baby beets and greens
rainbow chard
sage
green onion
potatoes
kale (went to my box sharing friend)
My CSA also started the u-pick farm this week. I picked:
green bell pepper
jalapeno
purple kale
I also was fortunate enough to get 2 bags of lettuce from two of my co-worker's gardens!
I had a work picnic this week, so I used the salad greens to make a giant salad. I added in green onions, radish (from about 3 boxes ago), pickled rhubarb, golden raisins and slivered almonds. I made a honey balsamic dressing that used up the rest of the beet green pesto from about 2 boxes back. The salad was truely large and I ended up with lots left over, so I added the bell peppers and some lunch meat and brought it into work - it was gone...
The beet greens and chard were cooked down on the day I got the box so they wouldn't wilt in the fridge. I then added them to zucchini butter from last year that has been in my freezer and some pasta for lunches for this coming week. The pasta also got some Asiago cheese, baby brie, pasta water and lime juice.
The kale was made into a salad - my favorite kale salad, a kale Caesar slaw. I usually have all the ingredients on hand - anchovy, lemon juice, mustard, olive oil, parmesan. The dressing is so creamy and lemony and bright, I just love it. You also add in a hard boiled egg and that never hurts anything. (http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/tuscan-kale-caesar-slaw)
I'm constantly amazed at the internet - I do a lot of research at my job to find answers to random questions from my providers and can usually find the answer, so when I was looking for what to do with the sage, an herb I usually associate with the fall, I was not surprised to find a sage and beet dish. What did surprise me was that I found a beet and potato salad with a lemon dressing, and since I love lemon, that sounded yummy to me. (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/beet-potato-salad-with-lemon-709) This salad is more of the German potato salad style, where you make an acidic dressing and you toss the potatos and beets while warm. This dressing used lemon juice, jalapeno, oil and onion, which I used the green onion for. I only had a small amount of beets, so I used an equal amount of potatoes. It was very good and it is also gone... (see a theme here?)
So what to do with the sage? I added a few leaves to the beets when I roasted them (I know the recipe from above says to steam them, but that's messy with beets and roasting is so much better). I followed a Martha Stewart recipe but added some oil, salt, pepper and the sage. (http://www.marthastewart.com/336625/basic-roasted-beets) Since the beets were from the farm box, I had a wide variety of sizes, so I had to cut some down so the cooking time would be the same - it ended up being about 30 min. Then you let the beets steam off their skins and you just rub them off with a paper towel. It's actually not all that messy and I had only a few red fingers (mostly from cutting the beets to size).
What else to do with the sage? I decided to make a sage, lemon, garlic scape (I have a straggler from the box from 2 weeks ago) and green onion paste for a butterflied chicken. The chicken is from a farmer friend who I also got a few ducks from - those to be used in the future!
So far, I seem to be keeping up with the box. I am interested to see how things progress now that we are getting into the bigger growing season and my box sharing friend is due to have her baby fairly soon - that just means that I will be cooking the whole box and sending goodies to the new parents. I am also happy to report that the u-pick farm has tomatillos - I see enchiladas in my future!!
No comments:
Post a Comment