Getting your Greens

Are you trying to eat more vegetables? That's something that we are always working on. I realized that we have lots of recipes for greens that we have enjoyed through our various CSA (community supported agriculture) shares, and it was time to compile them. So we pulled together our favorite greens recipes in one spot: Getting Your Greens.

What is your favorite way to get your greens?

Fried Rice and then off to England

We are off to England tomorrow bright and early. We decided to travel light, both taking one backpack small enough to carry on the plane. Because of this, we are going low tech and leaving the laptops at home. Our cell phones won't work there either, so this is our chance to disconnect and really get away from it all. I'll be sure to share some highlights when we return in two weeks.

We enjoyed a quick meal to eat up the last of our vegetables before leaving: Fried Rice. This is a great way to eat up whatever you have on hand.


Chop your vegetables and stir-fry until they are tender.


If desired, add the greens and cook until wilted.


Add cooked rice and cook until heated through. Add seasonings and cooked eggs.


I chose to garnish mine with a little extra Tamari and Srirachi Sauce.

I have to admit that I was wrong about fried rice. I thought I should pour the beaten eggs over the rice and vegetable mixture and cook it together, but my husband thought I should cook the scrambled eggs separately. I cooked it my way and the results were less than stellar. I swear that it has turned out in the past, but not this time around. The rice seemed to soak up the egg and the results were pretty gummy. (My husband thought it was fine, but I knew it could be better.)He is right. Cook the eggs separately.

You will hear from us again in two weeks. Cheers!

Composting

We are composting! Or, at least saving vegetable scraps to put in a compost bin. I always thought composting was out of our reach because we live in a small apartment without a yard or access to any dirt, but last Saturday we discovered otherwise. Our pick-up point for our CSA share moved to a community garden, and they have a compost system. Our CSA organizers pointed out we can bring in our vegetable scraps. They suggested putting the peels in the freezer for the week, and delivering them to the community garden when we pick up our share each Saturday. It was one of those moments when I felt silly that I hadn't thought of that myself. Of course! Freeze the scraps! Why didn't I think of that? At least we are composting now.

We are still getting in the habit of saving our vegetable peels, but we are getting better each day. It's great to see our garbage really decreasing in volume.


Tonight we had chicken baked with kohlrabi, turnips, onions and garlic with sides of beet greens and brown rice. Baked chicken is one of our favorite meals for cool weather because it is so versatile and forgiving. We placed a chicken in our Dutch oven, surrounded in by chopped vegetables, covered it, and baked it. Cook it for 1 to 1.5 hours depending on the size of your chicken.

Here's another post on Oven Roasted Chicken with Vegetables.

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade, Frugal Fridays and Grocery Cart Challene Recipe Swap.

Liver and Onions with Collard Greens and Corn

I hope everyone had a nice Labor Day. We used our day off to explore a couple of neighborhoods in Queens. We continue to expand our horizons and consider new places to live. A couple of neighborhoods were really promising, but we haven't found an actual apartment we like yet.


Labor Day is often associated with cook-outs, grilled meat and all those great summer foods. We don't have a grill, so we had something more akin to a Sunday dinner (on Monday). We had liver and onions, collard greens and corn. I read about a technique in Mark Bittman's column a while back that recreates the taste of grilled corn without a grill. What you do is heat up a cast iron skillet, melt some butter, and pan fry the corn. It looked beautiful, but unfortunately tasted mushy and flavorless. I think our CSA farmers gave us cow corn! Oops! We each took a couple of bites, but couldn't finish it.

The rest of the meal was a huge success. We always like liver and onions. This time around it was bison liver. Here is my recipe. For the collard greens, I basically followed ChezSuzanne's recipe off of Food 52. My husband exclaimed, "These are the best collard greens that I have ever tasted!" and a few bites later "These are amazing." They are definitely worth a try. It includes garlic chips, bacon, and a butter and apple cider vinegar sauce- need I say more?


Here is a close up of the garlic chips and bacon bits awaiting their fate (That's a small plate).

This post is part of Two for Tuesdays at A Moderate Life, Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam, and Tempt my Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace.

Blackened Catfish with Quinoa and Greens

People living elsewhere in the country ask us if it's difficult living in New York City. I always answer with a resounding "No." Maybe we set up our lives to make things simple, but living here has been really easy. My husband walks to work. I can take one subway to work. During the weekend, we often don't take the train at all because there are so many things to do within walking distance. There is lots of great food all around us. The list goes on and on, but the moral story is that we find living in NYC really enjoyable. There is one exception to this easy, enjoyable life; we have an ongoing battle with the Post Office. We cannot get them to deliver packages to us. We have gone round and round with the little brown package slips, and it's really frustrating. Yesterday my husband and I met at the Post Office to pick-up a package, but the mission was unsuccessful.


On the way home, we stopped by Gourmet Garage to pick-up some fish. We decided to get catfish. It's really mild, so I always like to add some spice to it. We served blackened catfish over some quinoa and greens. Here are our recipes:

Blackened Catfish
1/4 t cayenne
2 t chili powder
2 t oregano
2 t paprika
2 t chili pepper flakes
2 t Old Bay
1 lb catfish fillets
oil

Mix all of the spices together in a shallow bowl or pie plate. Rinse the fish and pat it dry. Coat each fillet in blackening mixture. Heat a frying pan and coat the bottom with oil. Add the fillets and cook on each side for about 4 minutes. The key is to not fidget with the fish while it is cooking, so that the spice mixture forms a nice blackened crust. This spice mix was pretty spicy. If you like things mild, cut back or cut out the chili pepper flakes, Old Bay, and/or cayenne

Quinoa and Greens
1 c quinoa
1 large bunch greens, roughly chopped
4 c water
1 clove of garlic, minced
pinch of salt

Rinse quinoa and drain. Place quinoa in dry sauce pot and cook until it starts to smell nutty. Add greens and water. Cook over high heat until it starts to boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer and cover. Cook for 30 minutes. Remove from the heat, and mix in the garlic and salt.

This was an experiment to use only one pot, but the results were great. The extra water I added to help cook the greens made the quinoa have a really creamy texture. I used mustard greens in our version, but any braising greens will work.

Crock Pot Greens

We had a lot of greens to use up, and I decided to try something new. I washed them, chopped them up and put them in the crock pot. I have never cooked greens in the crock pot before. They turned out really well. I have read how vegetables should be cooked for as little time as possible to maintain highest possible nutrients, but these were beet greens and mustard greens and they had to cook for a while. I just served them with a little butter. Very tasty!

I cooked a second batch of greens in the same water. I thought it would help preserve some nutrient content? I didn't really pay attention to the clock, but I think the first set was done in about an hour on high. I scooped those out with a slotted spoon, and put in one large bunch of collard greens chopped up while the water was still hot. I don't think I have ever made collard greens before. I probably ended up cooking them for about 4 hours. I sauteed some bacon and added it half way through and added some apple cider vinegar. At the end of the 4 hours, the greens were tender but the bacon and vinegar couldn't be tasted. I drained them and added a couple of extra tablespoons of vinegar. The results were OK. The bacon had completely lost its flavor, but the taste of the extra vinegar came through. This was one of those times when I should have actually consulted a recipe. When I make them again, I would simmer them, drain them, and add them to a hot pan with the bacon and vinegar (but first consult a couple of recipes to see if I could find improvements on my plan).

The crock pot is great in hot weather. It doesn't heat up the apartment, and it adds some variety to our diet. I would definitely try crock pot greens again.

Pork Chops with White Wine and Mustard Sauce

Saturday night we prepared a feast, but by the time we polished off the eggplant caviar we were only hungry enough for a little taste of the meal. This worked out well because we were really hungry and tired by the time we came back from Oyster Bay yesterday, and there it was waiting for us.

These pork chops and sauce are an example of my husband's talents at work. They were served over a mix of red and white quinoa with sauteed onions and a white wine and mustard sauce. The unexpected ingredient is Old Bay. He sprinkled it over the chops before frying them. He is a huge Old Bay fan. Too much of it does something strange to my mouth, so he let me regulate how much was used. The results were fabulous. The flavors combined beautifully.

Pork Chops with White Wine and Mustard Sauce serves 2
2 pork chops
Old Bay
oil
1 large onion, sliced
1 scallion, sliced
1 T Dijon mustard
1/4 C white wine
1 T butter

Sprinkle each side of the pork chops with Old Bay to taste. Heat up a cast iron pan over medium high heat. Lightly oil the pan and place the chops in the pan. Cook on each side until browned. Add the onions to the pan. Place the chops on top of the onions, and cook until they are tender. When the onions are tender and the pork chops are cooked through, add the mustard, white wine and butter. Heat through and then serve.

Fried Rice... or Couscous

I planned on making a quick dinner of fried rice tonight. I texted my husband toward the end of the day to ask him to put on some rice if he got home first. On my way home I realized that there might be a problem. I remembered as I stepped on the subway that we probably didn't have any rice at home. I called him when I got off the train to ask if he found any rice. He didn't. I offered to pick some up on my walk home, but he assured me that he had it under control. Mmm, what could that mean?

When I got home, he explained that he was making fried couscous. It was delicious. I could pick up the strong flavor of the turnip greens, the subtle garlic flavor of the scapes, the sesame oil and the salty soy sauce all with the chewy texture of the couscous. As we were eating, I asked him for the proportions and directions so that I would be able to write it up as a recipe. He told me that he cooked everything separately and combined it at the end. At this point I broke a cardinal rule, and I criticized his technique. When someone makes you dinner, you should tell them it is delicious and thank them for it; you should not criticize how they made it. I was so shocked by his plan of action that it just slipped right out.

I was taught to make fried rice by heating up some oil, adding some cooked rice, and once it was heated through to pour beaten egg over the top and scramble it all together. My husband is not alone in scrambling the eggs separately. I was reading through some blogs during lunch today and found that they had fried rice for lunch at Sixpoint too. Ha, there must be something in the air. She made her fried rice with separate scrambled eggs too. What do you think? Should the eggs be cooked separately? Here are my directions with his ingredient list:

Fried Rice/Couscous
2 C water
1 C couscous
1 salad turnip with its greens
1 zucchini
1 carrot
2 small heads of bok choy
handful of scapes
2 T olive oil
4 eggs
1/4 C sesame oil
2 T soy sauce
1 T honey


Bring the water to a boil, add the couscous, turn off the heat, cover and let sit for 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork. Chop the vegetables and add to hot wok or deep skillet with olive oil. Cook until tender. Add the couscous or rice. Cook until it is heated through. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and add the sesame oil, soy sauce and honey. Pour the mixture over the vegetables and couscous/rice. Toss to combine and cook until the eggs are firm. Serve immediately.

Quinoa Burgers with Beet and Radish Salad

I planned on making this dinner last night, but by the time we got home from a day out and about we decided to stretch the leftover burrito mix with an extra can of beans. We spent the day in Hoboken visiting the Hoboken Historical Museum and following their map for a walking tour of historic sites. Frank Sinatra wasn't the only famous person born in Hoboken. Did you know that Alfred Steiglitz, Dorothea Lange and Stephen Foster are all from there too? I didn't until yesterday. Hoboken makes a great day trip. It's got a small town feel with big city amenities.


Tonight for dinner we had quinoa burgers with beet and radish salad. It took a while to make dinner, but it made enough for several meals and it was delicious. The quinoa burgers were crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and full of flavor. The beets and radishes were cooked which mellowed their bite and combined nicely with the mustard vinaigrette. It had never occurred to me before to cook radishes as a stand alone dish, but I was trolling the web for radish ideas when I came across a whole list of radish recipes. Jack pot!

Quinoa Burgers makes 8 patties
1 C quinoa
1 1/2 C water
1 bunch greens, chopped
2 shallots, finely chopped
2 salad turnips, shredded
1/2 large zucchini, shredded
2 eggs
1 t Old Bay (or more to taste)
Oil

Rinse the quinoa and add to a hot dry sauce pan. Cook until the grains start to smell nutty and add the water. Bring to a boil, and then lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Set aside and let cool.

Saute the greens until tender. Squeeze the turnips and zucchini to get rid of the liquid. Add the shallots, turnips and zucchini to a skillet. Cook until they are soft.

Beat eggs and add the Old Bay. Combine all of the ingredients and chill.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Shape mixture into eight 1/2-inch-thick patties, pressing firmly. Cook in batches until golden brown and cooked through, about 3 minutes per side.

I could taste the Old Bay when I tasted a bit of the mixture raw, but when it was cooked it mostly disappeared. It just added some complexity to the flavor. If you would like to be able to taste the Old Bay you will want to add at least 2 teaspoons.

Beet and Radish Salad serves 2-4
3 small beets
2 long French radishes
2 T olive oil
1 T apple cider vinegar
1 T mustard
lettuce or salad greens

Scrub the beets and radishes. Boil them until they are fork tender. Let cool and then peel the beets. Cut the beets and radishes into bite size pieces.

Combine oil, vinegar and mustard and pour over the radish and beets. Chill in the fridge. Serve over lettuce.

Vegetable Burritos

I'm a cook. I can follow a recipe and come up with the desired results. Since meeting my husband, I have even gotten better at using a recipe as inspiration and adapting the ingredients/directions to what I have on hand. My husband, on the other hand, is a chef (not for a living). He is great at looking at the ingredients before him and coming up with a scrumptious meal. I tell you this because last night my husband took the lead on dinner, and it was lots of fun to see his thought process at work. It was interesting to see how he chopped the vegetables, cooked and then combined them all in a way different from how I would do it. The results were delicious too.

He made vegetable burritos and guacamole. We have made burritos before. The previous burritos were good and really fast, but if you have little bit more time this recipe is even better. I loved the combination of vegetables with the scapes, beans and cheese. As always, our cooking decisions are driven by what is available from our farm share. Cooking radishes and salad turnips for a burrito might sound bizarre, but we really needed to eat them up. If we were head to a store to buy ingredients for vegetable burritos, we might select other things. This can provide inspiration to others needing to eat up some random veggies in the fridge. Try them in a burrito!

Vegetable Burritos serves 4
2 small bunches of turnip greens, chopped
2 small bunches of radish greens, chopped
1 bunch of beet greens, chopped
4 salad turnips, chopped
4 radishes, chopped
handful of scapes, finely chopped
1 can of pinto beans
cheddar cheese, grated
salsa
guacamole
tortillas

Saute the greens until tender. Place in a large mixing bowl. Saute the salad turnips, radishes and scapes until browned, and add to the mixing bowl. Drain the beans and rinse. Drain well and add to the mixing bowl. The heat of the vegetables will heat up the beans. Combine ingredients and mash with a fork until the salad turnips and beans break up a bit. Heat up the tortillas over the burner or in a dry skillet to soften them. Layer the cheese, the vegetable and bean mixture, salsa and guacamole in the tortilla. Roll up and enjoy.

Guacamole
1 avocado, roughly chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 pinch of salt

Mash together with a fork. Serve immediately.

Some people like to add tomatoes, onions and lime, but we are purists and like that avocado flavor to shine through. Of course, you should add any other ingredients you enjoy.

Bok Choy and Mushroom Stir Fry

Before we left for vacation, we had to eat up some bok choy. We had a bunch left from week 2 and then we got 2 more bunches in week 3, so we had to find a way to use A LOT of bok choy. I decided to make a stir fry. There are great mushrooms available in Chinatown, so I headed over to pick out some king oyster, oyster and shitake mushrooms. I ended up cooking each of the vegetables individually because we had such a large quantity of each.


Bok Choy and Mushroom Stir Fry
3 bunches of bok choy, cut into 1 inch wide strips
1/2 lb oyster mushrooms, slices
1/2 lb shitake mushrooms, sliced
2 king oyster mushrooms, diced
2 T olive oil
4 T sesame oil
4 T soy sauce
handful of sesame seeds

Saute bok choy in olive oil. Cook the mushrooms in half of the sesame oil and soy sauce until the liquid is absorbed and the mushrooms are tender. Combine and toss with the rest of the oil, soy sauce and sesame seeds.

We added sauteed chicken and served it over whole wheat couscous.

Creamed Lambsquarters

I got home last night and realized we didn't have much food in the house [Gasp]! We managed to eat all of our vegetables except for some amaranth, salad greens and lambsquarters. I planned on making us salad for lunches today, so the only thing left to prepare were the lambsquarters. What, you might ask, are lambsquarters? It is a wild green (pictured above) that we got from the CSA share a couple of weeks ago. I learned that it is similar to spinach and immediately wanted to try it creamed. We debated what should accompany our creamed lambsquarters and decided to pick up some sandwiches from Acquedolci. Everything was delicious. We used our non-homogenized milk from Ronnybrook Farm Dairy, but cream would make it even richer.



Creamed Lambsquarters
2 T butter
2 shallots, chopped
1 bunch lambsquarters (or spinach)
1/4 cup whole milk (or cream)
1 dash of nutmeg

Melt the butter and add the shallots. Cook until soft. Wash the lambsquarters and roughly chop. Add to the pan and cook until tender. Add the milk or cream and cook until the milk has reduced. Sprinkle a bit of nutmeg over the top before serving.

Lentils and Rice

We continue on our quest to eat up all of the CSA vegetables before we leave town tomorrow night. This quest led to a strange combination of dishes for dinner last night. Each one was very good in its own right, but they were a bit odd together. We started with hummus with turnips and radishes (a recipe to follow in another post). I quickly baked some kale "chips," and immediately regretted turning the oven on. We rounded out the night with some kale with bacon and lentils and rice. The kale with bacon was delicious, but my husband aptly observed that it tasted like a BBQ dish. It would pair really well with some grilled meat, potato salad, etc. The lentil recipe was adapted from our Indian food store's recipe. It was also very good and would go nicely with a salad and some simple vegetables. Here are the recipes:

Lentils and Rice
1 small red onion, chopped
handful of garlic scapes, finely chopped
2 t ginger, chopped
4 T butter or oil
1/2 t garam masala
1/2 t cumin seed
1/2 t turmeric (I used fresh, but powdered will work too)
1 jalapeno, ribs and seeds removed, minced
1 C rice and lentil mixture
4 C water
1 pinch salt

Saute onion, scapes and ginger in butter or oil until soft. Add the garam masala, cumin seed, turmeric and jalapeno and cook for a couple of more minutes. Add the rice and lentil mixture and water and cook over medium heat until tender (about 25-30minutes). Serve with cilantro and green onion or leftover chutney.

Kale with Bacon
5 slices bacon
1 bunch of kale, torn into pieces
2 T balsamic vinegar

Cook the bacon until starting to brown. Remove from the heat and cut into bite size pieces. Pour off any excess fat. Return the bacon pieces to the pan and add the kale. Once the kale is tender, add the balsamic vinegar and cook just a couple extra minutes.

A guest in the house

I'm reading the book, Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen, by Laurie Colwin. It's a series of short essays that offers recipes and humorous stories. Yesterday on my subway ride home, I read the chapters on her worst cooking experiences and the worst meals she's eaten at other people's homes. I was just innocently reading the next chapters in the book, but this might have affected me.

When I got home, I made dinner for my husband, a potential business partner, and myself. The plan was to serve a simple dinner of ravioli with a quick fresh tomato sauce and a side of sauteed broccoli rabe with garlic. My husband planned to pick up the ravioli on his way home from the Piemonte Ravioli Co. It turns out that they close at 5:00 and not 6:00, so we had to settle for dried pasta.

We saved 6 pakoras from the night before, and I quickly reheated them in a hot saute pan and served them with the mint and cherry chutneys. This bought me some time while I prepared the rest of the dinner. I quickly washed and chopped up the 2 bunches of broccoli rabe and dropped it into our large skillet. As it began cooking, it shrank, and shrank, and shrank down to almost nothing. I knew that it was not enough for three people, so I added in the greens from a bunch of turnips. This too shrank down to very little, so I decided to make an additional side of carrots. Of course we only had a few small carrots, but I sauteed them and tossed them with lemon juice and cilantro. Meanwhile, I put the pasta in boiling water, and started my sauce. Two tomatoes chopped up and several cloves of garlic sliced went into a sauce pan with a generous amount of olive oil. I soon realized that this was not enough for the pound of pasta I had cooking.

All this time I was trying to be really quiet and not disturb them, but I was unsuccessful. It reminded me of the early morning when you are trying to tip-toe around and not wake the other people in the house, but you invariably drop things, trip over chairs, etc. That was me in the kitchen last night. I was dropping pots, spoons, getting myself all wet, and I was very self-conscious because they were having a technical discussion only 4 feet away (because our apartment is really small). My husband reassures me that he didn't even notice, so maybe I was being overly self-conscious.

In the end, the dinner was fine. We had pasta with a light tomato, garlic and basil sauce with carrots and greens, but it was very stressful getting there. I realized that I'm not used to cooking for 3 (cooking for more somehow isn't a problem) and for someone I have never met.

Vegetable Pakoras with Cherry Chutney

We saw Danny Devito on the way to the farmers' market yesterday! It's always fun to see people from TV and movies in real life.

On the way home, we stopped at the Indian market for some chickpea flour and other assorted pantry supplies. A video tour of the store is available on You Tube.

We decided to enter another food contest at A + M blog (check it out here). This week's featured ingredient is cherries. We thought most entries would be something sweet, and so we decided to do something savory. Plus, here at City Share our goal is to present meal ideas. We landed on vegetable pakoras with cherry chutney. We've had lots of mango chutneys at Indian restaurants, and decided to adapt it for cherries. Cherries are bountiful these days and it fits our theme of seasonal food.


Vegetable pakoras are always a hit. I've taken them to lots of parties and people always ask me for the recipe. The great thing about them is that the basic recipe can be adapted to use up any vegetables on hand. This time around I used chopped turnips, turnip greens and onions. I steamed the greens to make sure they got cooked through. I have made them before with cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, kale, etc. We also made mint chutney to use up our wild mint from the week before. Pakoras are traditionally served as an appetizer, but they were so good that's all we ate last night, and we saved the "dinner" for lunches.

Vegetable Pakoras
1 C chickpea flour
1 t salt
1/2 t ground turmeric
1/2 t chili powder
1/2 t garam masala
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3/4 C water
3 C chopped vegetables

Mix the chickpea flour, salt, turmeric, chili powder, garam masala and garlic. Add the water and mix well. Mix in the vegetables. In a large straight-sided skillet, pour the oil to a depth of 1/2 inch. Heat the oil over medium heat. Working in small batches, fry the mixture, turning once, until golden brown, about 3 minutes per batch. Using tongs, transfer to a paper towel-lined baking sheet and season with salt to taste. Repeat with the remaining mixture.

Cherry Chutney
2 C cherries, pitted and chopped
1/2 C sugar
1 small red onion, finely chopped
3/4 C apple cider vinegar
2 t ginger, peeled and minced
1 jalapeno, ribs and seeds removed, finely minced

Simmer the cherries and sugar until the cherries begin to break up (5-10 minutes). Mix in the rest of the ingredients and refrigerate for several hours before serving. If you want it to be chunkier, drain off some of the liquid.

Mint Chutney
juice of 1 lime
2 T agave nectar
1 C mint, packed
1 T water
1/2 jalapeno, ribs and seeds removed, minced
1/4 t cayenne (or to taste)

Add all of the ingredients to a food processor or blender. Mix until smooth. Refrigerate for several hours before serving.

Quick Burritos

Recently when my brother asked me what I had been up to, I had to admit that I had been spending a fair bit of time on food lately. Between going to the farmers' market, picking up our CSA, reading food blogs, cooking and eating, food was taking up a good part of my week. In contrast, he shared that he tries to spend as little time on food as possible. He has his regular rotation of quick meals in which burritos feature prominently. When he mentioned burritos - a light bulb went off - I could put greens in burritos. So in our continued effort to eat up all of our greens, we made burritos with greens for dinner tonight.

I grew up eating lots of Mexican food. When I lived in upstate NY, I joked that the best Mexican food in the county came from my kitchen. At that point, I would spend whole days making mole sauce from scratch, making my own tortillas and all sorts of salsas, and the list went on. This dinner was not in the same category, but it was delicious and a great healthy option for a fast weeknight dinner. We had dinner on the table within 30 minutes of walking in the door.


Quick Burritos
2 bunches of greens (we used turnip and radish greens)
2 T olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 16 oz can of beans (pinto or black beans work well)
grated cheddar cheese
tortillas
salsa

Slice the greens into 1 inch wide strips and steam until tender. While the greens are cooking, lightly coat a saute pan with olive oil. Add the onions and cook until soft. Add the beans and heat through. Soften the tortillas by placing them right over the flame on a gas stove or in a dry frying pan. Do one tortilla at a time for a few seconds on each side. After the tortillas are warm, layer the beans, greens, salsa and cheese. Enjoy!

Tip: Our first burritos were really watery. We decided to split one more burrito, and the second time around we squeezed the moisture out of the greens and drained some of the liquid off the salsa. It made a big difference! We didn't have juice running down our arm any more.



Salsa Fresca
2 tomatoes
1 clove of garlic
1 jalapenos, with seeds and membrane removed
1/2 onion, chopped
handful of cilantro
1/2 lime, juiced
pinch of salt

Chop all of the ingredients and combine. Cover and let sit for 1 hour to let the flavors mingle.

For a smoother texture: Use a food processor to combine the ingredients. This was the route we chose this evening.

Pasta with Scapes and Broccoli Rabe

We continued to look abroad for inspiration for ways to eat up our greens. Tonight we decided on Italy. My husband picked up some fresh pasta and Parmesan cheese on his way home, and we had some garlic scapes and broccoli rabe to eat up from the share.


Garlic scapes are the flower stems produced by garlic plants before the bulbs mature. They have a fresh, light garlic flavor. In the photo, the chopped up scapes are cooking in butter. Here is our recipe:

Fresh Pasta with Garlic Scapes and Broccoli Rabe
2 bunches of broccoli rabe, sliced in 1 inch wide strips
1 bunch garlic scapes, finely chopped
4 T butter
1 lb fresh pasta
grated Parmesan cheese

Steam the broccoli rabe and set aside. Cook the pasta and drain. Melt the butter over medium heat and add the scapes. Cook until tender, about 3-4 minutes. Add the pasta and broccoli rabe to the pan and toss to combine. Sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese over the top.


The results were very satisfying. The broccoli rabe is slightly bitter, but this tasted great with the richness of the butter, the garlicky scapes, and firm pasta. A great meal for early summer.

On to another greens dish tomorrow.

Lentils with Greens

The quest for new greens recipes continues. Today we looked to India for inspiration. We decided to include greens in our favorite recipe for lentils. The results were fantastic. The greens added another dimension to the spicy, garlicky, nutty taste of the lentils.


Lentils with Greens
4 C water
1 C lentils
1/2 lb braising greens, washed and chopped
2 T butter
1 T cumin seeds
2 T cumin
1 T turmeric
1/4 t cayenne or 1 T chili powder
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 t salt

Put a sauce pan over high heat and add the water, lentils and greens. In a separate saute pan, melt butter over medium high heat. Add the cumin seeds and cook until they sizzle. Add garlic, cumin, turmeric and cayenne and cook 1 minute. Add the spices to the sauce pan of lentils. Once the lentils come to a boil, lower to medium heat and simmer for 45 minutes. Add the salt after finished cooking.

The step of cooking the spices in butter or oil before adding them to the lentils is very important. This is a key step in Indian cooking because it releases the full flavor of the spices.

We served the lentils with greens over steamed cauliflower. After a weekend of eating lots of liver and onions, it was nice to have a vegetarian dinner.

Frittata

I forgot to mention the contents of this week's share in yesterdays post. (It's hard to recognize everything in the photo.) We have a nice selection to work with including: salad turnips, radishes, salad mix, braising mix (mustard greens, Asian greens, kale, and frizee)broccoli raab, garlic scapes, bok choy, wild food selections (mint, lambsquarters and purslane). I'm especially excited about the wild foods.


I think a frittata is one of the best ways to use up leftover vegetables. This morning's breakfast used up some left over sauteed greens with garlic and potatoes. Here is my basic recipe for a frittata:

Basic Frittata
1-2 eggs per person, beaten
1 cup of cooked vegetables per person
1 clove of garlic per person (or onion)
Some cheese to sprinkle over the top
olive oil or butter

Use a cast iron skillet, or another pan that can go under the broiler. Pre-heat the broiler. Place pan on the burner to warm, and add olive oil. Add the vegetables to the pan and warm through. Add the eggs. Cook until the eggs are firming up around the edges (about 5 minutes). Place under the broiler until golden (only 1 or 2 minutes). Slice into wedges and remove from the pan. It's important to remove it from the pan because it holds the heat and will continue to cook.

Within the formula there is lots of flexibility. Red peppers, broccoli, garlic and feta. Spinach, cauliflower, onions and emmantalier. Whatever you have in your fridge will work.


I chose to eat it with toast. Delicious!

Week 2

New York City was buzzing with World Cup frenzy today. I saw multiple people wearing flags tied around their necks like capes, and bars in our neighborhood that are normally pretty sleepy had lines out the door. How did I choose to celebrate? I picked up share #2!


It's impressive isn't it? They are really throwing down the gauntlet. It's going to be a challenge to eat all of this up in one week. If the shares keep growing, we might have to start freezing the extras for later.

This morning I also went to the Union Square Farmers' Market and picked out some milk, eggs, bread and liver. I have been reading about the nutritional value of organ meets, and decided to give them a try. I remember having liver and onions as a kid and I have actually had it in restaurants, but I never made it myself before today.


We had greens sauteed with garlic, brown rice and liver smothered with onions. It took a bit of trial and error to prepare the liver. My directions for the greens and liver and onions are below:

Sauteed Greens
1 large bunch of greens
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
olive oil

Heat the pan and add enough olive oil to lightly coat it. Add the greens and cook until tender. Add garlic and cook until soft.

Liver and Onions
4 T butter
2 medium onions, sliced
1 lb cow's liver, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/2 C flour
salt
pepper
1/2 C cooking sherry
1/2 t Dijon mustard

Melt half the butter and add the onions. Stir frequently and cook until the onions are browned. Take onions out of the pan and put aside. Dredge the liver slices in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Melt the second half of the butter and add the liver to the pan. Cook the liver about 5 minutes on each side or until they are browned and light pink inside. Remove the liver from the pan. Pour in the cooking sherry and bring to a simmer. Add the mustard and stir until it is dissolved. Add the onions back in and simmer until the sauce forms a glaze on the onions. Plate the liver slices and top with onions.

The results were really good because the flour created a bit of a crispy crust around the tender liver. The onions were really sweet and balanced the richness of the liver nicely.

Do you have any greens recipes to share? I think we might need them.