Week Four (in which we learn we like beets)

This week's box overflowed into a bag. We got:
cauliflower
cabbage
broccoli
carrots
beets
sugar snap peas
hakurei turnips
lettuce
garlic scapes (a dozen this time)

The first thing we ate was sugar snap peas. They are still delicious, just washed with the ends snapped off.

The next easy item was the carrots. I read that some people eat the greens, so I washed them, but they were a little too much like bitter grass for me, and I threw them out. I trimmed and scrubbed the carrots with a vegetable brush, and they were delicious, much more carroty than the average carrot. I included a pen next to the plate to show how petite these little cuties were.

Tracy was supposed to go out for dinner, so I decided to eat the beets. She ended up eating with me and this recipe was just super:
Penne with Beets and Their Greens and Pecans
(from Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini)
2 bunches small golden or red beets with perky greens (I used one bunch)
1-2 Tbsp fruit vinegar, such as raspberry
1/2 lb penne rigate (I used linguini because that's all I had)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 small garlic clove, minced
1/8 tsp chili flakes
salt and pepper
1/4 cup toasted, coarse-chopped pecans


1. Trim off beet stems and greens; reserve. Scrub beets. Drop into boiling water to cover by an inch or so. Boil until not quite tender, about 10 minutes--but timing varies. Drain. When cooled slightly, slip off skins under running water. Quarter beets. Toss with vinegar to taste.
2. Trim and wash beet greens. Cut stems into thin slices. If leaves are large, cut into wide slices; if not, leave whole. Set on rack over boiling water and steam until soft, about 10 minutes--but timing is variable.
3. Cook penne in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender.
4. Meanwhile, heat 1 tbsp oil in large skillet over moderate heat. Add garlic and chili flakes and toss. Add greens and heat through. Season with salt and pepper.
5. Drain pasta and toss with remaining 1 tbsp oil. Add hot greens and toss. Divide between 2 heated shallow bowls. Top with beets and nuts.
Serves 2
 















As for the turnips, I cut off the greens, washed and dried them, and haven't decided what to do with them. They're heading for a soup or salad. The turnips themselves I washed and peeled and I will probably just eat them raw. 

Week Three

Garlic Scapes! Never heard of them until last week.

This week our box had: garlic scapes, green garlic, cilantro, dill, mesclun, scallions, lettuce, kale, sugar snap peas, broccoli and collard greens.

Never having lived in the south, I've never had collard greens before. The farm handout had a nice recipe from Paula Dean, but since I'm not cooking with ham hocks, it was a good thing I went to the library in the morning. I took out the most amazing book: "Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini" by Elizabeth Schneider.

First I made this nice White Bean and Garlic Scapes Dip:

1/3 cup sliced garlic scapes (3 to 4)
1 Tbsp freshly squeeze lemon juice, more to taste
1/2 tsp coarse sea salt, more to taste
Ground black pepper to taste
1 can (15 ounces) cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 

In a food processor, process garlic scapes with lemon juice, salt and pepper until finely chopped. Add cannellini beans and process to a rough puree. With motor running slowly drizzle olive oil through feed tube and process until fairly smooth. Pulse in 2 or 3 tbsp water, or more, until mixture is the consistency of a dip. Add more salt, pepper and/or lemon juice if desired.

This was a nice dip for the sugar snap peas which we just devoured raw while cooking the COLLARD GREENS!

I found a recipe in the A-Z book that looked really nice, but it called for 2-2.5 lbs of collard greens. Ours was only 7 ounces. Not knowing collards, and fearing spinach-like shrinkage, I ran out to Whole Foods and bought some more, about a pound. Note: collard greens do NOT shrink as much as other greens so we'll be eating this for a while.

Collards with Sweet Spices and Corn Bread Topping

2 to 2.5 lbs collard greens
2 quarts water
1 tbsp kosher salt
2 tbsp butter (I used olive oil)
1 large onion, chopped
1 tsp ground ginger (I used fresh grated)
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground cardamom (I omitted this)
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon


TOPPING


3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg (I omitted this)
1 egg
1 tbsp corn oil


1. If collards are large, strip stems from leaves and discard. Stack leave and halve lengthwise, then cut crosswise into 1/2-inch strips. If collards are small, simply cut both stems and leaves into 1/2 inch slices. Rinse collards in several changes of water.
2. Bring water to a boil in large pot about 10 inches in diameter. Add salt, then collards, and return to a boil. Boil gently, stirring now and then, until tender. Timing varies, but 15 minutes is usual. Drain, reserving liquid. Chop collards quite fine.
3. Melt butter (olive oil) in the same pot over low heat. add onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add ginger, cumin, cardamom and cinnamon. Stir a minute or two. Add collards and 1 quart reserved cooking liquid. Simmer gently for a few minutes. Turn off heat.
4. To make the topping: Whisk together cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and nutmeg in mixing bowl. In a small bowl, beat egg and oil to blend. Stir in 1/2 cup of the reserved cooking liquid. Pour into dry ingredients, mixing with a fork to barely blend. The batter should resemble thick applesauce; add more cooking liquid if needed.
5. Bring collards to a boil. Drop batter by tablespoons (about 10) over greens, leaving spaces between. Cover pot and boil gently for 10 minutes. Uncover and boil a few minutes longer, until dumpling tops become nearly dry to the touch.
6. Serve hot, accompanied by hot pepper sauce, if desired.
Serves 3-4 as a main dish, 6-8 as a side dish.


Variation: to serve as a vegetable dish without topping, follow the recipe through step 3, adding just 1 cup of the reserved liquid instead of 1 quart.



This dish had a very nice flavor from the spices. The collards were sweet and lovely. Even the picky girl really liked it.







That's probably it for this week. I'm freezing the dill and cilantro, making some salad, yadda yadda. 

Week Two

Late post this week (posting on Monday when everything's eaten).
Mike picked up the veggies. There were sugar snap peas, fennel, lettuce, kale, swiss chard, scallions, and spring garlic. The spring garlic actually had a bulb this week (last week it looked like a large scallion).

Mike made a stir-fry with the sugar snap peas, chicken and some of the scallions that night. He also made a salad, and left the rest for me.

I got home Friday and didn't cook until Sunday.

I made kale chips. Recipe from Allandale Farms:

1 bunch kale
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp seasoned salt


Preheat an oven to 350 degrees. line a non-insulated cookie sheet with parchment paper. With a knife or kitchen shears carefully remove the leaves from the thick stems and tear into bite sized pieces. Wash and thoroughly dry kale with a salad spinner. Drizzle kale with olive oil and sprinkle with seasoning salt.


Bake until the edges brown but are not burnt, 10 to 15 minutes.

It took more like 25 minutes, but I kept stirring the kale so it wouldn't burn. I didn't measure the oil, used too much. But this was a big hit. Ha, Mike!




There wasn't enough fennel to make a recipe with, so I sliced it really thin and used it in a salad. That was very nice. We dressed the salad with more of the lemon dressing that Mike made. Thanks, Mike!












Since it was Father's Day, an occasion for something special, I made some pizza dough. I cut the last 2 scallions into small rings and sauteed them with some sliced red pepper. I rolled out 5 small pizza rounds, and everybody made their own pizza with pesto from Trader Joe's, vegan and normal mozzarella cheese, and some sliced swiss chard.


There wasn't much swiss chard left, and it was looking kind of tired. I sauteed and added it to bean burgers for lunches today.

Kale Chips

With the huge bunch of kale from the veggie haul this week, I decided to make some kale chips. I've definitely made better resulting snacks before. This experiment did not turn out all that well, and only yielded about 30 decent chips.

I started by washing the leaves well and then letting them soak in a big bowl of cold water that I changed 3 or 4 times. Then I dried out each leaf and tore it into roughly 1" pieces, discarding the big, bulky stems.

I tossed the torn leaves with some olive oil to cover completely and put them on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil. I would have used parchment paper, but the limited kitchen I'm using for the summer is lacking in that department. The recipes I found online (here's a good write-up) said to have the oven at 350 and bake the chips for 10 minutes. Either the oven was actually hotter than 350 (again a problem with the kitchen) or my pieces were too small, but either way it took 3 tries before I got something resembling a chip and not a piece of charred vegetable.

The best part about the last batch of fairly edible chips was the crunchiness and salty taste from the generous amount of sea salt I poured on. I'll be trying this again sometime, hopefully with better results, and maybe with some different spices or herbs on top.

Watercress Soup

What do you do with a bunch of watercress? Watercress soup!!

This recipe is from "Saved By Soup" by Judith Barrett




Summer Watercress Soup
2 medium-size bunches watercress, stems removed, rinsed and dried
1 medium-size onion, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 large yellow boiling potato (about 1/2 pound), such as Yukon Gold or Yellow Finn, peeled and diced
1 medium-size clove garlic, peeled
2 cups water
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups buttermilk

Combine the watercress, onion, potato, garlic and water in a heavy 3-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, partially cover the saucepan, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the potato is tender, 20-25 minutes. Transfer the soup to a food processor or blender or use an immersion blender, process until smooth, then season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour the soup into a large mixing bowl and allow it to come to room temperature. Cover the bowl, refrgerate until the soup is thoroughly chilled, about 3 hours. Stir in the buttermilk before serving.

This is a very nice, refreshing soup.

 
I also have a great recipe for a rice salad with watercress, but I didn't have enough people to eat that this week. Maybe we'll get more watercress next week?

Mike's First Dinner

My share of the CSA this week was some spring garlic, a bunch of scallions, and kale. I had already planned on making fried rice with the leftover rice from Thai takeout the other night, so the spring garlic and scallions complemented that nicely.

I sautéed an onion and an orange pepper for about 5 minutes, then added a pile of baby portabello mushrooms and diced tofu for another 5 minutes. When the veggies looked like they were less crunchy, I threw in the chopped spring garlic and the rice and stirred until the rice was all broken up.

Then I added about 2 tablespoons of soy sauce (I didn't measure, just added until the rice looked less white) and about a tablespoon of sugar. I let it cook a few more minutes, but it didn't taste like much so I added more soy sauce, probably 3-4 tablespoons in all. The finished product was delicious, and made for 2 dinners last night and 2 more lunch portions!

First dinner

I spent several hours washing and cooking this evening, after a strenuous Pilates class. I washed the mesclun and about 1/3 of the lettuce. This made a great salad with other veggies from Whole Foods. I had two bowls of salad.




Wendy's handout had a recipe for Lemon-Spring Garlic Vinaigrette, which is easy and superb:

6 T white vinegar
1.5 T finely minced lemon zest (about 2 lemons)
1/4 c freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 1.5 lemons)
1 T spring garlic, minced
2 T sugar, or to taste
1 t ground cumin
1 t ground coriander
1/8 tsp each kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil.
Combine all ingredients except the olive oil in a blender. With the motor on low speed, slowly drizzle in the olive oil until creamy and emulsified. Taste, and adjust seasoning. If not using immediately, cover tightly and store in refrigerator for up to 3 days. Use leftovers as a sauce for seafood dishes or marinade for grilled vegetables.

The handout had a recipe for Stir-fried Napa Cabbage with Black Bean Sauce. Luckily this used up all of the huge head of napa cabbage, but it was just ok so I won't make it again and won't post the recipe here. There was an epic amount of raw cabbage:





here it is raw








then it cooked (this is only about 1/2 in the big pan)











and cooked down some more (thank goodness)









until it made a reasonable amount for 8 or so people. Since there were just 2 of us, there are plenty of leftovers :)




Still need to come up with some options for the watercress and kale. More adventures to come!

Week One

June 8, 2010

This is the first week of our CSA. Tracy and I took a ride to Allandale Farm to pick up our vegetables. We met the farmer and the CSA lady Wendy, and got a lesson in opening and collapsing the box. Not everything fit in the box--we got a HUMONGOUS head of napa cabbage in a plastic bag.

So here's the whole haul:

We have napa cabbage, kale, watercress, mesclun, spinach, lettuce, scallions and spring garlic.

Wendy gave out a recipe for napa cabbage with black bean sauce, so that sounds like a good idea. Much of the rest of it should make a nice salad, right?