Week 4: no salad greens

I thought I was being so prepared by making such an effort to use all my vegetables. On Sunday I made a huge bowl of mixed greens to pull salads from. I figured I needed 4 salads worth, but I had at least 5 salads worth, 6 if stretched with other veggies. So I bagged up some and gave a salads worth to Jennifer. I ate my last salad for lunch today. I expected to get: various vegetables and salad greens.

I got: various vegetables. Its a good selection but I had mentally prepared to make myself a salad for lunch tomorrow, as I have for the last three weeks, and now that was not an option. I wasn't concerned, I knew I had plenty of food, it just through me for a loop.

I threw together some chives, cilantro and the fuzzy bits off the fennel into the food chopper with some fresh basil and a sun-dried tomato and chopped. I mixed them with some quinoa and drizzled on some olive oil and seasoned with salt & pepper. I chopped some carrots into sticks. Along with some humus, that's lunch.

Tonight I'll read up on some ideas for my ingredients tomorrow I'll cook something.

CSA 3: Kale chips

Ok this isn't really my recipe, at least I assume its not. I didn't look it up, but I've heard of kale chips before and I can't imagine I'm the first to make them this way. It couldn't be easier and its super tasty!

Kale chips

3 kale leaves, rinsed, patted dry and cut into easy to eat pieces
Olive oil spray
good salt

Preheat oven, and if you have one, a well seasoned pizza stone, to 375. If you don't have a pizza stone, I'm sure a baking sheet would work fine.
Arrange leaves so none overlap and spray with olive oil. Place, oil side down, on stone and spray with olive oil. Bake about 15 minutes. Carefully put chips on a clean towel and sprinkle with salt. allow to cool.

Enjoy.

CSA 2: Greens pie

In addition to salad greens, I've been getting lots of other greens as well, ones that need to be cooked. Expecting a new shipment in a few days and left with a bunch of spinach, kale and beet greens I decided to make an old favorite. Spinach pie, this time with mixed greens. Normally I'd use garlic in this recipe, but since I still have plenty of scapes, I used them instead. And thinking it was more practical, I made individual pies instead of one big one.

Greens pie

several cups of green leafy vegetables, trimmed of stems and chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 garlic scape, chopped
fresh dill, chopped
fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 cup crumbled feta (I used fat free)
2 egg whites
1 egg
filo dough
olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 and defrost filo.
Boil a large pot of water and add the greens. Boil a few minutes and drain.
Heat some oil and add the onions and scape. Cook a few minutes, until well softened. Remove from heat.
Scramble the egg and egg whites together.
Add the greens, feta, dill and parsley, and eggs to the onion and mix well. Season with salt & pepper.

On a clean, dry surface lay 1 piece of filo dough. Using olive oil spray, spray 2/3 of the sheet. fold the filo into thirds so it ends up filo-oil-filo-oil-filo. Spray half of the filo and fold in half. You should have a square. Stuff it in a ramikin, centered, sides sticking up. Repeat in 5 more ramikins. Fill the filo cups with greens mixture and fold the filo corners down to cover.

Bake about 30 minutes, until they smell good and the filo is golden brown. Allow to cool on a wire rack for several minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the ramikin and place a plate upside down over it. Invert and tap the ramikin so the mini pie falls out.

Perfect!

First CSA recipe: Kimchi

Three weeks into the CSA I'm eating A LOT of green salad and I'm finding myself with interesting assortments of vegetables. There are good recipes on the CSA website but I find them frustrating as each only uses 1 weekly vegetable and then lots of other things, things I don't consider staples. I want to use as much of what I already have and buy as little additionally as possible.

So I'm making my own recipes.

I found myself with several bunches of bok choi, several garlic scapes, and two kholrabi bulbs. I ate some bok choi steamed and served with chili oil and sea salt which was quite tasty. And I've been putting garlic scapes into everything I cook instead of garlic and sometimes instead of onion. I've chopped kholrabi into my salads. But I found myself still left with plenty of kholrabi, several bok choi and scapes... and a new week of vegetables!

So I made kimchi to extend the life span and create a ready to eat dish. I searched several recipes and comparing them, came up with my own that followed the basic premise of all the recipes I read but that utilized the ingredients I had on had. I figured kholrabi is in the cabage family so it should work since all the recipes called for bok choi and/or Korean cabbage. And all the recipes called for either garlic, scallions or both; I figured scapes are basically a cross between the two so I'd just use those.

It took me 3 days to make but was very minimal effort each day. I started on a Tuesday evening. I chopped the vegetables and wraped them in a damp linen towel, placed them in a bowl and put them in the fridge. I made the salt water in a mason jar. That was it.

The next morning I removed the towel leaving the veggies in the bowl. I poured the salt water over them and weighed them down with a plate, held down with the mason jar, now filled with water.

When I got home from work Wednesday I drained, rinsed and set the veggies re-soaking in fresh water while I made the brine. I poured out the water and stuffed the vegetables into the mason jar and added the brine. I let it sit on my kitchen counter.

Thursday when I got home from work it was ready.

Kimchi


5 bunches bok choi, quartered lengthwise
1/2 kholrabi, cut into strips
2 garlic scapes, slivered
5 tbsp good salt
1 hot pepper, chopped
2 inches fresh ginger, chopped
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp sugar
water

Mix 4 tbsp salt w/4 cups of water and soak the bok choi, kholrabi & garlic scapes for about 8-10 hours.
Drain & soak in fresh water about 10 minutes.
To make the brine, mix the pepper, ginger, sauces, sugar & 1 tbsp salt with about 2 cups of water.
Drain the soaking veggies and stuff them in a jar, then pour in the brine and close tightly.
Let sit at room temp for 24 hours.

You now have kimchi. I recommend opening it in the sink - its fermented while sitting there and kinda pops like a soda. Once you open it, it will last 1 month in the fridge.