave or slice all the veggies very thinly. I pulled one of my typical moves and started chopping the veggies before I read the recipe entirely, so I had to go back through and fix it as best I could. I managed to thinly slice the kohlrabi correctly and was able to fix the radish, but I could really only finely chop the fennel. It all turned out all right, though:


I thawed the edamame and mixed them in also, which you can see in the photo above.

Then I chopped some basil and cilantro and tossed into the salad, and made the rice wine dressing, which was just rice wine, olive oil, black pepper, sea salt, and sugar. Also, the juice of half a lime, which I did happen to have, strangely, in my fridge. You put it all into a jar or covered bowl and shake, which was easy enough.

Toss it all together and let sit for a half-hour before serving:


This was really, really good. One of my favorite new salads in a long time, and we all know how much I love salads. This is also a really excellent way to lighten these veggies, which can often be bulky and bitter. I could eat this every day, and I'm sure it's incredibly healthy.

You can see some tomatoes peeking out in the photo above; that's because I'm preparing them for slow cooker chicken tikka masala tomorrow. Lately I've been getting the next day's dinner ready before I go to bed, which helps me get dinner ready much more quickly the next day. In this case it's necessary, because tomorrow I pretty much will only have time to toss everything into the slow cooker and go to work.

Tomorrow is going to be a banner day in my kitchen: in addition to the chicken tikka masala, I believe I'm also going to attempt some cilantro pesto (set aside for pasta this weekend) from the preserving book, currant jelly, and a chocolate beet cake from the Homegrown Cookbook. Fun stuff!