Make ahead quiche

This past summer was a banner year for Swiss chard and other leafy greens from my CSA. I didn't mind, I love the stuff, plus I knew I'd want greens come winter. Some members did grumble quite a bit over it though. Bet they'd welcome it now.

What I did was I froze tons of it. Well what was tons of it fresh anyway - chopped, blanched and frozen it's a LOT smaller. Still as tasty and almost as healthful though. Basically it's as easy as it sounds - I roughly chopped the greens, and in the case of chard (and escarole) the stems, and quickly dropped it all in some slightly salted boiled water. I swished them around for a few seconds (but no more then a minute) and then quickly transferred the greens to a waiting bowl of ice water, where I swished them around until cool. I then removed it from the water, squeezing out as much liquid as I could and froze it in reasonable portions (I did 1 cup containers).

Now that its winter and my CSA share consists of root veggies, I'm glad I did all that. I'm preparing for the birth of twins (if all goes on schedule they come out next week) and trying to cook some meals in advance. I have a ton of venison sausage from my husband's autumn hunting trip so I decided on making a few quiches as they are easy to pre-make & freeze, balanced complete meals, and are very forgiving in the reheating process - over baking by 10-15 minutes is no big deal.

I opted for the easy route of store bought, pre-made pie shells in the disposable aluminum pie plate - I know I won't want to bother with extra dishes with two newborns... plus I used my nice Pyrex pie plates at Christmas for pumpkin pies and of course left them with various family members (I'll get them back eventually).

Once the crust is established (and indeed you can skip the crust altogether if you prefer) quiche is ridiculously easy. Mix a bunch of ingredients with egg and bake, basically. I opted for low fat cheddar cheese, greens, venison sausage and eggs. I made four all together, two with straight kale, and two are a mix of escarole and Swiss chard. The sausage is without any casing and simply cooked and crumbled. As for the eggs, I did about 2/3 whole eggs and 1/3 egg white just because, well, it's a lot of egg. I super finely chopped the greens in the food processor and decided what the heck and instead of shredding the cheese, just went ahead and chopped the cheese up in the same method - I can't imagine it will make a difference.

Quiche (makes 2 deep dish 9" quiches)
2 - 9" deep dish pie shells
3 cups blanched greens, room temp, finely chopped
8 oz cheese (I used low fat cheddar), shredded or finely chopped
7 large eggs
5 large egg whites
1.5 cups cooked, crumbled sausage, cooled
salt & pepper

Pre-heat oven to 350. In a big bowl beat the egg and egg whites with the salt and pepper. Add the greens, the cheese and the sausage. Mix well. Pour into pie shell. Bake for either 1 hour (or until center is fully set) and eat, or bake for 45 minutes, allow to cool and freeze. To eat bake another 30 minutes (from frozen state).

Sweet Potato Bread

Its a snowy day so its some sort of law I'm supposed to bake, right? Oh wait maybe the law is about preparing food in advance of giving birth... Well either way I did. 

My husband is a good man who usually eats anything I cook without complaint. But for some bizarre reason he does not love sweet potatoes. This is very odd to me; they are so tasty. And a hassle because we get a lot of sweet potatoes from the CSA. He can usually be coaxed to eat them, but he never really enjoys them. Meanwhile we had some monster huge ones that needed eating.

I got a massive, and so far seemingly really good, cookbook for Christmas (Good Housekeeping Step By Step Cooking) which I've been perusing lately. I saw an interesting looking recipe for sweet potato biscuits which I considered. But I've been in a mood for sweets, muffins, cakes, etc. So I decided on sweet potato bread. Mind you this is not a recipe in the book. But then to me, recipes are mere suggestions, not rules. I figured I could modify the banana bread recipe.

Of course in the spirit of suggestive recipes, I changed a few other ingredients as well, mostly based on the reality of what I had on hand. All purpose flour was switched for mostly whole wheat, butter was joined with coconut oil due to a lack of enough butter, brown sugar mixed with regular sugar because I just opened a new bag and want to use it before it hardens. And I added chocolate chunks, because I had some and why not? Oh and I doubled the recipe to accommodate having 2 cups worth of sweet potato (and to have an extra loaf for freezing). The cinnamon blend is something I've mentioned before and always have on hand (mostly cinnamon, mixed with some ginger, nutmeg and clove). Much of the directions however are from the cookbook.

The result is delicious. And nutritious. And enough to enjoy some now, and freeze one loaf for next month when I'm dealing with two newborns and in no mood to cook. And finally, husband approved.

Sweet Potato Bread (makes 2 loaves)
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp cinnamon blend
1.5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
8 tbsp butter, softened
1 tbsp coconut oil
4 eggs
2 cups cooked, mashed sweet potato
1/2 cup water
chopped walnuts and semi-sweet chocolate chunks (about 1/2 cup total)

Pre-heat oven to 350.
In a big bowl whisk together the flours, cinnamon blend, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
Using a mixer (I used a KitchenAid stand mixer with the whisk attachment), blend the sugars, butter, oil and eggs on low, then increase to high speed for 5 minutes. Reduce the speed to medium-low and add the sweet potato and water. Mix until well blended. Then slowly add the flour mixture until incorporated. Finally mix in the nuts and chocolate.
Pour the mix into two greased loaf pans. (Its ok if it looks like the pans are only half full, it rises quite a bit). Bake for about 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Venison Stew

My husband recently did a very traditional "provider" thing and shot a deer, which he had butchered and brought home as our meat supply for the next few weeks (you can read about it here).

I have limited experience with venison - I've eaten it a handful of times previously and had never cooked it before. But meat is meat and in the winter, and especially with me being pregnant with twins, meat is a welcome food. 

My husband took the deer to the butcher, so he decided on what cuts to get, not me, although I had given a bit of preference before he'd set out on the hunting trip. He brought home several packets of breakfast sausage, 2 roasts, some steaks, some tenderloin, some backstrap and some stew meat. Plus two packs of ground hamburger meat he'd traded for some sausage from a hunting friend (and as such was not "our" deer, but rather the friend's). That first night home it was late so we had burgers, but since they were someone else's meat, I don't count them as the first proper meal cooked with venison. Plus burgers, while tasty, aren't exactly rocket science to make. I admit I did fancy them up a bit by adding pureed onion, bell pepper and parsley (I was afraid the lean venison would be too dry without adding something) as well as a bit of salt. But really then all I did was grill them and serve on rolls with cheese, and a side of herb roasted potatoes.

For the first real meal, I dug into the stew meat. My husband isn't a big stew fan, but I am, plus I had tons of root veggies from the CSA filling up my fridge. And, perhaps most importantly, stew is easy. I have no experience with venison but I know its a lean, gamey meat and I figured a nice liquid-laden dish was a good introduction for me. Plus I wanted to get a feel for the stew meat before attempting to use in a batch of eagerly-anticipated-by-my-husband chili.

It was the right choice, it was easy and it came out well. I used almost no seasoning, just some salt and pepper and a bit of wine, but otherwise let the veggies and the meat flavor the stew. Slow cooked on low for about 7 hours, the meat came out tender and perfect, the once hard veggies soft and easy to eat. And true to form, there is almost no visible fat on the stew - not as it cooked, nor forming a creamy white layer at the tops of the jars of stew stashed away in the fridge. Just hearty, tasty stew waiting to be eaten for lunch on cold days as I figure out the rest of those cuts of meat.

Venison Stew (about 6 hearty servings)

2 lbs (I think) venison stew pieces
2 rutabaga
2 medium potatoes
4 small "salad" turnips
7 small carrots
1 leek
1/2 red onion
4 cups water
1 cup red wine
salt & pepper

2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons cold water

Chop (and if desired peel) vegetable into bite sized cubes, or in the case of carrots, into "coins". Place everything into a slow cooker, liquid and seasoning last. Cook on low for 7 hours. About 20 minutes before you are ready to eat, mix the water and flour together and pour into the stew and mix in well. Enjoy.

Quiche

The real 'thing' with a CSA membership is getting what you get, based on the crops planted, the weather, the bugs, any plant illnesses going around and bunch of other factors you the consumer have no power over. Some people love the surprize element, some people hate it, some just deal with it.

This year we've been getting lots, and lots, and lots of Swiss chard. Now I love Swiss chard, its a definite favorite. Truth be told all the dark leafy cooking greens are. I can live without the lettuce but spinach, kale, chard, beet greens, turnips greens and any other of the non-lettuces? Bring 'em on. Apparently my fellow CSA'ers are not as keen on it. So last time we got chard not only did I get my bunch, but I got a bunch another member forced upon me (oh twist my arm!)

I tell other people all the time to just use it like you would spinach. Apparently this advice is not appreciated. I dont know why, but ok, whatever.

I have sauteed it, made pesto with it, mixed it into tomato sauce, mixed it with ricotta cheese, chopped some into curry - really I find it quite versitle. Tonight I made it into quiche.

I love quiche because its so adaptable. You can make it vegetarian (well ovo-lacto vegetarian anyway) or use any kind of meat you want. You can load it with veggies, or use veggies sparingly. Lots of cheese, or limited cheese. As far as I know the only required ingredients are a pie crust, eggs and some cheese. So go nuts, use what you have.

A trick to the chard, and the leeks, by the way, is a big bowl of water. Its simply put the best way to truly rinse the sand off. You just aren't going to get it all under running water, you aren't. So fill a giant bowl with water, or even just your sink basin, and roughly chop your chard and/or leeks and dump them in and swirl around for a bit. The greens float, the dirt sinks. Easy-peasy.

Quiche
1 pie crust
2 egg whites
6 eggs
6 ounces shredded cheese (I used pepper jack)
2 ounces chopped pepperoni (I used low fat turkey pepperoni)
1/2 large bunch of Swiss chard, chopped (this would equal 1 grocery store bunch in my experience)
1 medium leek, chopped
2 tablespoons of sour cream (because I had it; I used low fat)
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Boil some water with a touch of salt and drop in your chard. Cook for about 2 minutes then drain. Once its cooled a bit give it a finer chop (I like to pulse it in the food processor, but you could chop by hand).
In a big bowl beat the egg whites and eggs, and after a while the sour cream, salt and pepper. Add the leeks, chard, and cheese and mix well. 
Pour into a pie shell and bake about 45-60 minutes.

Eggplant-Not-Quite-Rolatini

I have many friends of Italian heritage, and many who have married into Italian families. In many ways I'm envious of the strong food traditions they learn from their families at large, after all Italian food is amazingly delicious. But one thing I don't envy them are the rules. For every "secret" and trick I've heard about Italian cooking I've also heard some obscure or oppressive rule, about how things have to be done. No thanks. No one imposes rules in my kitchen but me.

And so I present my Italian inspired but almost certainly blasphemous in some way eggplant-not-quite-rolatini. Its sort of a cross between eggplant parm and eggplant rolatini with a hint of lasagne method (because I didn't dare try to actually roll my eggplant) and cooked by an absolutely non-Italian New Yorker. And it is delicious. And rule free. Use any variety of tomato. Make it any time of the month. Packaged mass produced mozzarella cheese is fine. Go crazy. Heck here's a non-Italian trick for the mozzarella cheese: 30-40 minutes before starting anything put it in the freezer. Then use a food processor to chop it (or shred it if you have that attachment). So much easier then shredding squishy cheese by hand!

Like so very many of my dishes it utilizes what I had on hand. If you want to make it authentic to my recipe, then utilize what you've got, its a more honest following then to buy my exact ingredient list. I winged it, so you can too. I made my sauce because I had tons of tomatoes on hand from my CSA, but go ahead and open a jar if you prefer.

Ingredients
1 eggplant
salt
ricotta cheese
mozzarella cheese, shredded
tomato sauce*
bread crumbs
Italian seasoning
2 eggs
flour
cooking oil

For the sauce
4 medium fresh tomatoes
1 small or half a large [sweet] pepper
1/2 small onion (I use red, but white or yellow is fine)
2-3 cloves garlic
teaspoon of sugar or honey
salt
olive oil

Set a pot of water to a boil.
 
Slice your eggplant to disks about 1/8 of an inch wide. Put a piece of paper towel on a plate, put down one layer of eggplant disks, salt lightly, add a paper towel and repeat until all your eggplant is salted and in between paper towels; weigh it down with another plate (if your plates are very lightweight, put a can of something on top of the top plate to give it some heft). This is one of those "Italian tricks" I've learned - its how you keep your eggplant from frying up slimy. Set aside while you make the sauce.  At some point in the middle of the next step come back and change the by-then wet paper towels for dry ones.

Drop 4 whole ripe tomatoes into the boiling water. Let them boil for about 1-4 minutes - until the skin cracks. Remove the tomatoes and run under cold water for a bit so you can handle them. Peel off the skin and quarter the tomatoes and remove the core bit. I also like to scrape out the majority of the seeds. I'm not obsessive about it but I get what I can out (this might require some more cutting, that's fine chop away.) Put the skinless, seedless flesh into a pot. Add the pepper and onion, roughly chopped, along with the garlic (I put it through a press first, but you can chop it if that's easier for you) and a dollop of olive oil. Set the whole thing to medium heat and cook for a few minutes. (This is a good time to change paper towels on your eggplant.) Using an immersion blender, puree all the veggies together. Add a decent shake of Italian seasoning, salt and the sugar, and stir. Bring it to a simmer, stirring occasionally, as you prepare the rest of the eggplant.

Prepare 3 small bowls and a drying rack. First bowl: flour, second bowl: 2 eggs well beaten, third bowl: bread crumbs and Italian seasoning. Now is also a good time to start preheating your oven to 350.

With a fork or tongs, dip a slice of eggplant into the flour to coat each side. Then dip into the egg wetting both sides, then into the breadcrumbs encasing each side. Place on drying rack. Repeat with each eggplant slice. Drying the breaded disks for a few minutes before cooking is another "trick" I learned somewhere, it helps keep the breadcrumb coating from just sliding off when frying.

Heat some oil in a large skillet - enough to completely cover the whole pan but not so deep the eggplant will be submerged. Starting with the first slice you coated (as its the driest) place the eggplant into the pan and fry on each side for about 3-4 minutes. While they are cooking put a layer of paper towel on your drying rack, so as you remove the eggplant its going right onto the towel on the rack. If you will end up with two layers of eggplant on the rack, put a paper towel between them.

In a small bowl mix 1/3 of your mozzarella cheese with a few generous dollops of ricotta cheese.

Now assemble. In a baking dish add about 1/3 of your tomato sauce, just enough to coat the whole bottom of the dish. Place a single layer of eggplant disks. Cover with ricotta cheese mixture. Add another layer of eggplant. Repeat this until there is no more eggplant and ricotta (ending with eggplant as your top layer). Pour remaining sauce over it all. Cover it all with the rest of you mozzarella cheese.

Bake for 30-40 minutes. 
Enjoy! Makes 4 regular sized servings.

Pasta Salad

As so often happens I still had some old veggies to deal with when a new week new shipment of CSA produce came in. It was also in the upper 90's and extreme humidity, weather-wise.

I decided a nice vegetable laden pasta salad was in order. Sure boiling the water is a bit hot and steamy, but its pretty quick. I actually used the water twice to maximize its cooking awesome, and I made sure to cover my pot to reduce the steam escaping into the air.

I set my pot of water, with a bit of sea salt to boil and stemmed some old kale. Once the water was boiling I dropped in the kale and immediately set up a bowl of ice water. After about 1 minute (the time it took to ready the ice water) I used tongs to pull out the kale. I swished it to evenly cool it. I then dumped a box of high protein pasta in the still boiling, now slightly green water.

While the pasta cooked, I drained the kale (including really squeezing it out) and put it in the food processor - I'll come back to it later. In the meantime I chopped 4 small carrots and 1 medium zucchini and placed them in the sieve. I also chopped half an onion and set aside, and 1 garlic scape which joined the kale in the food processor.

When the pasta was done I poured it and its boiling water into the sieve over the carrots and zucchini. I let then sit for a moment to let the veggies just ever so slightly soften up from the heat as I turned back to the food processor. To the kale and garlic scape, I added a handful of almonds, some Parmesan cheese, about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and some fresh cracked black pepper. I processed it, occasionally scraping down the sides, for about 3 minutes until it was a nice smooth pesto.

I dumped the pasta and veggies into a large bowl, added the chopped onion and then about half to 3/4 of my pesto and stirred it all up, with a bit of salt.

We ate it warm that night, but the remainder was put in the refrigerator and enjoyed cold over the next few days. The remaining pesto in the meantime is handy as dip, or a sandwich spread.

Pasta Salad
1 bunch kale
4 small carrots
1 medium zucchini
1 garlic scape
1/2 large onion
handful of almonds
about 2 cubic inches of Parmesan cheese
about 2 tbsp of olive oil
salt & pepper 

Simple Bean Salad

Gosh I really love beans! Growing up, my family never ate many beans... if fact I can't remember my family ever serving or eating beans. I started eating rice and beans as a teenager, having been influenced by friends and neighborhood culture, but they just weren't a family thing. Now I go through about a dozen cans of beans a month. Chick peas, aka garbanzo beans, are easily one of my favorites. They are mild flavored, a nice round shape and certainly nutritionally great offering fiber and protein, as well as a slew of nutrients. They work very well in salads.

Any bean would do fine in this salad though, black beans, white beans, lima beans, black-eyed peas, even green beans (although you'd be well advised to cut those up, and perhaps blanche them).

Any vegetables would work here as well. In fact usually my 'go-to' veggies for this kind of salad would be celery, onion, pepper and carrots. But it's CSA season and while I do in fact have celery, onion and pepper in my refrigerator at the moment, I wanted to stick with my organic CSA stuff. Any herbs work for the dressing as well, but again I was going for my CSA stuff, hence this particular blend. But really that's the beauty of a bean salad and what makes it so very simple - its very adaptable.

I had used the bulbs of my fennel last night to make Caramelized Fennel with Goat Cheese (my review: it was ok, but not my favorite fennel preparation. I think it would work really well as a brunch side, more so then a dinner side.) This left me with all the stalks today, about 8 or 10 or them, having used 3 bulbs for dinner. I had also purchased some fresh organic dill for that recipe, so even though it wasn't in my CSA share, I figured I was still being a purist by including it in my salad since ti was fresh and organic (heck the beans aren't CSA anyway, they are out of a can!

The salad couldn't be easier. Basically rinse and drain the beans. Then chop the crunchy veggies into pieces about the same size as the beans. Make the dressing and mix it all together.

I made the dressing in my mini chop, although certainly you could chop the herbs by hand and whisk in the liquids. I put my herbs in the mini chop first and gave it a good whirl. I scraped down the sides, added the vinegar, oil, salt and pepper and gave it another good whirl in the chopper. I then poured that over my beans and veggies and stirred it up. Voila! Bean salad. 

I fixed myself a bowl immediately, and divided the rest into containers and put them in the fridge. Really this kind of salad tastes best after a 30 minute to 24 hour wait, as the flavors meld and soak into the beans, but hey, I was hungry! You can eat this as is, or over lettuce, or even stuffed into a pita - really however you like it.

I used:

Salad
Stalks of 3 small fennel (about 8-10 stalks)
3 baby carrots
2 salad turnips
1 can chick peas

Dressing
Fluffy part of 3 small fennel
1 garlic scape
parsley (just leaves off of two stalks)
Dill (just the leaves off 1 stalk)
Rice vinegar (about 2 tbsp)
Olive oil (about 1 tbsp)
Sea salt, fresh cracked black pepper

Fried zucchini, gluten free

Recently I started doing a 21 day detox cleanse.  Having the CSA and access to lots of organic veggies definitely makes it easier.  And the timing was great - my father & step mother are on vacation for a week so I got their share last week and will again this week - TONS of organic veggies.

I don't want to get too into detail about the cleanse as it is a program that was purchased and there's probably copy-write infringement issues, but I can easily say its essentially an elimination diet with a focus on eating 'clean' foods; which is to say non-processed, organic, low allergen foods.

The list of what not to eat is pretty long, but I actually was unfazed by much of it - I don't eat a lot of processed foods, or packaged items, or sweeteners or sweetened things, or many of the other items listed.  Going wheat/gluten free is somewhat challenging but not terrible - I eat a relatively low gluten diet normally.  And I'd actually been cutting back on caffeine on my own for the last few months.  Going alcohol free for 3 weeks is a slight annoyance, only in that its a restriction, but in reality I go 3 week stretches without a drink all the time out of mere circumstance.  No nightshades could be a challenge, but luckily they aren't in season yet, so even though they are staples in my diet, lately not so much anyway.  But dairy?  Dairy free?  That one is hard.  I eat and cook with dairy daily; I love cheese!  And butter!  And milk!  Cheese in salads, and on sandwiches, and eggs, and with veggies, and on pasta. My usual lunch protein comes at least in part via a daily yogurt.  No dairy is my challenge.

But I committed to this and dang it I'm going to do it.

Dinner day 1 was actually rather regular.  Chicken breast, with a healthy sprinkling of curry powder, pan fried in coconut oil, served with brown rice and sauteed (in coconut oil, not my usual olive oil-butter (dairy!) blend) mixed veggies (chard, zucchini & onion).  Tasty, simple and typical.  And oh man cooking in coconut oil has the best smell!

Dinner day 2 dinner was, well less inspired for me.  I had some ground bison (a great choice of meats as US law required bison never be given antibiotics or hormones) which I cooked up with some kidney beans and garlic, some fresh thyme and a drop of oil (bison is very lean).  I served my fiance his on a roll with a few slices of delicious forbidden pepper jack cheese.  Mine I had over brown rice.  It was still delicious though, and probably if I hadn't had the pepper jack in the house I wouldn't have missed it so terribly.

Dinner day 3 was both lazy and experimental, and actually quite awesome.  Fried zucchini.  I sliced up a zuc and prepared two bowls - one with beaten egg and one with a blend of flax meal, chia seeds, garlic powder and salt.  I heated up some more of the delectable smelling coconut oil in a large pan and dunked my zucchini medallions in to egg, then my dry mix (both sides) and then into the pan.  They took about 7 minutes to cook, flipping mid-way through.  I transferred them onto a paper towel and then onto a plate for munching.  

They had a nice nutty flavor and the chia seeds added a bit of crunch but not in an unpleasant way.  I ate them as is, with no dipping sauce or adornments as I couldn't think of any non-processed, nightshade or dairy sauces to make.  The chia seeds and flax meal added protein as well as adding to the fiber, and overall it was like having a decadent appetizer for dinner... minus a chipotle aioli dipping sauce (chipotles are alas, nighshades).

Herbed quinoa & zucchini

The early warm weather and ample rains this spring have led to another bounty summer at my CSA.  Plus this year for the first time I signed up for an herb share. Luckily this year also marks my household having 2 people instead of one – an extra mouth to feed is a good thing when swimming in produce!

But also, sadly this year saw the closing of my beloved local grocery store, Keyfood.  Sure I still have H-Mart a few blocks away or giant supermarkets Pathmark and Waldbaums a bit further, but none have the convenience or proximity Keyfood had.  Or the awesome staff I’d gotten to know over the 10 years I’ve lived in the ‘hood.

No grocery store means living off of stores of food and less last minute quick trips for fresh protein sources.  That’s ok, I have quinoa to last several meals; I stocked up on non-perishables during the 25% off sales during Keyfood’s last days.  It was bittersweet savings, but that didn’t stop me.

My herb share brought me two herbs I’d never had before, SummerySavory and Lemon Thyme.  I'd of course had regular thyme before though, and this wasn't too different, except the thyme had flowered, which made it lovely and aromatic… but geez what a hassle to pull the tiny little leaves off without getting any flowers.  The summer savory at least was easy – it looked and worked much like rosemary, although it certainly had its own distinctive flavor – almost sharp.

I set some quinoa going in the rice cooker in vegetable broth.  While it cooked I pulled herb leaves and put them in the food processor along with a handful of cilantro left from the week before.  I processed the herbs, along with some fresh cracked black pepper, a drizzle of olive oil and about 2 ounces of munster cheese.  On the other side of the kitchen I sliced up zucchini and cipollini onions (bulb and greens), and melted some butter in a large pan with olive oil.  I sautéed my zucchini and onion, with some Kosher salt and it was done just about the same time as my quinoa.  I folded the herb-cheese mixture into the grains, and there you go, dinner. 

I wondered a bit if my fiancé would mind a vegetarian meal, but decided to not make mention of it.  He didn’t either and just said it tasted great.

Green pancake

The thing about trying to eat more fresh vegetables is the amount of cooking it requires.  And I’ve been busy with weekend social engagements, meetings, and appointments after work.  So my veggies were piling up; I eat a salad every day at lunch but that just doesn’t make a big dent.   

With another CSA share rapidly approaching I had to step to it.  Yesterdy, after getting home late, I used my bok choy, from the previous week’s share, by grilling it on my counter top compression grill along with some reduced fat kielbasa, and I chopped some scallion which I mixed into a side of brown rice.  The whole meal took 15 minutes to prepare and was balanced enough but I had plenty of greens left. 

Not surprisingly, what I had left were my least favorites.  My beloved toscano kale was long used up but beet greens and carrot tops?  Those I had.

Cheese to the rescue.  

Trust me, its hard to make carrot greens taste good.  In fact there are plenty of people who just don’t ever bother with carrot tops; at my old CSA they were collected at our pick up area (an environmental center) as rabbit food, not for human consumption. Not only are they not all that tasty, but they are a hassle.  Somehow carrot greens have a super power ability to stick to everything: the bowl, the pot, the spatula, the knife, the sieve, the sink and most annoyingly, your hands.  So why bother?  Well simply put: they’re good for me, and I have them.

Carrots are super healthful.  Carrots have been shown to aid in warding off cardiovascular disease and colon cancer.  Admittedly the studies pretty much focus on the root, the carrot, of the plant not the greens. But I figure there has to be some carry over to the leaves.

Mixing the carrot greens with the beet greens and cilantro helped cut their bitterness, and the onion rounded it all out.  The rice and flours were added just to give it some body and add a grain element to the meal, the egg as a binder.  It was the cheese blend (NY white cheddar and Parmigiano Reggiano) that really made the flavor tip over into tasty, complimented by the deliciousness of pan frying in butter (and olive oil) – what doesn’t taste great when cooked to a crispy golden?

Green Pancakes (6 pancakes, 3 servings)

1 bunch beet greens, stems trimmed

1 bunch carrot greens, stems trimmed

1 bunch cilantro, stems trimmed

¼ red onion

1 cup mixed whole grain flours (whole wheat, buckwheat, flaxmeal)

1 cup brown rice with scallions

1.5 cups shredded cheese

2 eggs

butter & olive oil

Quickly boil the beet and carrot greens.  Drain and add to the food processor along with cilantro, onion, and rice. Process until finely chopped.  In a bowl, mix the veggies with the flours until fully in corporated.  Then mix in cheese.  Once its well mixed, add the eggs and mix in well.  Heat the butter and olive oil in a large pan. Form greens into patties and put in pan.  Cover and cook 4-5 minutes, then flip and cook another 4-5 minutes covered, over medium high heat.

Enjoy hot.

Cilantro chicken, and some pesto

Spring and early summer are leafy green season, which brings us kale and arugula and lettuce and spinach, and cilantro.  Now I like cilantro alright, but this year is a particularly cilantro-y year.  See, my lovely stepmother also a CSA member, is one of those people who has (or is missing, however it works) the cilantro gene.  Apparently there is a long evolutionary explanation, but some people genetically dislike cilantro – to them it tastes like, well, I don’t know because I’m one of them, but not like food is probably a fair description they would all agree on.  To me, it just tastes like not-quite-as-good oregano.  Not my favorite, but definitely tasty food.  Well anyway since I do eat it, I got not only my own bunch of cilantro in my last CSA share, I got my stepmothers as well.  That’s a lot of cilantro!

One sure fire way to use excessive herbs is with chicken.  I mean “herbed chicken” – could there be a more classic sounding food?  I think not.  And so simple – just finely chop (or have a food processor finely chop for you) a big handful of whatever fresh herb you have, along with a bit of olive oil and a nice pinch of salt.  Use chicken with skin still on and rub the herb paste under the skin, gently breaking the membrane holding the skin to the meat.  Bake at 350 for about 30-45 minutes.  The skin with have a nice golden crunchy look and the juices will be coming out clear.

Since I certainly had the greens on hand, I served it with some sautéed spinach & onions (spinach, onion, olive oil & butter and a pinch of salt).  It was a simple meal, and very green,  and bursting with the taste of spring.

The rest of my cilantro was used sparingly in some salads, and then to make a pesto.  The cilantro pesto was delicious although odd looking mixed with quinoa, to make a nice side dish to some chicken sausage a few days later.  It made a great salad dressing thinned out with some vegetable broth.  And there’s still some left in a jar in the fridge.  

Pesto is traditionally made with basil, pine nuts, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and olive oil - and that's certainly a delicious way to prepare it. But really "pesto" just means ground herbs.  I made mine with cilantro, almonds, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and vegetable broth.  I put everything except the broth in the food processor and start it going, then slowly drizzle in the broth until its a paste-like consistency (stopping occasionally to spatula down the sides).

Its tasty and a fun ingredient - use it as a sauce, thin it out and use it as a dressing, use it on sandwiches as a condiment, mix it in with grains like rice or quinoa for a squishy green tasty side dish.

And lucky me, there’s two more bunches of cilantro coming this week.

Greens pie, revisted

I made these little greens pies Sunday, knowing I had a busy week ahead of me.  They take a lot of time, but its not hard to make them, and you can do just about all of it in advance. With meetings Monday and Wednesday, and my fiance's band playing Tuesday, and then veggie pick up and dinner plans Thursday I wanted something on hand I could get ready without too much effort.

They are packed with a cup of cooked greens each, full of flavor and a super handy side dish. I can just pop them in the oven and go about my other chores and have an elaborate serving of nutrient dense vegetables.

I've made greens pie in the past and looking back, I simplified the recipe quite a bit, increasing the greens and cheese, while reducing the egg, and of course using leek and onion.  I have also over the course of multiple tries found letting the greens cool before mixing with the egg and cheese, and increasing baking time results is a flakier crust.  I've probably made 20 different versions over the years, I just use whats on hand. Its also tasty with a good, hard Italian cheese instead like Romano or Asiago, or with peppers cooked in.

My one caution is to watch the salt, as feta and other cheeses can be very salty to begin with, especially if you are using salted butter as well.

Greens pie, again

1 bunch turnip greens, stems removed

1 bunch red kale, stems removed

1 medium/small leek, chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed, minced or through a press

1 cup crumbled feta (I used fat free)

1 egg

Salt, pepper, seasonings (roasted tomato, crushed green jalapeño)

4 sheets filo dough, defrosted

Olive oil, butter

4 8oz ramekins

Pre-heat oven to 350.

Chop and rinse turnip greens and kale. Put in a large pan and cook in the water clinging to the leaves, over low, covered, for about 3-5 minutes, until well wilted. Push the greens to the perimeter of the pan, add a dab of butter and a drizzle of olive oil to the center.  Add chopped leek and crushed garlic and sauté.  Once the leek is softened, mix in the greens and cook it all together another few minutes together.  

Remove from heat and let cool.

Mix greens, feta, seasonings and the egg.

Take a piece of filo dough and mist with olive oil. Fold in half. Mist with olive oil and fold in half again. Tuck into a ramekin, fill with greens mixture. Fold down one corner, mist, fold the next clockwise, mist, repeat, to seal.

Bake 1 hour and serve.  Or bake 30 minutes, let cool and wrap in plastic wrap and store. When ready to serve, bake at 350 for 10 minutes, carefully tip out of ramekin and bake upside down for another 20 minutes, serve.

Rhubarb compote

Ahhh rhubarb.  What a very peculiar piece of produce you are.  Rhubarb leaves are slightly poisonous but the stalks are edible.  But edible and delicious are two very different terms.  And as such rhubarb is typically served with lots of sugar, whether it be straight white sugar or sugary other ingredients like strawberries, such as the American classic strawberry rhubarb pie. Although I have read its quite nice sliced thinly and tossed into a savory salad… an application I have yet to try.

My CSA farm provided a recipe for rhubarb cake and I know many of my fellow CSA members made it.   I opted for an easier recipe as I don’t keep white flour on hand and a whole wheat rhubarb cake really just wasn’t calling to me; I made rhubarb compote.  I got this recipe off the Golden Earthworm Farm’s site my first CSA year, and made it then.  Last year I actually bought some rhubarb at my local grocery and made this. Then and now, I did not re-refer to the recipe, I just remade it from memory.

Normally and ideally one would make this recipe with lemon juice as the acid.  And I really should have just walked the 2 blocks to the store to buy some.  But I didn’t, and opted for vinegar instead.  Having made the recipe previously I knew the acid didn't make a huge flavor difference.  And really if using vinegar, one should probably use a sweet one like apple cider vinegar, but I didn’t, again because I didn’t have any on hand.  Now mind you I didn’t go crazy and use the hot pepper infused rice vinegar, at least my odd substitutions took a turn for the mild – I used regular white vinegar.  And it’s still really tasty.  But really, if you have lemon (or lime) juice, use that.

Compote is super easy to make and super versatile.  Serve it over ice cream, or plain cake, or swirl it into oatmeal, or spread some on toast – its good anywhere gooey sweetness is welcome.  And it can be kept in the fridge for… well at least 2 weeks.  I’ve always eaten it up by then, so I can’t really tell you how long it would take to turn.

Rhubarb Compote

6-7 stalks of rhubarb

1 cup sugar

1 tbsp acid

Mix in a pot over medium heat, cover and cook until goo. Enjoy hot or chilled.

Strawberries CSA 2012

Its CSA season once again.  This year is my third summer with Golden Earthworm Farm, but my first year with a new CSA – one I helped create!  Thursday was our first pick up date and despite a few easily fixable hiccups, we’re up and running.

As always, week one included strawberries.  Unlike years past, these strawberries were bigger and firmer and more like grocery store berries then the small, more like wild berries I’d expected.  And there seemed to be significantly more of them.  Well, no complaints from me, strawberries are one of my all-time favorite foods.  

Of course fresh strawberries  also have a very limited shelf life, so I had to eat them quickly. Strawberries are beautiful, aromatic and tasty.  And they are high in antioxidants like vitamin C and high in fiber.  But they are also really high in sugar, and therefore calories, so I wanted to pace myself.

Friday morning I rinsed a few, cut off their greens and had them for breakfast with a handful of almonds.  No sugar, no salt, no anything other then farm fresh strawberries and raw unsalted almonds.  It was a great breakfast – portable (I tend to eat breakfast on the bus during my morning commute), included fiber and protein, and delicious.  And it kept me full until lunch.

Later that evening, my after work snack was a strawberry-banana smoothie made with fat free, high protein milk, raw honey and wheat germ.  A few ice cubes and good blender and it was awesome.  I know most people make smoothies with yogurt, but I prefer milk; I think yogurt had a distinct and less delicious taste.  The wheat germ adds a nice nutty flavor and really compliments the banana.  The shake would have been great with strawberries alone, but I had a banana that also had a limited life span left and this smoothie was a pretty main component of my dinner, so I put it in.  Not to mention I wanted the extra potassium as I’ve recently been kicking up the jogging regimen.

Still, I had more strawberries.

So Saturday afternoon, after a late breakfast and with plans for a late dinner, I decided a summer salad was the perfect mid-day meal.  Fresh arugula from my CSA share, rinsed and stems snapped off, chopped strawberries, walnuts and a drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette.  The perfect bite contained some of each flavor. I served it to my fiancé who was not nuts about, well nuts, at least not in a salad.  Fruit in salad isn’t his thing either.  But he tried it and even he liked it.  It probably would have been even better with crumbled goat cheese and I lamented not having any when I was making it.  But even without it was a refreshing and elegant way to break up a sunny Saturday spent doing mundane personal tasks like housework and filing.

Strawberry Banana Smoothie

4-6 strawberries (fresh or frozen)

1 ripe banana

6-8 oz fat free milk

2 tbsp wheat germ

1 tbsp honey

2-4 ice cubes

Add all ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth. Serve with a straw.