Greens, greens and more greens

Week two brought more spinach, more butter lettuce, more kale, cilantro, and beets. I gave my son some of it, and realized I should start looking for someone to share our share with on a weekly basis. Even with my firm commitment to eating this stuff, there was more here than we could consume. Mostly it’s just two of us eating, and our 18-year-old daughter rarely eats with us.

Never having had kale and knowing there would be a lot of it, I resolved to figure out some ways to eat the stuff. I’ve found that searching the net for recipes is much easier and more productive than perusing cookbooks when you have one particular ingredient you want to use up. I found a recipe using some Kale and Collard Greens that we enjoyed one evening for dinner outside under our covered front porch:

Pasta With Greens

Start your pasta water heating.

Slice the kale/chard/greens about twice the size of matchsticks... it doesn't have to be exact, you could tear it, even.

Then, saute the greens in a mixture of olive oil and butter with chopped onion, garlic (chopped or slivered) and as they cook down, add chopped parsley. (I often add a variety of herbs, though just italian parsley works great.)

If you like the idea, add a couple of diced tomatoes at this point, or some cherry tomatoes halved. Let the saute cook down as the pasta boils... I use either spaghetti or penne, though most any pasta you have will work.

When the pasta is done, toss it with the sauce and grated parmesean or pecorino.

**You can also add a little wine or chicken or vegetable broth about halfway through the saute for additional flavor. Beet greens are also a wonderful addition.

I followed this recipe, adding a little bit of feta cheese flavored with basil and sun-dried tomato on top. It was delicious!

Planning and Preparing Ahead

A couple of days after picking up my first week's share of produce, my determination to not let the produce rot before we consumed it was heavy on my mind. I washed and tore up a head of Butter lettuce and half a head of Romaine, spinned out the water in the salad spinner and put the ready-to-eat lettuce in a big bowl in the fridge. Then I sat down at the computer and did a Google search for "Cilantro Recipes," and "Rhubarb Recipes." Here's what I came up with:

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp
1 cup sugar
4 tbsp. flour
4 cups rhubarb, cut in 1/2 inch slices
4 cups strawberries
3 cups oatmeal
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup melted butter
Combine white sugar and flour. Add rhubarb and strawberries, stir. Put in a 9x13 pan. Combine other ingredients and sprinkle over the top. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Can be served warm with vanilla ice cream.

I made this version and it turned out great. The recipe actually called for 1/2 cup more of white sugar, but I put in only a cup. It's easy!

Here's another one I have not yet tried, but it will be a good way to use up all that cilantro I know is coming:

Fabulous Cilantro Pesto Pasta

One 16-ounce package farfalle pasta
1 bunch fresh cilantro
5 cloves garlic
1 tbsp. white wine vinegar
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 cup walnuts or pecans
salt to taste
1/2 cup olive oil

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the pasta, and return water to a boil. Cook pasta for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente, drain well.
2. In an electric food processor or blender, blend cilantro, garlic, vinegar, Parmesan cheese, cayenne pepper, nuts, and salt. Add 1/4 cup of the olive oil, and blend the pesto. Add more olive oil until the pesto reaches your desired consistency.
3. Pour pesto in a small saucepan and warm over low heat, stirring constantly, until pesto begins to simmer. Pour over cooked pasta and toss.
   

My good intentions are still strong, and I am not forgetting about that vegetable bin in the fridge that's chock-full!

Salad for dinner, a new phenomenon

My first produce pickup was yesterday. I was able to choose a location a few blocks from my home, hosted by an architecture firm. A wooden lean-to has been constructed to house the pickup, next to the building on a corner. I pulled up and saw brightly colored bins stacked under the lean-to with a sheet of instructions posted. The blue bins were Family shares (large), the red bins are Small shares (medium) and the purple bins are Single shares (small). Hmmm, those labels seem confusing, reminding me of Starbucks sizes, where a Grande means small. I guess they think that small, medium, and large would be too generic a way to describe them.
I had been reminded by the Grant Farms e-newsletter to bring my canvas bags. I put a check by my name on the list, and peered into my red small share box. I was pleased with my first week's assortment: 2 heads of Butter lettuce, one head of Romaine, a large bag of spinach, several stalks of rhubarb, several small beets, and bunches of dill and cilantro. They even enclosed a half dozen organic eggs (pasture raised) with a note encouraging me to sign up for an egg share so I could receive them weekly.
As I loaded my canvas bags with produce, I mused that it was going to take some commitment and planning to use these vegetables up every week and make sure they don't rot in the refrigerator. It will take some discipline to wash and prepare vegetables instead of eating out or picking up prepared foods as I often have been in the habit of doing.
When I got home with the produce, my 18-year-old daughter Corinne announced that she was "in the mood" for a salad, offering to go to her favorite salad place and pick up take-out salad for dinner. I laughed, and showed her the heads of lettuce and bag of spinach I had just picked up. She wanted Greek salad, so she headed to the store to pick up olives and feta cheese to add to what I'd just brought home, and she prepared a family-sized Greek salad for our main course for that night's supper. As Corinne, my husband Scott, and I ate our salad that evening, I thought I was getting a glimmer of how this CSA thing might change our eating habits.

Signing up to buy local produce direct from the farm

I am motivated to buy my food locally for a number of reasons. Yes, it's currently the "in thing," but it makes a whole lot of sense to eat food that has not been shipped from hundreds of miles away, or even from overseas, when there is an abundance of food being produced near where I live. Why use all the fossil fuel it takes to transport food all over the globe? So, I signed up for a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share this spring, committing to a weekly pickup of organic vegetables from one of the local organic farms near my hometown of Fort Collins, Colorado. It's a risk: they require up-front payment for the 26-week season of $20 per week for the medium-sized share I signed up for, and as a customer, I share the risk with the farmer of the crops being damaged by hail or other weather events out of anyone's control. But I am motivated also by a desire to eat organic food as often as possible, and to eat healthier. This 26-week growing season will be an experiment for me and my family.