I love my veggies.

The Safeway delivery man dropped off some broccoli crowns on Monday (yes, sometimes I do delivery Safeway) and I just couldn't figure out what to do with them. Thanks to the great dishes on Foodgawker, I was inspired to make a Warm Broccoli Quinoa Salad with Carrot-Ginger Dressing.

This recipe is a blend of a couple different ones I came across and I think it's going on my list of favorite kitchen experiments. Check it out for yourself :) 

Warm Broccoli Quinoa Salad

1 c quinoa

2 c water

1.5 c broccoli florets, steamed

1 scallion, chopped

1/2 tomato, chopped

1/4 c almond slices, toasted

1 1/2 tbsp carrot, grated

1 tbsp onion, grated

1/4 tbsp ginger, grated

1/2 tbsp sugar

1 1/2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce

1/4 c rice wine vinegar

1 tbsp sesame oil

pinch salt

Bring water and quinoa to a boil in a saucepan. Cover, reduce heat to simmer and cook for 13 minutes.

As quinoa cooks, prepare dressing by whisking together carrot, onion, ginger, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar and sesame oil. Season with salt and set aside.

Place broccoli, almonds, scallion, and tomato in a large bowl. Pour in half the quinoa while it is still hot. Toss and stir in half the dressing. Stir in remaining quinoa and dressing. Serve immediately.

April ingredients used:  broccoli, carrot, onion, scallion

Lovelovelove the flavors and textures in this salad! Not sure how it'll taste tomorrow after being refrigerated...do I reheat? Could be weird.

I was also thinking this would be great with some shrimp tossed in there too, but it's also tasty on its own. I will definitely be making this again!

Beety Couscous Salad

I still had 2 roasted beets in the fridge from last weekend (I decided that cooking them would buy me some time) and didn't have a clue as to what to do with them. I went with easy and familiar. It was a brilliant choice.

Beety Couscous Salad

1/2 onion, thinly sliced

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar

pinch salt

2 beets, roasted and diced

1 c israeli couscous

1 1/4 c low sodium chicken broth

1/2 tsp tarragon

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp champagne vinegar

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil over medium heat in a saute pan. Add onions and cook until translucent, stirring often. Reduce heat to medium low and cook for another 5-8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add 1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar, salt and sugar. Reduce heat to low and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove onions from pan and set aside.

Heat saute pan used to cook the onions over medium high heat. Deglaze pan with 2 tbsp chicken broth. Add 2 tbsp olive oil and couscous. Stir vigorously for 1 minute to toast the couscous and make sure each pearl is covered in the olive oil. Add tarragon, salt and garlic powder. Pour in remaining broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 10 minutes.

Toss couscous with olive oil and vinegars; stir in onions and beets. Chill and serve.

March ingredients used: beets, onion

I don't know why I love this simple couscous salad so much. The beets were perfectly sweet and tender and they were great with the very subtle dressing! Plus, you can't beat the rich color :) Yum.

Farmers' Market Finds

This past weekend, I wandered around the Ferry Building Farmers' Market instead of my usual local one. As you know, I'm not a big fan of the Ferry Building market because it's overwhelming, crowded, a little pricey and sucks me in for hours. This time around I set a time limit and had a general idea of what I wanted to pick up. In and out in 20 minutes.

Here's a sampling of fruits and veggies you'll see this week!

White Guavas (from Washington State) - I just wanted to open my bag and sniff these suckers all day long. AMAZING. I hope they taste as good as they smell!

Mandarins, Cara Caras, Minneolas and Navel Oranges - Yeah, that's a bag full of citrus and I already ate two in one sitting. I thought I'd give the mandarins and minneolas another chance and again, they were too tart for my taste. I prefer the Cara Cara. The end.

Brussels Sprouts - I've never met a brussels sprout I didn't like. I got about 3/4 lb for $4, plus a few extra thrown in from the farmer dude. You know, just for fun. 

Green Garlic - I saw this on my list of things in season, but I had no idea what it was or what to do about it. It was in abundance at the market and luckily there was a very informative vendor on hand to tell me that it can be used as you would use regular garlic, but the flavor will be milder. He had some samples of a green garlic fromage blanc spread over bread. Delish.

I also grabbed a perfectly ripe avocado...though, it was definitely more expensive than at Safeway. Odd.

Stay tuned to see what I do with this week's ingredients!

Farmers' Market Success

Rainy Sunday? Not going to keep me from visiting the Fort Mason Farmers' Market! I was worried it wouldn't be open on a wet and gloomy day, but turns out they are open rain or shine! 

I was able to pick up a ton of fruits and veggies for under $20! Here's a snippet of fruits and veggies to be featured later on this week:

Broccoli Rabe/Raipini - We all know this is one of my favorite dark leafy greens and I was so excited to grab a fresh bunch for $1.50. INSANE! These are close to $3 at Whole Foods!

Mixed Salad Greens - HUGE 1lb bag for $5! This will definitely work for lunches this week. 

Fennel and Beets - I've never seen such beautiful bulbs of fennel before...and there were bulbs a plenty! Also, these had fronds that were out of control. It was like I was buying a fennel tree! Smelled amazing. The beets were pretty big and the greens were plentiful too. I don't know if I'll be making use of the beet greens since they looked a little yellow...

Citruscitruscitrus - Just when you thought my citrus postings were over, I picked up a few more Cara Cara Oranges, some Mandarins, and a Sangiunello Blood Orange. I'll probably snack on the cara caras and a mandarin and save the blood orange and a mandarin for cooking purposes. Maybe a salad or salsa is in order??

Cannot wait to work my magic on these goodies! Where do you get your produce? Farmers markets? Produce shops? CSA boxes? Do tell.

Seasonably tasty makeover

For those of you still reading (thank you!), you may have noticed a couple layout changes over the past couple days. There are more coming, but I thought I'd take some time to fill you in on the bigger changes going down. 

I think one of the reasons why I haven't been posting as much is because I felt like the blog was turning into more of an online journal where I recapped my days and blahblahblah. I wasn't getting excited about writing and blogging was starting to feel like a chore. Not cool.

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At first I considered closing up shop, but then I realized I'd never keep track of my recipes and the blog was a way to keep friends and family back east informed. Then I started thinking about doing a major blog overhaul. That required way too much work and honestly, I don't have the time or patience to deal with that at the moment.

SO, Run Beans, Run is getting a makeover. 

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I'll still write about the usual topics - running, biking, food, food, more food - but I'm hoping to keep the tone a little less 'dear diary-ish' and will work on my flavor descriptions. I'm also hoping to get a little more creative in the kitchen. Instead of making variations of trusty standbys (which I've noticed I do a lot), I'm going to try my best to experiment with different flavor combinations and actually follow recipes once in awhile (eek). 

I do want to bring your attention to one important addition to the blog - please glance at the left sidebar for a quick second. Ready? Ok.

After a deliciously simple dinner with a friend, it occurred to me that I live in a city that is full of fresh fruits and veggies year round. I don't have to rely on grocery stores for my produce; I can head to a farmers market every week for fresh, locally grown produce. WHY AM I NOT TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THIS?? 

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Anyway, I did some Googling and found a few sites that posted month by month lists of in-season produce (in Northern California) and the makeover was born. 

Every month I'll update that little sidebar with a list of fruits and veggies that are in season. My goal is to eat and cook as many of them as possible. Canned and frozen don't count (because we know I love to dump beets, artichokes and corn on my salads year round). I figure this will get me cooking outside my comfort zone, especially when random veggies like nettles pop up on the list.

As you can see, I've already crossed a couple items off my list. As I use these seasonably delicious ingredients, I'll post the recipes so you can enjoy them as well (and I'll try to keep the salads to a minimum)!

I hope you enjoy my little experiment and maybe it'll get you all thinking about making the most of what's in season in your neck of the woods!

Springtime pasta in February

This wave of mild weather put me in an even bigger veggie mood than usual. For Jamie's farewell dinner, I combined some seafood I had in the freezer (a filet of cod and some shrimp) with a few springy vegetables and tomatoes to make a light sauce to top some angel hair pasta. Light, crisp and slightly spicy...perfect for this weather!

Springtime Seafood Pasta

1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced

2 large cloves garlic, minced

4 tomatoes, chopped

2 tbsp white wine

2 tbsp olive oil

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1 c yellow squash, cut into thin half moons

1 c zucchini, cut into thin half moons

1/3 c tomato sauce

1 cod filet, cubed

15 medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 tbsp basil, chopped

splash fish sauce

pinch brown sugar

salt & pepper

1/2 lb angel hair pasta, cooked according to package

parmesan cheese

Heat olive oil in a large pan and saute onions until they begin to soften. Add garlic and saute for about a minute before adding tomatoes. Cook tomatoes for 2-3 minutes over medium heat, add wine and red pepper flakes and cook for 2 minutes.

Add squash and zucchini and cook for 4-5 minutes. Stir in fish sauce and brown sugar. Add fish and shrimp and bring heat to medium low. Cook for another 3 minutes before adding tomato sauce, basil, salt and pepper. Let everything simmer for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve over pasta with a slight sprinkling of parmesan cheese.