Second Share
Hello Again Tuesday Members!
That week went by in a flash! We hope you enjoyed the produce. Napa cabbage stores for a while (in a plastic bag in the refrigerator) so don’t feel bad if you didn’t get to it yet.
Thank you for bringing your boxes back! I think the shady spot for the van/CSA display works pretty well. Although it is a little isolated, don’t let that stop you from coming over to the stand to say hello! We hope to know you all by name soon enough!
So what went into the second share?
We’ll start with the most mysterious: Kohlrabi. The purple-skinned veggie that looks a little like it just arrived from outer space. Kohlrabi is in the broccoli, cabbage, kale family and it is technically a fat stem, although it looks a little like a root. Indeed, it can be treated a lot like a root. It is good raw or cooked. The easiest preparation is to peel the outer skin and slice it into veggie sticks for snacking with a creamy dressing. (Hot tip: slice the bottom of the bulb off so it has a flat surface to sit on the cutting board – then use a knife to slice off the peel from the top down.) It can also be grated for a fresh slaw. I enjoy roasted cubes or rounds of kohlrabi – it doesn’t take long to cook through – it’s much more tender than a potato or a turnip. I looked up some recipes and found that kohlrabi is popular for Indian curries. I think it would be good cut into matchsticks for a stir-fry with your bok choy and broccoli, as well.
Lettuce. You got one head of “lettony” lettuce – the frilly Greenleaf that looks perfect for a burger or a sandwich. There were two heads of “Adriana” Butterhead lettuce – a Boston lettuce, I guess. These are good for a salad, but could also be featured for a meal of lettuce wraps. Look up a recipe for thai-style lettuce wraps with the cilantro. Or just make a good tuna or chicken salad and try that wrapped up. Dr. Atkins would be proud.
Broccoli. Fresh Brocc! Hope you can taste the difference. We harvest it when it’s ready to eat. If we lived in CA and were shipping it to you, we would have to harvest while the florets were still tight and dense (immature). Luckily, we are your neighbors! I made a tasty chicken and broccoli with an Alfredo inspired sauce for pasta the other night. A success! Here’s my method: Start boiling water with a good amount of salt for pasta. Start the pan with some olive oil heating, add minced garlic, add a pinch of kosher salt so the garlic doesn’t tend to brown so fast, add a sliced onion (a sweet onion is good), and then just the very outer yellow part of a lemon peel, cut into short, thin strips. Save the rest of the lemon for juice. Allow to cook a bit, then douse with white wine. Allow that to cook down, while you cut up the broccoli. Toss that in and stir to get some of the moisture all through the dish. I had leftover grilled chicken and chopped that up and threw it in last. Meanwhile, hopefully you’ve started cooking the pasta (I used the litte corkscrew pastas). I added maybe a scant cup of heavy cream at this point and allowed that to thicken a little. Then juice the lemon, add the juice (through a strainer to avoid the seeds if you want). Add the cooked pasta – making sure you followed the cooking time, tasted for doneness, strained but did not rinse! Toss it all together with a good pat of butter and some salt and pepper. Taste and adjust with salt and pepper, pepper flakes, whatever. Serve with salad and bread. Voila!
Garlic Scapes. Those little curly cues. Kind of like a twisty, spicy, garlic-flavored chive. Mince them into mashed potatoes or if you want to be deluxe: heat the half n half and butter to be added to your potatoes separately, first, along with the minced scapes – the flavor will infuse throughout. Mash that with your cooked potatoes – adjusting for salt and pepper, of course. The tips of the scapes can also be featured on their own – just sautéed in olive oil or butter. You can make a pesto with them. You can make a butter – just food process with room temperature butter. This can be spread on bread, stuffed under the skin of a chicken for roasting, slathered on fish to be grilled. Butters like this can be frozen if you want to have garlic scape flavor available all summer.
Beets. The tops are edible, cooked just like swiss chard. Beets store best with the tops off. Beets will keep for quite a while, topless, in a plastic bag in the fridge. J Most people are used to boiling or steaming beets. If you boil – I suggest doing them whole, removing when fork tender, and peeling afterwards with a fork and knife. Steaming is a way to cook them pretty fast, particularly if you slice them into thin rounds first. You can throw the greens on top for the last few minutes to steam them, too. I love this meal with a little quinoa, butter, salt and pepper. The best flavor comes from roasting the beets. Scrub the beets, put them on a cookie sheet in a foil packet, drizzling a little bit of olive oil and tossing in a pinch of salt before sealing tightly. Bake at 400 or so for about an hour. Larger beets take longer, smaller beets shorter – just test for fork tenderness. When done, I remove from the oven, but leave in the foil. I think it tends to steam and make the peel easier to remove. I like to do that when they’ve cooled, but you can do it while they are hot if you use a fork and knife. Careful! Beet juice is a natural dye. At this point, you can serve the roasted beets as a side or keep on hand for adding to salads or you can make a roasted beet salad – diced roasted beets with minced red onion, parsley, and blue cheese with shallot-balsamic vinaigrette is excellent. Be creative!
Swiss Chard. Rainbow chard. Steam or sautee with garlic and olive oil. I usually tear the leaves from the stem, as the stems can be stringy with the large chard leaves. If you want to use the stems, just dice them and add with the garlic, before adding the greens. Chard is nice for making a simple pasta (chard and ricotta or chard, feta, toasted walnuts) or for adding to a grain salad (maybe with some pine nuts and golden raisins). Great for adding to a soup or an egg scramble or frittata.
Spinach. We went to Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro at Patriots Place for my birthday on Sunday – I’m now 31!! The chef, Matt, is a good customer of ours and is very dedicated to locally sourced, organic produce. He served us an amazing salad with our spinach! He cures his own bacon so there were chunks of perfectly cooked, thick cut bacon, a wonderful soft goat cheese from Hubbardston, MA and our spinach topped with a fried egg. A simple vinaigrette held it together. Wonderful! This spinach is perfect for making a wilted spinach salad. A bacon vinaigrette is the best way – but I’m sure that vegetarian options abound. Of course, spinach is perfect for a veggie lasagna, a side, spinach pies, topping a pizza, filling a quesadilla, or just having as a salad green.
Bok Choy. Bunched Baby Bok Choy. Bok choy is great sautéed with garlic, a little oil, soy sauce, and chicken stock. You can either quarter it or slice it. I tend to add the stems first and greens second if I slice it cross-wise. Last year I did a nice recipe with quartered bok choy in a pyrex baking dish, tossed with garlic, ginger, olive oil, a dash of soy sauce, and topped with slices of lemon. I placed salt and peppered white fish on top of the lemons, added a few pats of butter, covered with foil and baked at 375 for 20-25 minutes. Start a pot of rice at the beginning of the process and you’ll have a nice meal done in about 35 minutes. Bok choy is great for stir fry, too.
Cilantro. Yum. Fish tacos? White onion and cilantro with some lime juice. Cilantro is great with fish or curries or thai food. I recommend a cilantro butter for grilled fish. One of our favorite lunches is good old tuna sandwiches – with minced red onion, capers, cilantro, olive oil, a touch of mayo, and salt and pepper. A cheese quesadilla is heightened with a mincing of cilantro and red onion. A mango salsa or guacamole are other great options for our favorite love-it-or-hate-it herb.
Enough! I’ve got to get to work. All this warm weather has accelerated the growth of the weeds. Got to go hoe!