Week two of the CSA was a little disappointing. The food was all delicious, but I want more!!!

In our bag this week:
bok choy
salad greens (just a couple of small handfuls -- enough for 3 individual salads)
garlic scapes
chives
basil
oregano

We also got a zinnia. I don't want flowers... I want veggies! Oh well, I need to get a planter to put it in and hope that I don't kill it. :-) It's going to live in our guest room. We only have windows against one wall of our apartment and the way we have it set up, there really aren't a whole lot of places for plants to live.

No photos this week, but we've tried three new recipes with 2/3 success. Well, technically one new recipe and two new "techniques."

I'll start with the good... the other day, I wanted some ranch salad dressing to put on our salads for lunch (using up those salad greens!), but we didn't have any in the fridge. (They sometimes include suspect ingredients anyway.) So, I decided to give it a go myself and I have to say... it was AWESOME.

Homemade "Ranch" Dressing:
(measurements are approximate as I just glopped them in a bowl and stirred)
1/2 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt (I used Trader Joe's)
1 tbsp. mayonnaise
juice of half a lemon
LOTS of chopped chives, oregano and basil
1 tsp. finely chopped shallot (I think onion or garlic could be substituted, or totally left out altogether... Adam was just already chopping up some shallot for dinner)
couple of shakes of garlic powder
S&P, to taste
milk

Mix all ingredients except milk in a bowl or mug, then add milk a little at a time to get the consistency you want. Shazzam! "Ranch" dressing!

We also made another bok choy stir fry and tonight we're going to have roasted garlic scape mashed potatoes! (We'll see how that turns out.)

We received a slow cooker off our wedding registry and are breaking that in. Yesterday, we made black beans in the slow cooker... threw them in with some water, garlic, and the aforementioned shallot, set it to low, and when we got home from work we had a pot of amazing black beans. I've made black beans on the stove before in a pot, which is so much better than the can, but I had no idea how much of a difference a slow cooker could make! Our black bean tacos last night were delish!

On our black bean making high, we set out to test how our slow cooker did with cooking oatmeal overnight so we'd have breakfast already made for us when we got up. I did some research online and found all sorts of conflicting methods for making oatmeal in the slow cooker, so I tried to cobble together what seemed like the best advice from the various recipes and comments and ended up with... oatmeal soup. Blech. I salvaged some of it by nuking it in the microwave for a minute to firm it up, but the texture was not good. We each ate our bowlful and dumped the rest out. I think we'll try again with some heartier oats and less water, but oatmeal is easy enough that if it doesn't work out, it's not that big of a deal.

Anyone have any vegetarian slow cooker recipes I should try? I love the idea of having dinner all ready by the time I get home from work or the gym.